Ceiba Intercontinental Airlines Flight 71
| Ceiba Intercontinental Airlines Flight 71 | |
|---|---|
 Another Ceiba Intercontinental Boeing 737-800 |
|
| Accident summary | |
| Accident type | Airplane collision in the air |
| place | near Tambacounda , Senegal |
| date | 5th September 2015 |
| Fatalities | 7th |
| Injured | 0 |
| 1. Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | Boeing 737-8FB |
| operator | CEIBA Intercontinental |
| Mark | 3C-LLY |
| Departure airport | Léopold Sédar Senghor Dakar Airport , Senegal |
| Stopover | Cotonou-Cadjehoun Airport , Benin (canceled) |
| Destination airport | Malabo Airport , Equatorial Guinea |
| Survivors | 112 |
| 2. Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | Hawker Siddeley HS.125 |
| operator | Sénégal Airlines |
| Mark | 6V-AIM |
| Departure airport | Ouagadougou Airport , Burkina Faso |
| Destination airport | Léopold Sédar Senghor Dakar Airport , Senegal |
| Passengers | 4th |
| crew | 3 |
| Survivors | no |
| Lists of aviation accidents | |
Ceiba Intercontinental Airlines flight 71 was a scheduled international flight of Ceiba Intercontinental Airlines from Dakar to Malabo via Cotonou . On September 5, 2015, a Boeing 737-800 collided with a Sénégal Airlines ambulance aircraft over eastern Senegal . The Boeing 737 landed safely in Malabo after the collision. The ambulance aircraft, on the other hand, continued to fly after the collision until it ran out of fuel and crashed into the Atlantic, killing everyone on board.
plane
The Boeing concerned is a Boeing 737-8FB with the aircraft registration 3C-LLY, which was put into operation in February 2014. The ambulance aircraft was a Hawker Siddeley HS.125 en route from Ouagadougou to Dakar with registration 6V-AIM; it had been in operation since 1979. It has not yet been found (as of January 28, 2016).
Course of the accident
The two planes collided over eastern Senegal at around 6:13 p.m. It is believed that the collision caused the air ambulance to suffer a pressure loss that caused everyone on board to become unconscious. The aircraft was then presumably flown on by the autopilot. Beyond Dakar, it flew out into the Atlantic until about 110 kilometers (59 nautical miles) from the coast the fuel ran out and the plane crashed. The Boeing 737 was only slightly damaged in the collision, a small part of the winglet on the left wing was torn off. The Boeing crew decided not to land in Cotonou and landed safely in Malabo .
root cause
The investigation revealed that the cause of the accident was that the ambulance aircraft flew 1,000 feet (around 300 meters) above the assigned altitude. Air traffic control assigned the Hawker an altitude of 34,000 feet (about 10,400 meters), but the Hawker crew rose to 35,000 feet (about 10,700 meters) and thus crossed the flight path of the Boeing 737. Neither air traffic control nor the Hawker crew noticed the error.
Already six weeks earlier, the HS.125 had a dangerous approach with an Arik Air Boeing 737 when it was also flying at a wrong altitude of 1000 feet. Two weeks earlier, there was a 200-foot difference between the two altimeters, which was well outside of the 75-foot allowable tolerance. However, this malfunction was neither resolved nor reported. The technician responsible had left Sénégal Airlines on August 15, 2015; his successor did not have a valid license to work on the HS.125. Therefore the machine should not have been allowed to fly after August 15th. On August 29, there was again a deviation of 1,000 feet during a flight, seven days before the collision. The investigation also revealed that the Sénégal Airlines first officer did not have a recognized license for this type of aircraft.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Aviation Safety Network: Accident description , accessed January 28, 2016
- ↑ JACDEC: 2015-09-05 Ceiba 737-800 mid-air collision with HS-125 Jet over Senegal , accessed on January 28, 2016
- ↑ Flight International, September 12, 2017 (English), p. 16.