ADC Airlines Flight 53

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ADC Airlines Flight 53
ADC Airlines Boeing 737-200 KvW.jpg

An identical Boeing 737-200 from ADC Airlines
Accident summary
Accident type Stall from pilot error, wind shear
place Abuja , NigeriaNigeriaNigeria 
date October 29, 2006
Fatalities 96
Survivors 9
Injured 9
Aircraft
Aircraft type United StatesUnited States Boeing 737-2B7
operator NigeriaNigeria ADC Airlines
Mark NigeriaNigeria 5N-BFK
Departure airport Lagos Airport , NigeriaNigeriaNigeria 
Stopover Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport , Abuja NigeriaNigeriaNigeria 
Destination airport Sokoto Airport , NigeriaNigeriaNigeria 
Passengers 100
crew 5
Lists of aviation accidents

The ADC Airlines Flight 53 (flight number Z7053 ) was a domestic flight to the Nigerian airline ADC Airlines from Abuja to Sokoto . On October 29, 2006, a Boeing 737-2B7 with the registration number 5N-BFK was involved in an accident on this flight, killing 96 of 105 people on board.

Airplane and occupants

The aircraft involved in the accident was a Boeing 737-2B7, which was 23 years and one month old at the time of the accident. The machine was assembled at the Boeing plant in Renton , Washington State , and made its maiden flight on September 27, 1983, before being delivered to the USA on October 20, 1983 . The aircraft had the factory number 22891, it was the 988th Boeing 737 from ongoing production. The machine was initially registered with the aircraft registration number N323AU , on November 15, 1988 it was re-registered as N279AU . When its owner was renamed, the machine was registered under the same number on US Airways . In February 1999, the machine was passed on within the company to the MetroJet subsidiary . In 2003, US Airways sold the machine to the aircraft leasing company Celtic Capital , which leased it to ADC Airlines from September 2, 2003, from which Boeing received its last registration number 5N-BFK . The twin- engined , narrow -body aircraft was equipped with two Pratt & Whitney JT8D-17 engines. By the time of the accident, the machine had completed a cumulative operating performance of 56,411 operating hours with 44,465 take-offs and landings.

Flight history

ADC Airlines Flight 53, a scheduled domestic flight, began taking off from Lagos Airport at 9:29 a.m. The flight consisted of two sections. The first leg of the flight led to Abuja Airport , where a scheduled stopover was made after landing at 10:20 a.m. This flight segment was flown without any significant incidents.

The second section should eventually lead from Abuja to Sokoto . The crew reported their planned onward flight at 11:14 a.m. to air traffic control, which then sent them current weather information. At 11:21 am, the pilots asked for permission to taxi to the runway and asked about the wind conditions. Within the next six minutes, air traffic control in Abuja sent the crew six wind reports , emphasizing that the wind was gusty . A thunderstorm was approaching the airport and the weather conditions deteriorated. At 11:26 a.m., the crew requested clearance for an immediate take-off. The air traffic controller again emphasized the worsening weather conditions and transmitted the last wind report, which the crew confirmed.

the accident

Immediately after the last radio message, runway 22 began to take off. Immediately after the take-off run, the Boeing 737 got into a wind shear , which began as a headwind and immediately afterwards turned into a tailwind. The wind significantly affected the aerodynamic properties of the machine. The pilot-in-command reacted to the gust of wind by slightly increasing the thrust and pulling the control horn towards him, whereby a critical angle of attack of the machine was reached. The other pilot called to him to pull up the plane. There was a stall in which the machine also reached a roll angle of 90 degrees. The Boeing had been pulled up to an angle of attack at which the airflow was temporarily interrupted and a loss of power on both engines occurred. The machine crashed into a grain field and broke apart on impact.

After the crash

Although the accident occurred shortly after take-off, air traffic control in Abuja was initially not aware that the plane had crashed. The air traffic controllers tried three times in vain to reach the aircraft. Other machines in the vicinity, including Virgin Nigeria Airlines Flight 42 and Trade Wings Flight 2401, which were communicating on the same radio frequency, were also asked to assist in attempting to contact the machine. However, it was not possible to contact the machine. The air traffic control in Kano and Lagos also tried in vain to reach the machine. Air traffic control in Abuja was finally instructed to inform the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) in Kano about the lost radio contact with the machine. At 11:38 a.m. it was reported that someone from the nearby village of Tungar Madaki had appeared and reported that an airplane had crashed there. A search team moved out and was soon able to confirm that the machine had crashed shortly after take-off.

