Aviation

Citation

(2005), "Aviation", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 14 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2005.07314eac.005

Aviation

25 August 2004Tula, Russia (RA-65080)

A Tu-134 jet carrying 34 passengers and eight crew members crashed near the village of Buchalki in the Tula region south of Moscow. Interfax said that the aircraft took off at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport and headed for Volgograd at 22:32, Moscow time. Communication with the aircraft was lost at 22:59, Moscow time. The rescuers have found the aircraft’s tail and were searching for other pieces and flight recorders, as well as possible survivors, Interfax said, quoting an on-duty official of the regional administration. Witnesses saw an explosion on board the aircraft just before it crashed, according to Interfax.

25 August 2004. One of the flight recorders from the Tu-134 aircraft, which crashed in the Tula region late yesterday, has been found at the crash site, sources from the Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations reported. Itar-Tass quoted a Russia’s aviation committee official as saying a Tu-154 airliner, with 44 people on board crashed near the city of Rostov-on-Don south of Moscow. Interfax quoted the Emergencies Ministry as saying contacts with the Tu-154 flying from Moscow to the Black Sea resort of Sochi were lost at 22:59 Moscow time, when it was expected to be 140 kilometres from the city. The Siberian Airlines confirmed to Interfax that the aircraft heading from Moscow’s Domodedovo airport to Sochi disappeared from radar screens at about 23:00 Moscow time. It sent out a signal indicating that it had been hijacked shortly before disappearing from radar screens. The aircraft apparently broke up in the air and wreckage was spread over an area of 50 km, a regional official said. Russian air company Sibir has said it owned the aircraft. Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the Federal Security Service to make prompt investigation, Interfax quoted Putin’s press secretary Alexei Gromov as saying. Moscow’s rescuers are ready to fly to the site where a Tu-154 passenger aircraft crashed in Russia’s southern Rostov region yesterday. A spokesman at the Emergency Situations Ministry told Ira-Tass today that a helicopter carrying a rescuer team would fly to the site of the tragedy at midday. Wreckage of the Tu-154 was found early today in the Kamenetsk-Shakhtinsky district nine kilometres from the settlement of Gluboky.

26 August 2004. Russia observed a day of mourning today for at least 89 people who died in a mysterious double air disaster, which some fear could have been a terrorist attack ahead of a key election in rebel Chechnya. Investigators were deciphering flight recorders recovered from the wreckage of the crashed planes in an effort to unlock the secret of what brought them down. Flags flew at half-mast and comedy shows were pulled from television schedules as relatives of those killed in Tuesday’s disasters went to the crash sites to identify their kin. One aircraft, a Tu-134 (RA-65080) flying to Volgograd, went down near the town of Tula. Moments later a Tu-154 bound for Sochi crashed near Rostov-on-Don. The planes, which crashed 500 miles apart, both left from Moscow’s Domodedovo airport. Transport Minister Igor Levitin, heading the state commission charged with the investigation, said it was still too early to pin down the reasons for the twin disasters. “We have no clear idea today on what has happened. Not all the flight recorders are in a fit state to be read immediately. Experts will work on them today and tomorrow to make the tapes more acceptable for reading,” he told NTV television. The four recorders were retrieved from two countryside sites where slabs of twisted metal, seats and clothing were shipped to Moscow late yesterday.

26 August 2004. The Russian Tu-134 passenger jet (RA-65080) which crashed Tuesday night (24 August) and killed all 43 people on board, did not sustain an explosion as earlier reports said, a Emergency Situations Ministry official said today, citing preliminary investigation results at the site of the tragedy.

