Atlas Air Flight 3591

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Atlas Air Flight 3591
Prime Air (47137434372) .jpg

The accident machine nine days before the crash
Accident summary
Accident type Wil be inspected
place Trinity Bay , Texas
date February 23, 2019
Fatalities 3
Survivors 0
Injured 0
Aircraft
Aircraft type Boeing 767-375ER (BCF)
operator Atlas Air for Amazon Prime Air
Mark N1217A
Surname 5Y3591
GTI3591
GIANT 3591
Departure airport United StatesUnited States Miami International Airport
Destination airport United StatesUnited States George Bush Intercontinental Airport
Passengers 1
crew 2
Lists of aviation accidents
Atlas Air Flight 3591 (USA)
Accident site
Accident site
Miami
Miami
Houston
Houston
Overview map of the route and the scene of the accident

Atlas Air Flight 3591 was a cargo flight between Miami International Airport and George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston , Texas , in which the Boeing 767-375ER (BCF) in use had an accidenton February 23, 2019. The aircraft crashed against 12:45 local time ( Central Standard Time (CST) UTC  18:45) some 60 kilometers southeast of the destination airport near the Texas town of Anahuac in the Trinity Bay . All three crew members were killed. The flight was from Atlas Air for the Amazon group associated virtual cargo airline Amazon Prime Air performed.

Flight history

The investigating authority, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), announced in an initial statement that the descent was normal up to an altitude of 6300  feet and that the machine had then entered a very steep descent. In a press conference on February 24, 2019, the NTSB announced that the aircraft had been on a Standard Terminal Arrival Route (STAR) and had been in contact with Houston Approach . At about 12:36 p.m. CST (UTC 18:36), a descent to 3000 feet was cleared. The radio and radar contact broke off at the same time. The last radar contact was recorded at 12:41 p.m. CST (UTC 18:41) an altitude of around 6,000 feet and a speed of 240  knots .

Weather

At the time of the accident, the air temperature in Houston was 22 ° C , visibility was at least 10  mi (16  km ), the cloud base was 3,500  ft (approx. 1,070  m ), the wind came from the northwest at 11  kn (20  km / h ) , in gusts of 19 kn (35 km / h).

plane

The crashed Boeing 767-375ER (BCF) made its maiden flight on April 21, 1992 as N6063S and was registered as B-2561 for China Southern Airlines on November 4, 1992 . It went to LAN Chile in January 1997 and was employed by LAN Chile and its Argentine subsidiary before being transferred to CIT Leasing in 2014, converted into a freighter in the Boeing Converted Freighter (BCF) program and, from January 27, 2016, at Atlas Air was used. She had been flying for Prime Air since April 30, 2017. At the time of the accident, the machine was transporting air freight for Amazon and the US Postal Service .

Accident investigation

NTSB investigators examine the wreckage of the Boeing 767
NTSB investigators recovering the flight data recorder from the crashed 767

The machine was in Trinity Bay, one between Houston and the Gulf of Mexico located lagoon , overthrown. On February 24th, the recovery of the first victim and the first wreckage was reported. The sheriff of the Chambers County concerned said that he had been presented with a picture of the "total destruction" at the scene of the accident and that he "does not assume that anyone could have survived this accident". The scene of the accident was not found due to leaked fuel, but due to debris. If anything, there was very little fuel there. According to eyewitness reports, the machine crashed nose first . Scattered parts of the wreckage in shallow lagoon water could be seen in pictures of the accident site. At the time of the press conference on February 24, 2019, the bodies of two crew members had already been recovered , those of the flight captain on February 26, 2019.

The NTSB initiated an aircraft accident investigation . A five-second video sequence of the crash was filmed from the county's prison, which is about 2.6 kilometers from the crash site . The picture of a surveillance camera shows the aircraft in a steep descent, the longitudinal axis of the machine is also pointing steeply downwards. According to Robert L. Sumwalt, the head of the NTSB, no attempts to end the descent or to pull the plane up could be seen in the video. Another video published by the Sheriff's Office shows the steep descent and the impact of the machine on the surface of the water. The scene of the accident extends over a length of almost 5 kilometers in shallow water up to 1.5 meters deep. The majority of the wreck is located on an area facing northwest, almost 200 meters long and 100 meters wide. The wings and landing gear came to rest further northwest. The time from the beginning of the steep descent to impact is not known. The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and the flight data recorder (FDR) could not initially be located in the muddy ground and were searched for at great expense.

The CVR was recovered on March 1st and the FDR two days later. On March 7, after listening to the tape, the NTSB provisionally announced that its sound quality was generally poor and that the recording included around two hours of the last part of the flight. The crew's communication related to a loss of control began around 18 seconds before the end of the recording.

On March 12, after an initial evaluation of the flight recorder, the investigators stated that several smaller vertical accelerations indicated that the machine could have got into turbulence shortly before the start of the steep descent. Then the engine speed increased to maximum thrust and the angle of attack increased slightly to 4 ° before the aircraft went into a steep descent at an angle of 49 °. The stall warning system was not activated, which will bring the investigators to the conclusion that it was unlikely that the pilots themselves had initiated the descent to a stall to prevent. In the descent, the speed then increased to 430 kt (796 km / h), with the aircraft nose being raised by 29 ° to an angle of attack of −20 ° before the impact on the ground.