Victim

96 of the 105 people on board the plane died. Muhammadu Maccido , the Sultan of Sokoto and the spiritual leader of the Muslims in Nigeria were killed in the accident, as was his son, Senator Badamasi Maccido . The victims also included Nnennia Mgbor , West Africa's first female ENT surgeon, and Abdulrahman Shehu Shagari, son of former President Shehu Shagari . Among the nine survivors were three daughters of Ibrahim Idris , the governor of Kogi .

Accident investigation

The accident was investigated by the Nigerian Aircraft Investigation Bureau . Representatives of the National Transportation Safety Board in the United States were involved in the investigation. The investigators sighted the rubble and the crash site and came to the conclusion that the machine with the left wing first grazed the branch of a tree. The plane had crashed with the nose of the aircraft pulled up high and an excessive roll angle directed to the left. The plane broke apart on impact and the kerosene ignited.

A large part of the aircraft fuselage was destroyed in the accident. 96 of the 105 inmates were killed either by the forces of the impact or by the fire that followed. Eight passengers and one crew member who had been in the rear of the machine survived the accident because the aircraft structure in their immediate vicinity had remained relatively intact.

When examining the accident data memory it was found that the cockpit crew was aware that wind shear could occur. The pilots confirmed the warning from the air traffic controller, which was clearly audible on the cockpit voice recorder . During the take-off, the rain intensity increased, there was heavy rain.

The first sign of difficulties in which the crew had gotten could already be heard when the first officer announced a speed of 80 knots (approx. 148 km / h) and the master replied, contrary to the procedures, with "Ah" . Four seconds later the first officer said at the take-off, whereupon the captain the machine rotate left and import the chassis. Two more seconds later, a warning of wind shear sounded and the machine was exposed to a rapid change in wind flow direction. The evaluation of the flight data recorder showed that the pilots had brought the aircraft to an angle of attack of 30 to 35 degrees when attempting to counter it. Shortly afterwards, the stall warning system activated , as could be clearly heard on the voice recorder. Because of the steep angle of rotation, the air supply to the engines was interrupted, which resulted in a temporary drop in performance of both engines. Eventually it stalled and the machine rapidly lost altitude and hit the ground. The Ground Proximity Warning System was activated and warned of the impending collision with the ground until the impact.

The accident investigators came to the conclusion that, in addition to the difficult weather conditions which had led to the accident, the pilots' reactions did not correspond to the usual procedures to be used in wind shear. The pilots had completed their training on the flight simulator at Sabena in Brussels . There they were not adequately prepared for such exceptional situations. Although the power of the machine would have been sufficient to fly through the wind shear, the pilots did not have the necessary flying skills. The training that the first officer had completed did not include detecting and flying through wind shear. Although the captain was trained for such situations, he was unable to apply his knowledge because the flight simulator was configured differently from the aircraft being flown.

Data from the Nigerian Meteorological Service showed isolated cumulus clouds at low altitude for the period 09:30 and 09:45 . The investigators found that there was then a strong cloud formation, which had developed into a thunderstorm between 9:45 a.m. and 11:00 a.m.

In the final report, the investigators recorded as the causes of the accident, on the one hand, the decision of the captain to take off from the airport in difficult weather conditions and, on the other hand, the inability of the crew to apply the necessary procedures for flying through wind shear. This resulted in a stall at a low altitude from which the machine could no longer be intercepted. The use of unsuitable training equipment during pilot training on the flight simulator, as well as a lack of instructions from the airline when operating aircraft in difficult weather conditions, also contributed to the accident. The distribution of tasks between the two pilots during the emergency did not correspond to the standard procedures for such cases.

Finally, investigators found that the airport's ground radar was out of order during the accident. This delayed the search for the crashed machine. Investigators concluded that more people would have survived the accident if the radar had been active at the time of the accident.

consequences

After the accident, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo was under intense pressure to dismiss Aviation Minister Babalola Borishade . Borishade was eventually transferred to another department.

After Sosoliso Airlines Flight 1145 and Bellview Airlines Flight 210, it was the third serious accident involving a jet-powered passenger aircraft in Nigeria within 13 months. To improve the safety of aviation in the country, the Nigerian government issued a regulation instructing financially troubled airlines in the country to increase their business assets. In the event of non-compliance by April 30, 2007, the respective aircraft fleets should be banned from operating. ADC Airlines then ceased operations along with six other Nigerian airlines, including Sosoliso Airlines , which was hit by a similar plane crash in 2005.

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Individual evidence

  1. ^ Aircraft Accidents in Nigeria , Aviation Safety Network , accessed April 28, 2019.

Coordinates: 9 ° 12 ′ 0 ″  N , 7 ° 11 ′ 0 ″  E