Aviation

Citation

(2005), "Aviation", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 14 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2005.07314bac.008

Aviation

16 June 2004Crash into sea off Gabon

The families of people killed in a plane crash off Gabon last week fear a protracted and possibly fruitless fight for compensation after it emerged the aircraft was not insured, family members said today. “We have little faith in a quick reaction with any financial support for the families … and even less that Gabon Express will compensate families,” said Ndong Germaine, 28, a student who lost an uncle in the crash. The government said late yesterday it would take legal action against the company and had banned it from operating because it had failed to insure its aircraft. “Gabon Express and its directors will be taken to court for lying and concealing information which, had it been known, would have prevented them from obtaining an operating licence,” Transport Minister Paulette Missambo told state television. Investigators have recovered two black box flight recorders from the twin-engine plane, which will be sent to London for examination, Missambo said.

29 June 2004Crash, Yengema area, Sierra Leone

All 24 people on board a United Nations helicopter are dead after it crashed in eastern Sierra Leone, UN officials say. The bodies of all the victims were later found at the site of the crash, near the town of Yengema. There were three Russian crew and 21 passengers on board, many of them aid workers. The Russian-built Mi-8 helicopter was carrying members of the UN peacekeeping mission and had taken off from the capital Freetown, bound for Yengema. At least 14 of the passengers were Pakistani nationals, and there were thought to be one Bangladeshi policeman and two non-UN civilian staff also on board. There was no immediate word on the cause of the crash. The UN has deployed about 11,000 peacekeepers in Sierra Leone since the country’s 1991-2002 civil war. There have been no known attacks on UN officials since the fighting stopped. A search mission for the aircraft was despatched after radio contact was lost. The burning wreckage was found in dense forest on the side of a mountain. Russian media say UT Air, the charter company which owned the helicopter, is a major player in the air charter industry with 301 available aircraft. It carried a total of 1.5 million passengers in 2003.

30 June 2004. The UN peacekeeping mission in Sierra Leone grounded some helicopters today, police said, after a UN-chartered Mil Mi-8 slammed into a remote hill in the east of the country yesterday, killing 24 peacekeepers, aid workers and others. The victims included 14 Pakistani peacekeepers, one Bangladeshi peacekeeper, three Russian crew and six civilians, including one local UN staffer, said Marie Okabe, a spokeswoman at UN headquarters in New York. Recovery teams today brought the burned bodies to a Pakistani-manned UN base in Koidu, near the crash site. The remains of all 24 would be transferred to the capital, Freetown, UN spokeswoman Sheila Dallas said. A police official said the UN mission had ordered all other Mi-8s grounded in Sierra Leone pending the results of an investigation into the cause of the accident. It was not immediately known how many aircraft were effected; the UN has other makes of helicopters in Sierra Leone.

5 July 2004Crash into sea off Cotonou, Benin

A Boeing 727 bound for Lebanon crashed on take-off at Cotonou on December 25, 2003, due to uneven distribution of weight, French aviation experts said on Friday (July 2), confirming an earlier finding. “The direct cause of the accident was not the large amount of excess weight on board, but the distribution of the load,” said France’s Accident Investigations Bureau (BEA). The agency is drafting its report on the crash, which killed 139 people. Friday’s statement confirmed the BEA’s preliminary findings released by the Benin government in March. The French experts also criticised lapses in technical support on the ground in Cotonou, urging Benin and other West African states to invest in “control structures for aircraft making stopovers.” The bodies of 139 of the 161 people – 151 passengers and 10 crew – on the Lebanese-owned Union des Transports Africains (UTA) aircraft were recovered after the crash, in which 21 people survived. Most of the passengers and victims were Lebanese nationals returning home for the holiday period. There were also Bangladeshi peacekeepers, Guineans, Sierra Leoneans and Americans on board. Meanwhile, Lebanon is requesting information from Bangladesh about the Cotonou disaster to make sure no Lebanese corpses were mixed up with Bangaladeshi ones.

12 July 20049V-TRF SilkAir

The family of a New Zealand co-pilot killed in an aircraft crash is to share in a multi-million dollar damages pay-out. A US court has awarded $66 million to the relatives of three people who died in the December 19, 1997, SilkAir jet crash in Indonesia. A Los Angeles Superior Court jury has found defects in the rudder control system of the Boeing 737-300 (9V-TRF) caused the accident, which killed all 104 passengers and crew on board. The co-pilot, 23-year-old Aucklander Duncan Ward, was one of the casualties. An Indonesian inquiry failed to determine why the aircraft suddenly fell from its cruising altitude of 10,600 metres. The US National Transportation Safety Board claimed the pilot deliberately crashed the aircraft but the Los Angeles jury has rejected that.

5 August 2004Crash, Raduzhnoye area, Tyumen Region, Siberia, Russia

Fifteen passengers and crew have been killed in a helicopter crash in Russia’s western Siberia. The helicopter crashed and burst into flames in the Tyumen region, bordering with Kazakhstan, today. “All 15 people are dead,” said a spokesman for the emergencies ministry, adding that communication was lost soon after the Mil Mi-8 helicopter took off. The helicopter crashed 55 miles from the village of Raduzhnoye where it had taken off. Reports said the helicopter had been on patrol with a contingent of firemen searching for forest fires. The charred remains of the helicopter were discovered by an accompanying helicopter which was able to land near the scene. A commission has been set up to investigate the circumstances of the crash.