Flash Airlines Flight 604
| Flash Airlines Flight 604 | |
|---|---|
 The plane crashed in December 2001 at Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle Airport |
|
| Accident summary | |
| Accident type | unexplained |
| place | Red Sea near Sharm El Sheikh |
| date | January 3, 2004 |
| Fatalities | 148 (all) |
| Survivors | 0 |
| Injured | 0 |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | Boeing 737-3Q8 |
| operator | Flash Airlines |
| Mark | SU-ZCF |
| Surname | FA 604 |
| Departure airport | Sharm El Sheikh Airport |
| Stopover | Cairo International Airport |
| Destination airport | Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport |
| Passengers | 135 |
| crew | 13 |
| Lists of aviation accidents | |
Flash Airlines flight 604 was a flight of the former charter airline Flash Airlines , which was to run from Sharm El Sheikh Airport via Cairo to Paris . Shortly after takeoff, the plane crashed into the Red Sea on January 3, 2004 , killing 148 people, almost all of them French citizens.
plane
The aircraft delivered on October 9, 1992 was a Boeing 737-3Q8 with the registration number SU-ZCF , which had been operating around 25,603 hours at the time of the crash. Massive deficiencies had already been identified during previous inspections. After an unannounced inspection by the Swiss aviation authority in 2002, which found numerous problems, Flash Airlines was banned from taking off and landing in Switzerland, Poland and Norway and - after the accident - also in France. The deficiencies included a lack of oxygen masks in the cockpit, too few oxygen bottles and defective cockpit instruments .
procedure
The Boeing took off at 4:44 a.m. on runway 22R from Sharm el-Sheikh via Cairo towards Paris. To do this, the aircraft had to make a left turn. However, the machine suddenly pulled in the opposite direction, a correction of the autopilot and the thrust did not help. The aircraft moved to a steep right and lost altitude. Although the pilots were able to regain control of the machine shortly before it hit the sea, this came too late, so that shortly after a warning from the Ground Proximity Warning System sounded, the aircraft crashed into the sea at around 770 km / h , broke and disappeared from the radar screen. During the rescue operation carried out that morning, no inmates could be saved alive due to the heavy impact. In addition, the wreckage was scattered on the bottom in a very large area.
crew
- The captain of the aircraft was the 53-year-old Khadr Abdullah, one of the most experienced pilots in Egypt; he first flew transport and fighter planes with the Egyptian Air Force and thus collected over 7000 flight hours and was considered a "war hero". He also worked as a flight instructor, earning an additional 2,000 hours of flight hours before joining Flash Airlines.
- The first officer Amr Al-Shaafei was 25 years old. On that day in the cockpit, he was the mentor for the new pilot Ashraf Abdelhamid. During the flight Shaafei was fatally afraid of pointing out the right turn to Captain Abdullah because he had made fun of him beforehand.
Investigations
The investigation turned out to be difficult. The wreck with the black box was located in a not yet explored part of the Red Sea, in which there were also sharks that made diving impossible for humans. Only after long deliberation did they suspect the wreck and - in particular - the black box with the voice recorder at a depth of over 1000 meters. Due to the lack of maps, there was initially no certainty about this. With the help of diving robots it was finally possible to locate the devices. Meanwhile, terrorists confessed to an attack that was alleged to have taken place in France as a result of the new anti-headscarf legislation; however, a connection was deemed unrealistic and the investigation continued. At the crash site, the investigators found wreckage and items from suitcases, notes and cards that had been written by passengers before the impact. This made it clear that the situation on board was clear some time before the impact. A family member of one of the victims also reported a message on his answering machine that ended with a scream, which is extremely unlikely as cell phone reception would have been nearly impossible.
The black box with the voice recorder was recovered from a French ship two weeks after the accident. The National Transportation Safety Board ( NTSB ) and the French Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la sécurité de l'aviation civile (BEA) criticized the inadequate training of the two pilots. There were no copies of the maintenance books that are an absolute must in aviation. The important originals disappeared on the plane.
It is assumed that the captain started and finished the left turn too early and was flying without an autopilot . Due to a disorientation in the moonless night, in which no horizon or other visual reference points could be recognized, he flew a right turn without recognizing it. Incorrect trimming of the ailerons or the control of the spoilers on the right wing, which could have caused the roll to the right, were discussed as possible technical errors . The first officer probably recognized the wrong attitude, but only informed the master with a delay. The cockpit crew was not trained in crew resource management , as this was not mandatory in Egypt at the time, so the crew did not work together optimally and the airline is also seen to be at fault . However, the actual cause of the accident remains unclear.
consequences
Two months after the crash, the airline's second accident, Flash Airlines gave up flight service and sold the remaining Boeing 737 to Cayman Airways .
The crash was filmed in the television series Mayday - Alarm im Cockpit . A reconstruction of the accident was shown under the title "Crash over the Red Sea".
At the cemetery Pere Lachaise a memorial stone to the victims of the plane crash, as a memorial in Sharm-El-Sheikh.
Web links
- Aircraft accident data and report in the Aviation Safety Network (English)
- Cockpit recordings of the flight
- Determination result of NTSB (PDF, 61 kB)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Final report Flash Airlines Flight 604. (PDF, 38.0 MB) Egyptian Ministry of Transport / BEA / NTSB, March 25, 2006, accessed on August 6, 2011 .
- ↑ https://www.appl-lachaise.net/appl/article.php3?id_article=2944
- ↑ monument for the 2004 flash airlines flight 604 - Photo de Real Egypt Tours, Le Caire - Tripadvisor. Retrieved May 14, 2020 (fr-BE).
Coordinates: 27 ° 50 ′ 0 ″ N , 34 ° 23 ′ 0 ″ E