27 August 2004. Traces of explosive have been found amid the wreckage of one of two Tupolev aircraft that crashed on Tuesday, say Russian officials. The FSB security service said at least one of the almost simultaneous crashes was a “terrorist act.” Details of the discovery came after an Islamic group claimed responsibility for the crashes in a web site statement. Investigators are still working to decode the flight data recorders from the crashes, which left 89 people dead. Inquiry chief Igor Levitin said he still had no “clear idea as to what happened”. A Tu-134 (RA-65080) and a Tu-154 crashed within minutes of each other over southern Russia, coming down about 800 km apart. The FSB says the traces of explosive were found amid the debris of the Tu-154, which was flying to the Black Sea resort of Sochi when it disappeared from radar shortly after the pilot pressed the SOS button. The same explosive, hexogen, was apparently used in a series of apartment bombings in 1999 that killed around 200 people. In a web site statement today, a group called the Islamic Brigades said it had five people on board each aircraft. It warned this act would be followed by others “until the killings of our Muslim brothers in Chechnya cease”. The crashes came just days before a presidential election in Chechnya, where separatists recently stepped up attacks on Russian forces and their local allies. Transport Minister Igor Levitin, who heads the government commission investigating the crashes, said yesterday that more time was needed to decode the “black box” flight data recorders. “Not all the flight recorders are in a condition that would allow them to be read immediately,” he said before flying to Tula Region, where one of the planes crashed. “Today and tomorrow we will work on them in order to bring the tape to a condition that will allow us to read what happened.” President Vladimir Putin’s envoy to southern Russia told reporters that the black boxes had “practically switched off immediately”. Vladimir Yakovlev said this was “probably more confirmation that something had happened very quickly”. Investigators have continued to sift through the wreckage scattered over fields in Tula and Rostov Region. Passenger lists indicate that all the victims were Russian, apart from one Israeli. The vast majority appear to have been ethnic Russians while there has been some speculation that a woman passenger on board the Tu-154 may have been a Chechen. “We have no information that she was a terrorist,” said Mr Levitin, adding that investigators wanted to know why no one had come to claim her body. Russia’s newspapers have largely poured scorn on the official line that the cause of the crashes was probably technical or human error. The victims’ families are to receive 112,000 roubles ($3,800) each in compensation – unless it is proven that terrorism was to blame, in which case they would receive less.

28 August 2004. Explosives have been found in the second of two Russian jets which crashed simultaneously this week killing 90 people, investigators said today, having already announced the same discovery in the first aircraft. The latest finding, disclosed by the FSB security service, supported widely held theories that both aircraft were downed by bombs days ahead of elections in volatile Chechnya. “Additional examination of the fragments of the Tu-134 aircraft which crashed Tuesday has revealed traces of hexogen,” an FSB spokesman said. Hexogen had also been found in the wreckage of the other plane. As the investigation proceeded and fragments of wreckage were removed from crash sites, Russia’s transport minister toughened security measures and vowed to prevent any recurrence. Igor Levitin said his concern was to ensure safe air travel. Safety measures, previously undertaken solely by airports, would now be shared with the Interior Ministry.

31 August 2004. Russia’s transport minister, citing a black box recording from one of two aircrafts that crashed minutes apart last week, said yesterday there was no evidence of a hijacking attempt or any other disturbance before the explosion aboard the jetliner. The conversation inside the cockpit of the Tu-154 indicated the crew was unable to contact traffic controllers and tried to manage the jet for some time after the blast on board. “The words spoken by the crew members among themselves are (about) work by the crew to save the plane”, said the minister, Igor Levitin. Also, new details emerged about two Chechen women who are the focus of suspicions that the aircrafts were blown up by terrorists. All 90 people aboard the aircraft were killed. Gen. Andrei Fetisov, chief of the scientific department at the Federal Security Service, said there was no longer any doubt that “both planes crashed as a result of explosions”, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported yesterday. He reiterated that traces of the high explosive hexogen were found in the wreckage. How the explosive may have been brought on board the aircrafts that took off from Moscow was still unclear, however, and investigators were scraping for clues about Amanta Nagayeva and S. Dzhebirkhanova, two Chechen women whose names were listed on tickets for the flights. The crashes happened just five days before presidential elections in Chechnya, where separatist rebels have been fighting Russian forces for five years. Officials had warned that insurgents and their supporters could commit terrorist acts to try to undermine the vote. Nagayeva, 30, and Dzhebirkhanova, 37, aroused accident investigators suspicions because they purchased tickets at the last minute and because they were the only victims about whom no relatives inquired after news of the crashes.

