Aviation

Citation

(2007), "Aviation", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 16 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2007.07316dac.006

Aviation

23 December 2005 4K-AZ48

A passenger aircraft with 23 people on board crashed in Azerbaijan soon after takeoff from the capital Baku. Russia’s RIA news agency quoted the Azeri transport authority as saying that the aircraft bound for the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan with 18 passengers and five crew disappeared from radar screens 20 minutes after take-off. It was not clear if there had been any survivors. “As became known later the plane crashed near the village of Kyurdakhany some 15 km from Baku,” RIA said. It said the aircraft belonged to Azerbaijan’s flag carrier AZAL.

25 December 2005

Antonov 140-100, operated by Azerbaijan Airlines, 4KAZ48, Baku Airport for Aktau Airport, crashed on the Caspian Sea shore shortly after departure from Baku at about 22:40, December 23. All 23 persons on board were killed.

26 December 2005

Azerbaijan’s national airline has suspended flights by its one remaining Ukrainian-built aircraft and put off plans to acquire two more after a crash of the model killed 23 people, officials said today. All 18 passengers and five crew were killed when an Azerbaijani Airlines Antonov An-140 (4K-AZ48) plunged onto the Caspian Sea shore about 20 miles north of Baku shortly after take-off late Friday (December 23). The aircraft was en route to Aktau, a city on Kazakhstan’s Caspian Sea coast. Ilham Amirov, the lead investigator into the crash, said on Saturday that officials were looking at a control system failure as the most probable cause of the crash, but he added that it was too early to dismiss other possible causes, including terrorism. Azerbaijani Airlines “has one An-140 still left and it was immediately taken out of service following this tragic event until the reasons for the accident have been established,” said a senior manager at the airline, Faramakh Mahmudov. Azerbaijan has also decided to hold off on plans to acquire two more An-140s that it has purchased from Ukraine, said Rauf Jafaradze, the airline’s deputy chief. Also today, the office of Azerbaijan’s chief prosecutor said it had opened a criminal investigation into possible violations of safety measures or flight rules. Such a measure is common after crashes in the former Soviet Union, and the statement did not indicate whether any specific violations were suspected or who might be to blame. Local television stations reported the wreckage was spread over a space of about a mile, a pattern that could indicate an explosion. The aircraft’s black boxes, recovered yesterday, will be sent to Russia or Ukraine for analysis, Amirov said. The victims included many foreigners – a Briton, an Australian, a Turk, a Georgian and four citizens of Kazakhstan.

 29 December 2005

The crash of an Azerbaijani Airlines Antonov 140-100 4K-AZ48 on Friday (December 23) that killed 23 people was caused by flight instrument failure, leaving the crew unable to pilot the aircraft, airline officials said today. Azerbaijan Airlines’ chief Jahangir Askerov said that the study of the aircraft’s flight recorders revealed that the pilots’ instruments failed immediately after takeoff, making the crew unable to see the aircraft’s position in the air. “The crew lost an indication of the aircraft’s altitude,” Askerov told a news conference. Askerov’s deputy in charge of air safety, Ilham Amirov, said the crew reported a system failure five minutes into the flight and asked air traffic controllers for information on the aircraft’s altitude and direction. But the head of the Ukrainian company that built the aircraft, Pavel Naumenko, disputed the claim that the instruments failed, telling reporters at the same news conference that the aircraft had three horizon indicators and each of them had a backup energy source. That, Naumenko said, would make the instruments’ simultaneous failure “all but impossible.”

24 January 2006 N875JX

The crew of Corporate Airlines Flight 5966 (BAe Jetstream 31 N875JX) had little warning of any problem as it approached the Kirksville Regional Airport in northeast Missouri. Less than 300 ft off the ground, however, the aircraft clipped treetops and stalled before crashing in a field one mile short of the runway. Both pilots and 11 of 13 passengers on board were killed in the October 19, 2004, accident. The National Transportation Safety Board was meeting today to report its findings on the accident and reach a decision on the probable cause. The aircraft was not equipped with an updated system that warns pilots when they fly too low, though it had an older version of the terrain warning system that met regulations at the time. The Smyrna, Tenn.-based carrier, now called RegionsAir, operated the flight under contract with American Airlines’ commuter service. The crash has spawned a number of lawsuits, including one that alleges the pilots had been on duty for 14 hours and 41 minutes at the time of the crash. While that falls below the Federal Aviation Administration standard of 16 hours, it exceeds the 14-hour limitation set by American Airlines.

24 January 2006 N875JX

A string of pilot errors caused the deadly crash of an aircraft (BAe Jetstream 31 N875JX) in northeast Missouri, and the crew’s non-stop joking and expletive-laden banter in the cockpit didn’t help, federal investigators said today. The two-man crew and 11 of 13 passengers on board were killed in the October 19, 2004, accident. The National Transportation Safety Board said the crew failed to follow established procedures for landing at night without precision instruments and descended too low before they could see the ground clearly. The pilot focused too much on looking outside the cockpit window instead of monitoring flight instruments as the aircraft approached Kirksville Regional Airport, the board said. Based on a transcript of the cockpit voice recorder, investigators also found that the pilot and his co-pilot “lacked a professional tone” in the cockpit. A steady stream of quips, laughter and more than 45 expletives distracted the crew from focusing on the flight, investigators said. “The discipline in that cockpit didn’t seem to exist, which really created an environment for mistakes to be made,” said NTSB Acting Chairman Mark Rosenker. “This was extremely disappointing to hear what we heard on that cockpit voice recorder,” said Rosenker, who described the recording as one of the most unprofessional he’s ever heard. The NTSB found no mechanical failure or maintenance problems with the twin-engine turboprop and no fault with training procedures at Smyrna, Tenn.-based Corporate Airlines, now called RegionsAir. The crew had little warning of any problems until the final seconds of the flight that originated in St. Louis. Seconds before it was supposed to land, the aircraft clipped treetops and stalled before crashing in a field one mile short of the runway. Pilot fatigue also was a factor, said NTSB investigator Malcolm Brenner, as the pilots had been on duty for more than 14 hours at the time of the crash

10 February 2006 N501RH

After an investigation into the Hendrick Motorsports aircraft (Beechcraft King Air 200 N501RH) crash ruled that flight crew error was the cause of the accident that claimed ten lives in October 2004, two of the widows left by the crash are now suing the multi-championship winning team. Diane Dorton, whose husband Randy built engines for Hendrick’s team and Tracy Lathram, whose husband was Tony Stewart’s helicopter pilot, claim that the safety of their husbands was put at risk by the desire of team president John Hendrick, who also perished in the crash, to get to the race in Martinsville on time. The National Transportation Safety Board had previously ruled that flight crew error was behind the crash, which occurred in poor weather in the Blue Mountains Region near to the half-mile Martinsville crash. Dorton and Lathram claim that Hendrick Motorsports could have flown to another airport, or not gone to the race at all due to the conditions, and showed disregard for the safety of their employees by electing to take the original flight.