Air Littoral Flight 701

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Air Littoral Flight 701
98bw - Air Littoral ATR 42-500, F-GPYO @ ZRH; 06/19/2000 (5363539128) .jpg

An identical machine from Air Littoral
Accident summary
Accident type Agreement from the runway
place Florence Airport , ItalyItalyItaly 
date July 30, 1997
Fatalities 1
Survivors 16
Injured 14th
Aircraft
Aircraft type FranceFranceItalyItaly ATR 42-500
operator FranceFrance Air Littoral
Mark FranceFrance F-GPYE
Departure airport Nice airport , FranceFranceFrance 
Destination airport Florence Airport , ItalyItalyItaly 
Passengers 14th
crew 3
Lists of aviation accidents

On July 30, 1997, an ATR 42-500 overshot the runway end of the destination airport on Air Littoral flight 701 , an international scheduled flight of the French airline Air Littoral from Nice to Florence . One person was killed in the process.

machine

The wreck of the machine

The aircraft concerned was an ATR 42-500, an aircraft type of the Italian-French consortium Avions de Transport Régional (ATR) founded by Aeritalia and Aérospatiale for the construction of regional aircraft . The machine was one and a half years old at the time of the accident. It had the model serial number 492, was finally assembled at the ATR production site in Toulouse and completed its maiden flight on January 24, 1996 with the test registration F-WWLK . The machine was delivered to Air Littoral on April 25, 1996 , the machine received the aircraft registration F-GPYE . The twin-engine regional airliner was with two turboprop engines of the type Pratt & Whitney Canada PW127E equipped.

Passengers and crew

14 passengers had taken the scheduled flight from Nice to Florence . There was also a three-person crew on board, consisting of a flight captain, a first officer and a flight attendant.

the accident

After the flight from Nice to Florence went smoothly, the crew prepared for landing around 10:30 a.m. There was good visibility with a cloudless sky and light wind from changing wind directions. The crew decided to land on runway 23, the threshold of which was offset by 620 meters due to construction work. The decision was very unusual under the given conditions, especially since eighty percent of the aircraft that were operating at the airport that day landed on runway 05 opposite.

The plane touched down at 10:36 a.m. at a much faster speed than required, then overshot the end of the runway, pierced the airport fence and crashed into the ditch next to the adjacent A11 motorway. The right engine stopped when it hit the ground, while the left engine continued to run for 45 minutes during the subsequent rescue operation.

The passengers were evacuated quickly, but since the cockpit section was badly damaged, it took about an hour for the two crew members to be freed from the machine. The captain was hospitalized but succumbed to his injuries four days later, the first officer and 13 other passengers were injured.

root cause

The investigation into the accident was conducted by the Italian Civil Aviation Authority and the Public Prosecutor's Office.

It turned out that the first officer was the pilot flying during the landing and was doing line training under the supervision of the captain. Prosecutors found that the final approach was made at an excessive speed and rate of descent and that even the associated warning system on board had been triggered, which was ignored by the cockpit crew. No technical defects were found on the machine itself.

Air Littoral's first officer and two managers - the training director and the human resources director - were charged with manslaughter and causing an air disaster, but were acquitted in November 2003. The responsibility for the accident was ultimately given to the killed captain. His "unwise" decision to continue the landing despite the unsafe approach ultimately led to the accident.

swell

Coordinates: 43 ° 48 ′ 15 ″  N , 11 ° 11 ′ 45 ″  E