8 September 2004. Russian police have arrested two suspects in connection with the crashes of two aircrafts a fortnight ago, which are part of a string of attacks over the last month blamed on Chechen separatists. Local authorities initially said the nearly simultaneous downing of two airliners was a freak coincidence, but began a criminal investigation after finding traces of explosives in the wreckage of both aircrafts. At least 89 people died. Although Russian officials have declined to blame separatists for the crashes, the local media speculated that two passengers believed to be Chechen women blew up the aircrafts, which crashed days before an election in the war-torn province. An Islamic group, calling itself the “Islambouli Brigades”, has also claimed responsibility in a statement released via the internet.

16 September 2004. The two aircraft crashes of 24 August were caused by explosives in the passenger compartments, the head of the state commission investigating the incidents announced today. The statement confirms earlier information that the two crashes were terrorist attacks. The Prosecutor General’s office has instigated criminal proceedings in connection with the crashes on a terrorism article of the Criminal Code, the Russian transport minister, Igor Levitin, said today. A total of 90 people were killed in the crashes. The two aircraft had taken off from Moscow. A Tu-134 that was heading to the Central Russian city of Volgograd went down in the Tula region. A Tu-154 was on its way to the South Russian resort of Sochi and crashed in the Rostov region. The aircraft and their equipment were functioning properly, and the crews were prepared for the flights, the minister was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying. Conversations between the crew members recovered from flight recorders “did not reflect an attack on the crew or a plane seizure,” Levitin said. Suspicion has fallen on two Chechen women whose passports apparently were used by passengers, one on each aircraft.

11 September 2004Crash into Aegean Sea, Greece

Patriarch of Alexandria Peter VII, who is the second most senior figure in the Greek Orthodox Church, has been killed along with an Australian and 15 others in a helicopter crash in the Aegean Sea. The Patriarch is the spiritual leader of Greek Orthodox Christians in Africa. He had been heading to the Mount Athos monastery in northern Greece in an army helicopter when the aircraft disappeared from radar screens. Military vessels and planes launched a rescue operation and found wreckage and bodies in the water 5.5 nautical miles off the Halkidiki peninsula, where Mount Athos is located. The Greek Government confirms the death of the 55-year-old. Government spokesman Theordore Roussopoulos says the death is a “great loss for Orthodoxy and Hellenism”. He pays tribute to the cleric’s “brilliant humanitarian work in Africa”. A total of 16 other people were on board the Greek Army Chinook helicopter, including the Patriarch’s brother, several Alexandrian and other Orthodox clerics and five crew members. The Greek Foreign Ministry says Australian Bishop Nektarios of Madagascar is also among the dead. Greek Defence Minister Spilios Spiliotopoulos says rescuers are still recovering bodies from the sea among the helicopter debris. A vessel specialised in underwater searches would arrive at the crash site tomorrow. A military source says the crash is almost certainly accidental in nature, but that its cause is still unknown.

14 September 2004Crash, Tamanrasset area, Algeria

Human and technical error caused an Air Algerie Boeing 737 to crash in the Sahara desert in March last year killing 102 people, an official inquiry into Algeria’s worst air disaster showed today. The state-owned plane had been heading for Algiers on the Mediterranean coast when it crashed near Tamanrasset, 1,920 km from the capital in the far south of the country. “There are three key reasons behind the crash – losing the engine during take-off, failure of the wheels to fold in, and the pilot being unaware of engine problems [before take-off]”, Hasane Afane, head of the government commission, told a news conference. He gave no explanation as to why the left engine fell off, nor why the wheels did not fold back into the Boeing body, but Afane said the pilot failed to check the engines prior to departure. The commission called for more training for Algerian pilots, particularly on emergency situations. It said French and US experts were also involved in the investigation. Initially, the commission believed the crash was due to an engine glitch.

