Afriqiyah Airways Flight 771
| Afriqiyah Airways Flight 771 | |
|---|---|
 The accident machine in November 2009 at Dubai Airport |
|
| Accident summary | |
| Accident type | Controlled flight into terrain when taking off |
| place | 1.2 kilometers west of Tripoli Airport |
| date | May 12, 2010 |
| Fatalities | 103 |
| Survivors | 1 |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | Airbus A330-200 |
| operator | Afriqiyah Airways |
| Mark | 5A-ONG |
| Departure airport | OR Tambo International Airport , Johannesburg , Republic of South Africa |
| Destination airport | Tripoli International Airport , Tripoli , Libya |
| Passengers | 93 |
| crew | 11 |
| Lists of aviation accidents | |
On May 12, 2010, an Airbus A330-202 crashed on Afriqiyah Airways flight 771 ( flight number : 8U771 or AAW771) from Johannesburg to Tripoli after the crew canceled the approach due to lack of ground visibility and then initiated a go- around maneuver at low altitude . At 5:01 a.m. local time (04:01 UTC ), the plane hit about 1.2 kilometers and offset 150 meters south of runway 09 of Tripoli International Airport .
There were 93 passengers and 11 crew members on board, including 13 Libyan nationals and 71 Dutch nationals. A 9-year-old boy from the Netherlands survived the accident.
plane
The Airbus A330-202 ( registration number : 5A-ONG, serial number : 1024) was equipped with two General Electric CF6-80E1A3 engines. The aircraft had its maiden flight on August 12, 2009 and was delivered directly to Afriqiyah Airways by the manufacturer in September 2009 . By the time of the accident, the machine had completed 420 take-offs and landings and 1,600 flight hours.
the accident
The machine started on May 11, 2010 at 7.45 p.m. local time in Johannesburg. The scheduled flight was carried out by the first officer , while the pilot took on the function of “ pilot not flying ”. At 04:18 local time (03:18 UTC), the pilots first made contact with air traffic control in Tripoli. There were no special incidents up to the start of the approach.
The pilots received the current weather information ( METAR ) at 04:50 a.m. (03:50 UTC ). Accordingly, there should be good weather and visibility conditions at the destination airport at the time of arrival. When the Airbus south of the airport in the traffic pattern eindrehte for a landing on runway 09, the sight was due to morning haze significantly reduced. At 04:59 h (03:59 UTC) the aircraft was transferred from approach control to the control tower . The air traffic controller gave clearance to continue the approach and asked for notification as soon as the pilots had the runway in sight. About a minute later, the crew was called by a company flight captain who had just landed with his plane in Tripoli. The captain pointed out that the airport was under a bank of fog and that the visibility conditions on the final approach were poor.
At 05:00:30 a.m. (04:00:30 UTC), the Airbus passed the minimum descent altitude of just under 190 meters (620 feet ). At this point in time, the aircraft was around 3.7 kilometers (2 NM ) from the missed approach point at which a go - around must be initiated. The pilots continued the approach for 12 seconds without being able to establish visual contact with the runway. At an altitude of around 85 meters (280 feet), the Terrain Awareness and Warning System (TAWS) triggered a ground proximity alarm (“Too low, terrain!”). The copilot then immediately aborted the approach, deactivated the autopilot and initiated a manual go-around maneuver. While the machine was climbing with takeoff power , the co-pilot gave several downward steering impulses to the elevator , which caused the Airbus to descend again at a height of only 150 meters (450 feet above ground or 670 feet QNH ). The aircraft hit at 05:01:14 hrs with a rate of descent of around 1,340 m / min and a speed of around 480 km / h (260 knots ).
Cause of accident
The investigation into the accident was carried out by the Libyan aviation authority. The aircraft manufacturer Airbus , the French investigation authority BEA , the US National Transportation Safety Board and the South African and Dutch aviation authorities sent representatives. After an evaluation by the flight recorder , the Libyan authorities announced on August 14, 2010 that there was no evidence of technical problems, fires or explosions prior to the crash. There were also no problems with the fuel and the crew did not request any assistance.
According to the final report, the accident was caused by inadequate cooperation and the division of tasks between the pilots after the go-around maneuver was initiated. As a result, both pilots misjudged the aircraft's attitude and steered the Airbus into the ground.
While the aircraft rose at an initial angle of 12 degrees after going around , the captain retracted the landing gear and set the landing flaps to take-off configuration. On the part of the captain, who was responsible for monitoring the instruments as “pilot not flying”, there were neither calls for the angle of climb nor the altitude. Instead, it appeared that the captain was solely focused on monitoring the speed. The altitude display was also ignored by the co-pilot. In addition, because no reference point on the ground was visible in the fog and the power of the engines was increased to the maximum for go-around, the co-pilot probably found the climb angle too steep. In the first 21 seconds after initiating the maneuver, the co-pilot gave several control impulses to the elevator , which gradually flattened the climb and finally the machine began to descend again at a height of 150 meters. The master then also carried out another downward movement of the rudder without informing the co-pilot that he wanted to take control of the aircraft. Due to the presumed spatial disorientation of both pilots, the descent went unnoticed by them until shortly before the impact.
The investigators saw a possible reason why the captain only monitored the speed and not the altitude in a faulty go-around maneuver that both pilots carried out together on April 28, 2010 in the same aircraft. In this incident, which happened two weeks before the accident, an overspeed alarm was triggered because the machine had exceeded the maximum permissible speed. The final report mentions imprecise weather information and possible fatigue of the pilots as further accident factors.
Web links
- Final report from the Libyan Civil Aviation Authority:
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g Libyan Civil Aviation Authority, Official Final Report in English (PDF) ( Memento of the original from April 24, 2013 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b Flight accident data and report from Afriqiyah Airways flight 771 in the Aviation Safety Network (English)
- ↑ Nu.nl - 70 Nederlandse doden
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↑ The METAR had the following wording:
HLLT 120350Z VRB01KT 6000 NSC 19/17 Q1008
(Tripoli International Airport; 03:50 UTC ; changing winds at 1 knot; visibility 6000 m; temperature 19 ° C; dew point 17 ° C; no cloud base; Air pressure 1008 hPa ). - ↑ a b c d Simon Hradecky: Crash: Afriqiyah A332 at Tripoli on May 12th 2010, impacted ground short of runway ( English ) The Aviation Herald . May 11, 2011. Retrieved April 4, 2012.
- ↑ Julius Baumann: Libya rules out terrorism in plane crash ( English ) Business Day. May 12, 2010. Retrieved April 4, 2012.
Coordinates: 32 ° 39 ′ 43 " N , 13 ° 6 ′ 58" E