Sol Líneas Aéreas flight 5428

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Sol Líneas Aéreas flight 5428
Sol bew.jpg

An identical Saab 340A from the SOL Líneas Aéreas
Accident summary
Accident type Flow stall under icing conditions
place about 30 km southwest of Los Menucos, Río Negro Province , ArgentinaArgentinaArgentina 
date May 18, 2011
Fatalities 22nd
Survivors 0
Aircraft
Aircraft type SwedenSweden Saab 340A
operator ArgentinaArgentina Sol Líneas Aéreas
Mark ArgentinaArgentina LV-CEJ
Departure airport Rosario Airport , Argentina
ArgentinaArgentina 
1. Stopover Cordoba Airport , Argentina
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2. Stopover Mendoza Airport , Argentina
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3. Stopover Neuquén Airport , Argentina
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Destination airport Comodoro Rivadavia Airport , ArgentinaArgentinaArgentina 
Passengers 19th
crew 3
Lists of aviation accidents

The Sol Líneas Aéreas flight 5428 (flight number: OSL5428 ) was a domestic scheduled flight of the Argentine regional airline Sol Líneas Aéreas from Rosario to Comodoro Rivadavia . On May 18, 2011, a Saab 340A had an accident on the flight after stalling under icing conditions. 22 people were killed in the accident. As of May 2020, it was the worst aircraft accident involving a Saab 340.

plane

The affected machine was a Saab 340A from Swedish production with the serial number 340A-025 . The machine was finally assembled in 1985 and completed its maiden flight on April 25, 1985 , registered for the manufacturer with the aircraft registration SE-E25 . On May 30, 1985 the machine with the aircraft registration N344CA was delivered to Comair , on June 21, 1985 the Connecticut National Bank was entered as lessor in the registration papers. The leasing contract ended on June 13, 1996 and the machine was returned to its lessor, which was meanwhile the Mitsui company . From October 1996, the machine was to the Chicago Express Airlines leased, from December 1996 to Express Airlines I . At the latter airline, the machine was re-registered in February 1997 to the aircraft registration N112PX. With the renaming of the airline to Pinnacle Airlines , the machine was transferred to the fleet of this airline on May 8, 2002. In July 2003 the machine was returned to the lessor, which was now Aerocentury . From July 17, 2003, the machine was leased to Fina Air from Puerto Rico before it came back to the Aerocentury . From May 25, 2006, the aircraft was leased to Corporate Express Airlines before it was decommissioned and stored in March 2007. In July 2010 the machine was sold to the Sol Líneas Aéreas and approved with the last aircraft registration LV-CEJ . The twin-engine medium-range aircraft was equipped with two turbo-prop type General Electric CT7-5A2 equipped. By the time of the accident, the machine had completed a total of 41,422 operating hours, which accounted for 44,477 take-offs and landings.

Passengers and crew

The last segment of the flight to Comodoro Rivadavia had taken 19 passengers, including a child. There was a three-person crew on board the machine, consisting of a flight captain, a first officer and a flight attendant. The 45-year-old flight captain Juan Raffo had 6,133 hours of flight experience, 2,187 hours of which he had flown with the Saab 340. The 37-year-old first mate Adriano Bolatti had 1,342 hours of flight experience, 288 of which he had flown with the Saab 340.

Flight plan and flight history

Flight 5428 should take off from Rosario Airport and go to Comodoro Rivadavia Airport . On the way stops were at the airport Córdoba , the Mendoza airport and the Neuquén airport provided.

The machine took off from Rosario at 5:35 p.m. local time. The first three flight segments were flown without any special incidents. At 8:05 p.m. the machine took off from Neuquén for the last flight segment to Comodoro Rivadavia.

the accident

The last leg of the flight was flown in the dark and under instrument flight conditions and in an area without ultrashort wave reception. While climbing to 19,000 feet, the machine flew through a weather zone with severe icing conditions. The pilots abandoned the climb at an altitude of 17,800 feet and left the machine at that altitude for nine minutes. They began a descent to 14,000 feet, but within the next seven minutes the icing conditions worsened significantly. Shortly afterwards, the pilots lost control of the machine. The Saab fell to the ground and hit between the villages of Los Menucos and Prahuaniyeu in the Río Negro province . Eyewitnesses saw a low-flying machine and shortly afterwards heard an explosion and saw a column of black smoke rising. The fire brigade reached the crash site after three hours and found no survivors.

Accident investigation

The Junta de Investigaciones de Accidentes de Aviación Civil (JIAAC) took over the aircraft accident investigation after the crash. It published an interim report in September 2011 and the final report on the accident in March 2015. The JIAAC investigators found that the machine had flown into a zone with such strong icing conditions that they exceeded the efficiency of the machine's de-icing system. It was also found that the crew had been given a weather report that incorrectly forecast only light icing conditions. Investigators concluded that the crash was caused by a stall due to wing freezing. However, the stall was avoidable and was caused in particular by the fact that the pilots had allowed the airspeed of the machine to drop below the stall speed. When the stick shaker activated, the pilots did not respond with a stall avoidance maneuver because they misinterpreted the vibrations of the control horn as a consequence of the icing. The investigators complained that the engines had never been set to full thrust. The handling of the engine power and the flight speed by the crew was thus inadequate.

swell

Coordinates: 41 ° 5 ′ 16 ″  S , 67 ° 56 ′ 53 ″  W.