22 September 2004Crash, Meghalaya State, India

A helicopter carrying ten people including a state minister crashed today in India’s north-eastern hill state of Meghalaya, police said. An officer in the police control room said the helicopter, which belonged to the government of the state bordering Bangladesh, crashed at Badaopani, 18 km from the capital Shillong. He said it was too early to give details on casualties. The helicopter took off on a routine daily flight from Guwahati, the capital of the neighbouring state of Assam, and went off the radar half an hour later. The Indian Air Force sent a rescue helicopter to the crash site from a base in Shillong.

21 November 2004Crash, Baotou, Inner Mongolia Region, China

A China Eastern Airlines Bombardier CRJ200 commuter plane crashed into a frozen lake seconds after take-off in Inner Mongolia today, killing all 53 passengers and crew, state media said. The Bombardier CRJ200, operated by two pilots, had taken off from Baotou en route to Shanghai, Xinhua news agency and China Eastern Airlines Corp. Ltd. said. The weather was clear at the time, with the temperature around 43 to 45 Fahrenheit, when the plane crashed into the lake in the giant Nanhai Park, an airport official said. “Witnesses said that the plane broke into flaming fragments, a house beside the park was damaged by the falling aircraft and several yachts nearby were scorched”, Xinhua said. The fire had been put out at the lake and about 100 fire-fighters and police were breaking the ice to search for bodies. State television showed pictures of rescuers pulling debris from below the broken ice. Seventeen bodies had been found, China News Web site said. The park, 1.2 miles from the runway, had been cordoned off by police. Airport officials had been called to an emergency meeting, staff at the airport said. An official said there had been one foreigner on board, but his nationality was not immediately known.

23 November 2004. Investigators have ruled out the possibility of sabotage in the airliner crash that killed 54 people in North China on Sunday (21 November). Flight Mu5210 from Baotou to Shanghai, fell to the ground about 12 seconds after it took-off from Baotou airport at 0820, local time, Sunday. According to investigators, there is no evidence so far suggesting man-made destruction in the incident, said Xu Li, a senior official with General Administration of Civil Aviation of China (CAAC), the nation’s civil aviation watchdog. Xu made the remarks at a conference on the air tragedy yesterday in Baotou of North China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Efforts are still under way to determine the cause of the accident, he said. The 50-seat regional CRJ-200 jet, carrying 47 passengers and six crew members, crashed shortly after it took off from Baotou. One man on the ground was also killed. The remains of the victims have been found. Compensation for the victims is in progress. Of the 47 victims, 25 were confirmed to have purchased 26 insurance policies before boarding the doomed flight, with each premium worth 400,000 yuan (US$ 48,000), Zhi Pengfei, director of the Insurance Supervision Bureau of the autonomous region, told Xinhua. The first sum of compensation has been paid to the families of a victim. Experts from the rescue and salvage bureau at the Ministry of Communications have arrived at the accident site to help in a search for the so-called black box, the Xinhua News Agency reported. According to a statement from Bombardier Aerospace, the aircraft manufacturer, an expert team has been sent to China to help in the accident investigation, Xinhua reported. Supplied by Canadian-based Bombardier Aerospace and owned by China Eastern Airlines, it was scheduled to be bound for East China’s metropolis Shanghai. While working to handle the plane crash, CAAC urged its aviation sectors to intensify safety checks yesterday to ensure safe flights. The administration had dispatched investigative teams across the country to carry out checks into all CRJ-200 airliners in service, Xu said. All CRJ-200 flights will be suspended during the check out period, he said. Airlines must strengthen flying skills and aircraft maintenance to ensure safer flights, an urgent notice released by the CAAC said yesterday. Airports must intensify security check measures to tighten management of restricted areas, the notice said. Air control departments have also been asked to pay additional attention to safety supervision to ensure air traffic safety.

