Flight accident involving a Shorts 360 at Brega

Flight accident involving a Shorts 360 at Brega
	A similar shorts 360
Accident summary
Accident type	Ditching after engine failure due to icing
place	Mediterranean Sea , 5 km from Brega , Libya
date	January 13, 2000
Fatalities	22nd
Survivors	19th
Injured	17th
Aircraft
Aircraft type	Shorts 360
operator	Avisto for Sirte Oil Company ;
Mark	HB-AAM
Departure airport	Tripoli Airport , Libya
Destination airport	Brega Airport , Libya
Passengers	38
crew	3
	Lists of aviation accidents

An aircraft accident involving a Shorts 360 occurred on January 13, 2000 when a Shorts 360 operated by the Swiss airline Avisto , which had been leased from the Libyan oil company Sirte Oil Company , crashed on a charter flight from Tripoli to Brega in the Mediterranean Sea . In the accident, 22 of the 41 people on board were killed.

plane

The aircraft concerned was a British-made Shorts 360 regional airliner . The aircraft concerned completed its maiden flight on December 4, 1989 with the test registration number G-BRMY and was delivered on August 28, 1990 with the aircraft registration number HB-AAM to the Swiss Avisto , based in Zurich and flying for the Sirte Oil Company . The twin-engine feeder aircraft was equipped with two Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-67R turboprop engines equipped with six-blade propellers from Hartzell Propeller . By the time of the accident, the machine had completed a total of 7138 operating hours.

crew

The crew consisted of a flight captain and a first officer, and there was also a flight attendant on board. The 42-year-old flight captain was a Libyan citizen. He held a Swiss commercial pilot's license and had a flying experience of 8,814 hours, of which 3,840 were with a Shorts 360. The 49-year-old first officer was also a citizen of Libya with a Swiss commercial pilot's license. His flying experience totaled 10,422 hours, of which he had completed 1950 hours with the Shorts 360. The Avisto company described both pilots as "very experienced". The 35-year-old flight attendant was a Tunisian national. In addition to the Shorts 360, all three crew members were also certified for the Fokker F28 .

Passengers

38 passengers had taken the flight, the majority of whom were workers from abroad who were employed by the Sirte Oil Company . Some were traveling with their families, with three children and an infant among the passengers. The passengers should be brought from the capital Tripoli to the place Brega , where an oil refinery of the Sirte Oil Company was. Passengers and crew came from eight different countries:

nationality	Passengers	crew	total
Canada Canada	2	0	2
Croatia Croatia	2	0	2
India India	3	0	3
Libya Libya	14th	2	16
Pakistan Pakistan	1	0	1
Philippines Philippines	3	0	3
Tunisia Tunisia	0	1	1
United Kingdom United Kingdom	13	0	13
total	38	3	41

Flight history

Before take-off from Tripoli, the pilots noticed a kerosene imbalance in the tanks. They pumped the kerosene around so that it was evenly distributed over the wing tanks and noted the process in the flight plan. The plane took off from Tripoli at 9:29 a.m. UTC (12:29 p.m. local time). On the flight to Brega, the crew again noticed an uneven distribution of the kerosene on board and initiated pumping until the fuel supplies were evenly distributed in the wing tanks at 14:17 local time (11:17 UTC). The descent from the cruising altitude of 7000 feet (approx. 2134 meters) began at 14:25 local time.

the accident

The descent began at 11:25 a.m. UTC. At 11:36 UTC the left engine suddenly failed. The master said to the first mate: “We have an engine failure!” The first mate noted that the oil pressure gauge had dropped. Less than 30 seconds later, the right engine also failed. The master instructed the first officer to extend the landing gear and spoilers and to shut off the engines. The pilots opted for a ditching , which was carried out with an angle of attack of 10 degrees. The nose section of the machine was completely destroyed. The tail fin was torn off on impact. Water seeped into the cabin as the machine began to sink. A British occupant was able to escape from the sinking machine after kicking in a cabin window and exiting the cabin through the window opening. The Shorts 360 finally sank three miles (about 5 kilometers) off the Libyan coast at a depth of about 38 meters in the Mediterranean Sea .

Rescue operation

After the crash, Libyan authorities immediately dispatched search and rescue teams to the crash site. The rescue operation was made difficult by difficult weather conditions. Fishing boats that were in the vicinity also participated in the rescue operation.

Victim

The captain and the first officer survived the accident, the flight attendant drowned. Of the 38 passengers, 21 died, including five British. The bodies of 21 victims could not be recovered, those of a child who was on board. Of the survivors, the two pilots and 11 passengers were seriously injured, six passengers suffered minor injuries.

Accident investigation

Rescue teams found the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder soon after the crash. The wreckage of the Shorts 360 was lifted nine days after the accident. The Swiss Safety Investigation Bureau (STSIB), the British Air Accident Investigation Branch , the National Transportation Safety Board from the United States and the Libyan Civil Aviation Authority (LYCAA) started investigations.

causes

Since air traffic control was able to confirm that the aircraft had been ditched, the investigations initially concentrated on the engine failure. The investigators initially suspected a lack of fuel. This variant could soon be ruled out, as the rescue teams and fishermen testified that kerosene was leaking from the machine at the scene of the accident.

While listening to the recordings of the voice recorder , the investigators found extremely unprofessional communication behavior on the part of the pilots, who during the flight kept talking about the flight characteristics of the Fokker F28 Fellowship and thus an unrelated topic. The captain of the machine had recently been promoted to captain and had acquired a type rating for the Fokker F28. The two pilots talked about the flight systems of the Fokker F28 for a large part of the flight. Presumably they were so distracted by the discussion that they overlooked the ice forming on the windshield of their machine. When they finally discovered the ice, they activated the switch for defrosting the pitot tubes and the windshield.

The engines were brought to England and examined there. They were checked for contaminated fuel, but no contamination was found. The investigators then investigated the hypothesis that the pilots switched off the other after one engine failed due to incorrect operation. No evidence could be found for this either.

Finally, the investigators became aware that the machine had flown into a thunderstorm cell before the crash. The outside temperatures inside the cell were −2 ° C. Although the pilots had activated parts of the de-icing system, they forgot to activate the de-icing switch for the engines. Because the switch was not actuated, the engines iced up in flight. When the machine sank to an altitude of less than 2000 feet (approx. 610 meters), the resulting ice layer melted on the engines, whereupon the meltwater flooded them. As a result, the engines completely failed.

All dead died from drowning. The investigators attributed this on the one hand to the lack of life jackets on board the machine. Despite the non-existent vests, there were signs on the seat backs where it was read that they could be found under the seats. On the other hand, the investigators suspected that many passengers had drowned because they were not aware that the seat cushions of the Shorts 360 are designed in such a way that they can be used as rafts in the event of a ditching . The flight attendant did not inform the passengers about this safety feature of the Shorts 360.

swell

30.39095 19.48255Coordinates: 30 ° 23 '27.4 " N , 19 ° 28' 57.2" E