Kish Air Flight 7170

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Kish Air Flight 7170
Fokker 50, Kish Air AN0694759.jpg

A structurally identical Fokker 50 in the painting of the Kish Air
Accident summary
Accident type Loss of control on final approach due to accidental activation of the thrust reverser
place Al Muwafja , United Arab EmiratesUnited Arab EmiratesUnited Arab Emirates 
date February 10, 2004
Fatalities 43
Survivors 3
Injured 3
Aircraft
Aircraft type NetherlandsNetherlands Fokker 50
operator IranIran Kish Air
Mark IranIran EP-LCA
Departure airport Kisch Airport , Kisch , Iran
IranIran 
Destination airport Sharjah Airport , United Arab Emirates
United Arab EmiratesUnited Arab Emirates 
Passengers 40
crew 6th
Lists of aviation accidents

The Kish Air flight 7170 (flight number IATA : Y97170 , ICAO : IRK7170 , call sign: KISH AIR 7170 ) was an international scheduled flight of the Kish Air from the island of Kish for Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. On February 10, 2004 there was a serious accident involving a Fokker 50 on this flight near the destination airport , in which 43 people were killed and there were only three survivors. It is the most serious aircraft accident involving a Fokker 50 (as of May 2020).

plane

The aircraft in question during its service life at Lufthansa CityLine

The aircraft concerned was a Fokker 50 with serial number 20273 , which was built at the Fokker plant at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol and which made its maiden flight on January 25, 1993. The machine was first put into operation for the test flight with the Dutch aircraft registration PH-LXM , on October 22, 1993 it was then delivered to Lufthansa CityLine , where it received the registration D-AFFJ . As of December 12, 1996, the aircraft belonged to the Air Nostrum fleet and was operated there with the EC-GKU license . The Kish Air took over the machine on 1 March 2002 and had them as EP-LCA to. The twin-engine short-range aircraft was equipped with two turboprop engines of the type Pratt & Whitney Canada PW125B and propellers of the manufacturer Dowty equipped. By the time of the accident, the machine had completed 20,466 operating hours, which accounted for 19,845 take-offs and landings.

Passengers and crew

40 passengers had taken the flight from Kish to Sharjah. There was a six-person crew on board the machine, consisting of a flight captain, a first officer and four flight attendants.

The 48-year-old flight captain was an Iranian citizen and sat in the pilot's left seat on the flight. In addition to the Fokker 50, he had also flown Fokker F27-500 , Fokker F28 and military aircraft. His accumulated flight experience was 6,440 hours, of which he had completed 1,516 hours with the Fokker 50.

The 50-year-old first officer was also an Iranian citizen and sat in the right pilot's seat on the flight. In addition to the Fokker 50, he had flight experience with the aircraft types Fokker F27-500 and military aircraft such as the Lockheed C-130 Hercules . His accumulated flight experience amounted to 3,978 flight hours, of which he had completed 517 hours with the Fokker F27.

Flight history

The machine took off with 40 passengers and six crew members in Kisch. The flight captain was the pilot flying . The weather conditions in Sharjah were good and visibility was good. During the descent at an altitude of 2,500 feet and shortly before the start of the approach, the pilot unexpectedly handed control of the machine to the first officer. The first officer was reluctant to accept this and stated that he was not sure whether he would be able to make a VOR / DME approach to Sharjah. This statement was inconsistent with the first officer's flying experience and could indicate either cultural or professional tensions. The captain insisted that the first officer fly the aircraft and encouraged him and gave him instructions during the approach. The pilots received clearance to approach runway 12 at Sharjah Airport.

the accident

At the beginning of the approach, the aircraft was flown slightly outside the parameters of the prescribed approach profile. The speed was 190 knots (approx. 352 km / h). The buoyancy aids and the landing gear were not extended. Before reaching the decision height, the speed should have dropped to 130 knots (approx. 241 km / h) and the buoyancy aids should have been extended to 10 degrees. The machine reached the decision height while idling, the first officer switched off the autopilot four nautical miles from the runway and gave at a speed of 186 knots (approx. 344 km / h, maximum 180 knots would be allowed, approx. 333 km / h) been) the instruction to extend the buoyancy aids to 10 degrees and at 185 knots (approx. 343 km / h, maximum 170 knots, approx. 315 km / h would have been) the instruction to extend the landing gear. The master extended the buoyancy aids to 25 degrees, with the first officer revoking this configuration at 183 knots (approx. 339 km / h). Such a configuration was permissible at speeds of a maximum of 160 knots (approx. 296 km / h). Immediately afterwards the captain took control of the machine.