24 November 2004. The second black box of the crashed CRJ-200 aircraft was found this morning in Baotou City of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The second black box, or the flight data recorder, was found at 12:49, today. The first of the two black boxes, the cabin voice recorder (CVR), which was found at 1140, had received some damages and need to be taken to Beijing for further study, said experts at the site of the air crash. A total of 55 people died in the crash, one more than was originally announced, Chinese investigators said today. In addition to 53 people on board the aircraft, two people on the ground were killed by fragments from the wreck, said Xu Li, deputy director of the general office of the China Administration of Civil Aviation, at a press conference held today in Baotou, a city in north China’s Inner Mongolia. Earlier reports said that just one person on the ground had been killed. The newly identified victim was a woman who was doing morning exercises when the aircraft crashed in city’s Nanhai Park.

26 November 2004. The black boxes from a China Eastern Airlines Bombardier CRJ200 (B-3072) which crashed in northern China on Sunday (21 November) have been taken to Beijing for study, but it will take time to decode them, an investigator said yesterday. Civil aviation experts have cleaned and dried the two black boxes and scrutinised the welding spots on them, Wu Anshan, a security and safety expert from the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China (CAAC) told Xinhua News Agency. Wu said the damage to the cabin voice recorder is unlikely to hinder decoding efforts. Experts want to decode the black boxes to determine what caused the crash. The 50-seat regional jet crashed on Sunday morning shortly after taking off from Baotou, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, for a flight to Shanghai. All of the 47 passengers and six crew members on board were killed, along with two people on the ground. China Eastern’s general manager Li Fenghua apologised to the public at a press conference on Wednesday and discredited rumours about the cause of the crash. He said allegations that the fuel pressure system of the aircraft was not warmed up properly because the aircraft took off 10 minutes ahead of schedule were groundless. He said it is normal for an aircraft to take off 15 minutes before or after its schedule, adding the system needs no preheating at all. Li negated assertions from some media that his airline used fuel of inferior quality on the aircraft, saying all the fuel his airline uses conform to the CAAC’s standard. He also promised at the conference that his airline had scrutinised safety checks in line with CAAC guidelines, and the crash was not the result of a poor safety check.

28 November 2004. Experts have decoded the flight recorders of an aircraft that exploded and crashed into a lake in northern China, killing 55 people, but the cause of the accident remained unclear, according to official reports. The flight data and cockpit voice recorders were recovered from the icy lake near the city of Baotou where the China Eastern Airlines aircraft crashed on 21 November seconds after takeoff. The devices were examined by experts in Beijing, the official Xinhua News Agency said. “The cause of the accident is still unclear,” the report said, citing Xu Li, a spokesman for the investigative team. Authorities have said they found no evidence of terrorism. All 47 passengers and six crew members on board the Canadian-built Bombardier CRJ200 (B-3072) were killed. Two people were killed on the ground.

28 November 2004. An investigation team dispatched by the State Council said today the two flight data recorders from the China Eastern Airlines Bombardier CRJ200 (B-3072) which crashed at Baotou on 21 November have been decoded, but more analysis is necessary. The black boxes were sent to Beijing on Wednesday (24 November) for examination. Investigators said the two data recorders were slightly damaged but their data was still intact. However, the cause of the crash remained unclear and further analysis is necessary. The crash site investigation is also continuing. So far over 90 per cent of the wreckage has been recovered. The front and the left side of the aircraft were severely damaged. The remaining bodies were identified by DNA testing, and all 55 bodies have been claimed by family members. The airline has announced its compensation plan for the families of the victims. Chinese law sets compensation standards for the death of airline passengers at yuan 70,000, or US$8,500, but China Eastern Airlines said that, considering the change in the consumer price index, it would double the sum. The family of each passenger will receive about yuan 210,000, or US$25,000, in total from the airline company.