NTSB interim report

The center console of the 767 cockpit with the thrust lever (center), air brake lever (left) and flap lever (to the right of the thrust levers). On the back outside on the thrust levers at approx. 2/3 height the T / O - go-around switch.

A preliminary investigation report was published by the NTSB on December 19, 2019. According to this report, the flight and the descent to the destination airport were largely uneventful. Only because of a thunderstorm front located southeast of Houston, the original approach plan was changed by approach control in order to guide the traffic around the thunderstorm cells. After air traffic control issued a clearance and request to descend from 6000 to 3000 ft, the crew operated the air brake flaps and set the landing flaps to the 1 ° position. At the same time, the aircraft flew into the cloud front, lost sight of the ground and was exposed to turbulence. According to the recordings of the flight data recorder, one of the `` Take Off / Go Around triggers '', these are switches located on the back of the two thrust levers, was activated at this time. This can happen unintentionally when the air brake lever or the landing flap lever is operated from the opposite side of the thrust lever console when reaching around the thrust lever, especially in turbulent air. When one of these switches is actuated , a sequence is triggered that actually serves to make work easier during go - around maneuvers , provided it is armed to the selected 1 ° position by extending the landing flaps and the autopilot is active . Among other things, the engine output is quickly set to full throttle and a climb is initiated at a rate of climb of 2000 ft / minute.

Although neither the audible stall warning nor the stick shaker was activated (the aircraft was still in largely normal attitude within its safe operating limits), one was from the crew apparently stall accepted and the still activated autopilot overridden by massive hydroplanes input, resulting in a A dive with full engine thrust at an inclination of up to 49 ° and an increase in speed to 449 kts (over 800 km / h) from an altitude of around 2000 m above ground. Due to the low altitude and the extreme attitude, after leaving the clouds, when the crew apparently still noticed their mistake, this error could no longer be corrected despite an interception arc with 4 g acceleration. This also coincides with the video recordings of the surveillance camera. Defects and defects in the aircraft that caused the crash have not yet been found.

Statistical significance of the accident

The accident was the first of a wide-body aircraft to result in a fatal outcome in the United States since the accident on UPS Airlines Flight 1354 on August 14, 2013. It was the first fatal incident for Atlas Air, founded in 1992.

It was the seventh accident involving a Boeing 767 fatally and the first involving a cargo plane of this type.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gerhard Hegmann: Amazon cargo plane crashes into the sea off Houston. In: The world. February 24, 2019, accessed February 24, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b Flight accident data and report Atlas Air Boeing 767-300 N1217A, operating for Amazon Prime Air, crashed near Houston, Texas, USA in the Aviation Safety Network , accessed on February 24, 2019.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Simon Hradecky: Crash: Atlas B763 at Houston on Feb 23rd 2019, lost height on approach. In: Aviation Herald. February 23, 2019, accessed February 24, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Display metars. Retrieved February 24, 2019 .
  5. ↑ 767-300BCF - Boeing Converted Freighter. (PDF) In: Boeing . Retrieved February 24, 2019 .
  6. ↑ a b Rob Mark: NTSB Releases an Initial CVR Review of Atlas Air 3591 Flyingmag.com (English) March 7, 2019, accessed March 8, 2019.
  7. ↑ Sheriff: 'I don't believe anyone could survive' cargo plane's nose dive into Trinity Bay Chron.com (English) of February 23, 2019, accessed on February 24, 2019.
  8. ↑ Video shows final moments of Atlas Air plane crash Video of Atlas Air flight 3591 Amazon Plane crash. AirNews 24/7, March 1, 2019, accessed March 8, 2019 .
  9. ^ NTSB Investigating Deadly Crash of Amazon Cargo Flight, Atlas Air 3591 Aviation Today, February 26, 2019, accessed February 26, 2019.
  10. ↑ Chambers County Sheriff's Office security camera gets a glimpse of flight 3591 crashing in to Trinity Bay. In: Facebook. Chambers County Sheriff's Office, March 6, 2019, accessed March 8, 2019 .
  11. ↑ Rob Finfrock: Investigators Prepare To Analyze FDR from Atlas Air Wreckage AIN Online March 4, 2019, accessed March 8, 2019.
  12. ^ Atlas Air cargo plane that crashed near Houston, killing 3, appears to have hit turbulence. In: NBC . March 12, 2019, accessed March 15, 2019 .
  13. ^ Documents of the preliminary report of the NTSB , accessed on January 25, 2020
  14. ↑ Flight accident statistics Atlas Air , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on February 24, 2019.
  15. ↑ Total losses of the Boeing 767 , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on February 24, 2019.

Coordinates: 29 ° 45 ′ 49 "  N , 94 ° 42 ′ 52.2"  W.