On the final approach to runway 12 in Sharjah, the left engine went into maximum reverse thrust, while the right remained in forward thrust. The machine went into a dive and rolled to the left. The machine struck 2.6 nautical miles from the runway next to a road and a residential area on undeveloped sandy terrain, broke apart and caught fire.

Rescue operation

There was a big explosion on impact. The fire immediately spread over the remains of the cockpit section. It moved on to the middle cabin area and completely destroyed it. It took 25 minutes for the rescue and fire engines to arrive at the scene of the accident. Access for the rescue workers and police units to the crash site was obstructed by numerous private vehicles and people. The fire was extinguished about 30 minutes after the accident, but the debris smoldered for another hour.

A witness who had reached the crash site after a short time said that the central trunk section was still intact when he arrived and that he could hear people inside screaming for help. An attempt was made to get to these passengers through the front door, but the front door did not move as it appeared to be deformed. The fire obstructed access to the cabin through the ripped open parts of the hull. The fire spread very quickly, forcing first responders to move away from the machine. A photo taken about 10 minutes after the accident showed that the cabin was completely surrounded by fire. There might have been more survivors if access to the cabin had been possible. The survivors could not remember their seating positions, most likely they had been sitting in the middle part of the main cabin behind the wing.

Victim

The entire six-man crew was killed in the accident, and 37 of the 40 passengers died. There were originally four survivors, one of whom died on the way to the hospital. The other three survivors suffered serious injuries.

The wreck of the machine a year after the accident
nationality Killed Survivors total
Passengers crew
AlgeriaAlgeria Algeria 2 0 0 2
BangladeshBangladesh Bangladesh 1 0 0 1
CambodiaCambodia Cambodia 1 0 0 1
EgyptEgypt Egypt 3 0 1 3
United Arab EmiratesUnited Arab Emirates United Arab Emirates 1 0 0 1
PhilippinesPhilippines Philippines 1 0 1 1
IndiaIndia India 13 0 0 13
IranIran Iran 11 6th 1 17th
NepalNepal Nepal 1 0 0 1
NigeriaNigeria Nigeria 1 0 0 1
SudanSudan Sudan 1 0 0 1
SyriaSyria Syria 1 0 0 1
total 37 6th 3 46

Accident investigation

After the crash, an international commission of inquiry took over the investigation of the accident. The Emirates General Civil Aviation Authority as the investigative authority of the state in which the crash occurred, the Iranian civil aviation organization CAO as the authority of the licensing state, the Dutch transport safety authority as the competent authority in the country of manufacture, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada as the national authority in the Country of the engine manufacturer, the British Air Accidents Investigation Branch as the accident investigation authority in the country of manufacture of the propellers and the US National Transportation Safety Board as the manufacturer of the engine's slip control system .

A major role in the crash was ascribed to the flight captain. By unexpectedly insisting that the first officer carry out the final approach, he had created an atmosphere in which there was a collapse in crew resource management , in which standard procedures were disregarded and the approach was subsequently carried out at an excessive speed . An attempt to correct this excessively high approach speed has most likely resulted in another violation of standard procedures. Here, the thrust levers were switched to a speed range below idling, namely to ground operation and thus to a mode with unpredictable consequences. The resulting reverse thrust on one engine resulted in a loss of control on the final approach. The parameters of the flight data recorder indicated that the left propeller had gone into ground operation about one second before the right propeller. The speed parameters, on the other hand, indicated that both propellers were put into ground operation at the same time. The machine was likely rolling to the left due to the asymmetrical push. The left propeller then went into full reverse thrust, while the right propeller remained in the positive speed range. At the time of the accident, the unmodified design of the engine's slip control did not guarantee adequate protection against the captain's wrong decision.

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