24 October 2004Concord, North Carolina, USA

One of auto racing’s most successful dynasties was in mourning after an aircraft owned by Hendrick Motorsports crashed in thick fog en route to a NASCAR race, killing all ten people on board, including the son, brother and two nieces of owner Rick Hendrick. The Beechcraft King Air 200 took off from Concord, North Carolina, and crashed today in the Bull Mountain area seven miles from Blue Ridge Regional Airport in Spencer, Virginia, near the Martinsville Speedway, said Arlene Murray, spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration. The cause of the crash was not immediately known, but it occurred in rough, hard-to-reach terrain in weather described as “extremely foggy” by Dale Greeson, who lives about a mile from the site. National Transportation Safety Board investigators were to begin their investigation tomorrow.

27 October 2004. Federal accident investigators have examined the crash site and wreckage of a Beechcraft King Air 200 (N501RH) that went down on Sunday (24 October) in south-west Virginia, killing ten people related to NASCAR’s Hendrick Motorsports. There were no additional details as to what may have caused the crash. A spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board said an investigation team had been documenting the site and the wreckage remaining from the aircraft which struck Bull Mountain near the remote town of Patrick Springs, VA, near the border with North Carolina. Officials have said the aircraft’s crew had aborted an attempted landing because of low visibility as they approached nearby Martinsville Airport. The aircraft then struck the mountain as they began to circle for another try. In addition to documenting the crash site, the investigation is also examining aircraft maintenance records, the training and performance of the crew, prevailing weather conditions, and other factors that could explain why the aircraft struck the mountain. There were no flight data or voice recorders on board the aircraft, officials said. An NTSB spokesman in Washington said investigators were also questioning local residents in the sparsely populated area as to whether they saw or heard anything leading up to the crash as a way to help establish a timeline of events. The spokesman said the pieces of the aircraft would be gathered up and brought down from the mountain in the days ahead for additional testing and analysis. The aircraft went down as the group travelled to Sunday’s Subway 500 race in Martinsville. At the time of the midday accident, heavy clouds in the mountainous area were just 600 feet above the runway, although lateral visibility below that level was said to be at five miles. All on board were killed, including Ricky Hendrick, son of company owner Rick Hendrick. Before impact, the aircraft hit tree tops for about 100 feet, and then burst into flames as it hit the ground. “The main wreckage in the fuselage and the cockpit area was damaged extensively by fire”, said Brian Rayner, the NTSB’s investigator-in-charge. The wings, tail section and engines were also damaged by fire. Investigators with the medical examiner’s office and the Virginia State Police recovered the remains on Monday.

26 October 2004American Airlines Airbus, N14053

The co-pilot of an American Airlines Airbus A300-600 (N14053), which crashed nearly three years ago in New York, killing 265 people, made aggressive rudder movements that snapped the tail fin from the aircraft, investigators have concluded. The National Transportation Safety Board said elements of pilot training at the world’s biggest airline and the sensitivity of flight controls on the Airbus A300-600 also contributed to the crash. “Several human performance and aircraft characteristics combined, in a most unfortunate way, to cause the accident,” lead crash investigator Robert Benzon told the five-member safety board before a vote on the accident’s cause today. The airline and its pilots had vigorously opposed placing the blame on co-pilot Sten Molin, saying the Airbus flight control system was dangerously sensitive. Flight 587 crashed into a residential area of Queens shortly after take-off from John F. Kennedy Airport on 12 November 2001. Coming just two months after the 9/11 hijack attacks, the crash immediately stoked fears of sabotage. The board dismissed that scenario at the time and investigators did not conclude differently today. The NTSB recommended the Federal Aviation Administration revise standards for the design of aircraft rudder controls to ensure their safe operation. The safety board also wants the FAA to consider whether to order modifications to the rudders of Airbus A300-600 and A310 aircraft. Airbus said it was surprised by the board’s concern about rudder pedal sensitivity. “We do not believe the facts of the investigation point to sensitivity of the rudder as contributing to the accident,” said company spokesman Clay McConnell. American and Airbus, the world’s biggest commercial plane maker, have waged a bitter finger-pointing campaign over liability for the crash of the flight bound for the Dominican Republic. Co-pilot Molin activated multiple full rudder swings in an attempt to control the aircraft after it was buffeted by two waves of strong turbulence from another aircraft flying ahead. The A300 fish-tailed before sliding sideways. The enormous buildup of side forces exceeded the fin’s design tolerance and it broke at the point where it joined the fuselage. However, Benzon’s team concluded Molin should not have used the rudder and other flight controls the way he did with the aircraft slightly out of configuration and flying at 276 mph. Molin’s response was unnecessary and overly aggressive, investigators said. They said American’s pilot training programme before the crash encouraged rudder use to regain control of an aircraft during an in-flight upset. Rudder is generally applied at much slower speeds to counter crosswinds during landing or take-off. “The rest of the time your feet should be on the floor,” said Dave Ivey, an NTSB investigator. Investigators also found that the A300-600 rudder system could be too sensitive, supporting part of American’s contention that Molin sought only a small amount of rudder but got far more than he intended. “We don’t believe you can blame the pilot,” American spokesman Bruce Hicks said. American charges Airbus knew there were potential problems with the flight control system after an in-flight incident involving another American A300 in 1997 and withheld that information from the airline and the safety board. Investigators found no meaningful connection between the crash and the other incident although they sharply criticised Airbus for not producing more timely data.

12 November 2004Flash Airlines Boeing 737-300 (SUZCF)

An Egyptian aircraft which crashed in January, killing 148 people, went into a steep turn after take-off and the crew did not fully correct it before the aircraft plunged into the Red Sea, investigators said yesterday. The 3 January crash, in which 133 French tourists died, took place minutes after the Flash Airlines Boeing 737-300 (SUZCF) took off from the diving resort of Sharm el-Sheikh bound for Cairo and Paris. “The aircraft took a shallow right turn which turned into a steep right turn,” head investigator Shaker Kelada told a news conference. Recovery was attempted, but there was not enough recovery before it dived into the sea. “Whether or not more could have been done is yet to be decided,” he said in answer to a question about whether the crew had done all it could to recover control of the aircraft. Kelada said his team would spend two months analysing the results of their investigations, after which a preliminary report would be issued. A final report would be ready around June. Relatives of the French victims have accused Paris of making no effort to clarify the causes of the disaster, which they say could have been avoided

1 December 2004Accident, Adi Sumarmo Airport, Solo, Indonesia

Indonesian investigators said bad weather was probably to blame when a McDonnell Douglas MD-82 skidded off a runway in central Java, killing at least 31 people and injuring 75. The aircraft, operated by budget domestic carrier Lion Air and carrying around 160 passengers and crew, ploughed into a cemetery near Solo city’s airport after landing in heavy rain around dusk yesterday after a flight from Jakarta. “The cause of the accident is likely to be bad weather and strong winds. But, we are still looking into the facts,” Setyo Rahardjo, head of Indonesia’s national transportation safety commission, said. Inspectors hoped to soon recover the aircraft’s flight data recorder and voice data recorder from the wrecked front of the aircraft, which sustained the most damage, he said. Police had said dozens of passengers were unaccounted for, although officials later said they expected many or most of these did not report to airport authorities after escaping. Other sources were giving different numbers. A Lion Air official put the total death toll at 25. Police reported 29 dead passengers and two dead crew. “We’re having difficulties in identifying the bodies because the data from the manifest and some of the identities that we found did not match,” a police officer said. The pilot’s body had been recovered, officials said. At least one wing ripped off the aircraft, which came to rest in the cemetery after skidding off the runway. Survivors said the accident happened without warning. Vice President Jusuf Kalla said an investigation had been ordered into the crash.

14 December 2004Crash, Mirabel Airport, Montreal, Canada

The widows of two pilots killed in a 1998 aircraft crash north of Montreal have reached a cash settlement with the aircraft’s manufacturers. The lawyer for Lynne Boulanger-Striker and Clemence Michaud said yesterday they settled for an undisclosed amount with B.F. Goodrich, which manufactured the aircraft’s brakes, and Fairchild Aircraft Inc. David Rapoport said the widows reached the deal on 16 November, just before jury selection was to begin for their civil trial in Delaware Superior Court. The crash on 18 June 1998, killed 11 people at Mirabel Airport when the wing of the Propair Fairchild Metro II broke off during an emergency landing. Pilot Jean Provencher, of Montreal, and co-pilot Walter Striker, of L’Acadie, Quebec, were killed on impact along with nine passengers. Rapoport said the lack of proper warning indicators doomed the passengers and crew. “What happened was a foreseeable tragedy,” he said in a telephone interview from Chicago. “The crew, unbeknownst to them, retracted overheated landing gear that they never would have retracted had there been a warning device.” General Electric had chartered the aircraft to take nine employees from its plant in Lachine, Que, to a meeting in Peterborough, Ontario. Shortly after the aircraft took off from Dorval Airport, the pilot tried to make an emergency landing at nearby Mirabel. The aircraft exploded and crashed just short of the runway. In a precedent setting ruling last year, a Quebec judge approved the release of the downed aircraft’s cockpit voice recordings for use in the civil suit. A Transportation Safety Board investigation found that the brakes overheated on take-off and a fire broke out in the left wheel well, damaging the aircraft’s left side, including the wing. The report pointed to a lack of brake pressure verification in the aircraft and also found that there was no pressure indicator for the aircraft’s wheel brakes. The board also found that several other Metro aircraft reported overheated brakes or even major fires. The Mirabel crash prompted several other lawsuits, all filed in Quebec in 2000. The first suit was by the family of passenger Ronald Thomas Haberfield, which is suing Propair and Fairchild. The second was by Quebec’s workplace safety board, which is suing Fairchild to recoup compensation it paid to families in death benefits, monthly pensions and funeral expenses since the crash. Propair and its insurance company are also suing the maker of the aircraft and B.F. Goodrich. Rapoport said he had received unconfirmed reports that most of the outstanding claims were settled shortly before his clients agreed to their deal.

14 December 2004US Continental Airlines F-BTSC

US Continental Airlines must bear shared responsibility for the crash of an Air France BAe Concorde (F-BTSC) in 2000, which killed 113 people, a French judge has ruled. The aircraft burst into flames shortly after take-off from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport. The judge said a metal strip that fell onto the runway from an aircraft belonging to Continental played a “direct” role in the accident. The airline says it strongly disagrees it did anything to cause the crash. In a statement, Continental said it was confident there was no basis for criminal action. “We are outraged by what we have seen in media reports that criminal charges may be made against our company and its employees,” spokesman Nick Britton said. However, senior executives are almost certain to be called for questioning during a judicial investigation expected next year and the airline could face a criminal lawsuit and large claims for damages. All 109 people on board the Concorde died in the crash, as well as four on the ground. Judge Christophe Regnard noted that Concorde had inherent design flaws, which caused the aircraft to burst into flames after its tyre burst. A titanium alloy strip, which fell off a Continental Airlines McDonnell Douglas DC-10 that took off five minutes earlier, played a “major role” in the tragedy, he noted. Pieces of burst tyre punctured the Concorde’s fuel tanks, prompting a violent mid-air explosion. Public prosecutor Xavier Salvat said that expert testimony had convinced the judge that long-held theories about the crash were true. The judge criticised the design of Concorde’s thin fuel tanks, calling it an “important defect”. He cleared the aircraft’s pilots of blame for the crash. The report is the culmination of four years of investigations into the crash, and could prompt legal action by Air France against Continental Airlines. The US airline has consistently denied any responsibility for the disaster.