Tropical Airways Flight 1301

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tropical Airways Flight 1301
Let L-410UVP-E Turbolet, Tortug 'Air JP7735003.jpg

A similar Let L-410 of the Haitian Tortug 'Air
Accident summary
Accident type Loss of control after opening the cargo door in flight
place 2 km southwest of Cap-Haïtien Airport , Haiti
HaitiHaiti 
date August 24, 2003
Fatalities 21st
Survivors 0
Aircraft
Aircraft type CzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakia Let L-410UVP-E
operator HaitiHaiti Tropical Airways
Mark HaitiHaiti HH-PRV
Departure airport Cap-Haïtien Airport , Haiti
HaitiHaiti 
Destination airport Port-de-Paix Airport , Haiti
HaitiHaiti 
Passengers 19th
crew 2
Lists of aviation accidents

The Tropical Airways flight 1301 (flight number IATA : M71301 , ICAO : TBG1301 ) was a domestic airliner of Haitian airline Tropical Airways from Cap-Haitien to Port-de-Paix . On August 24, 2003, a Let L-410UVP-E had an accident on this flight , killing all 21 people on board. After the Sacha Awia flight 301 , it is the second most serious incident involving a Let L-410 (as of April 2020).

plane

The affected machine was a Let L-410UVP-E made in Czechoslovakia . The L-410 prevailed against the Soviet Beriev Be-32 in a tender by the Council for Mutual Economic Aid (Comecon) and was therefore used by airlines from almost all Comecon member countries. The machine had the serial number 872001 and the model serial number 20-01 , it was finally assembled in 1987 at the LET plant in Kunovice . The machine was first delivered to the Soviet Union Air Force in September 1987 , where it entered service with the 2001 military aircraft registration , which it retained when it was in service with the Russian Air Force after the collapse of the Soviet Union . The machine was then sold to a customer who approved the Let in June 1994 with the aircraft registration S9-TBF from São Tomé and Príncipe . In August 1998 the machine was registered with the US registration number N888LT , and in February 1999 Hartford Holding took over the machine with the same registration number. In March 1999 Tropical Airways took over the machine and registered it with the Haitian registration HH-PRV . The twin-engine regional airliner was equipped with two Walter M601 E turboprop engines . By the time of the accident, the machine had completed a total operating performance of 2,982 operating hours, which accounted for 4,154 take-offs and landings.

Passengers and crew

19 passengers had taken the regional flight from Cap-Haïtien to Port-de-Paix . There was a two-person crew on board the machine, consisting of a flight captain and a first officer. No flight attendants were provided on the flight.

The 51-year-old flight captain was a Haitian citizen and was born in Port-au-Prince . From 1979 to 1984 he carried passengers and cargo in the role of flight captain and first officer with machines of the types Britten-Norman BN-2 Islander and de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter . From 1984 to 1991 he flew aircraft of the types Curtiss C-46 and Convair CV-440 in the functions of flight captain and first officer . From June 1995 to July 1996 the pilot was on board a GAF Nomad N-24 . He flew for Tropical Airways since December 1998 in the role of captain of the Let L-410 and Beechcraft 1900 aircraft . He had type ratings for the aircraft types Convair CV-240 , Convair CV-340 , Convair CV-440, Beechcraft 1900, Shorts 330 , Curtiss C-46 and Let L-410. The captain had 8,864 hours of flight experience, 701 of which he had in the cockpit of the Let L-410.

The 26-year-old first officer was a Spanish citizen and was born in Tarragona . He was hired by Tropical Airways in May 2003. The first officer had 500 hours of flight experience, of which he had completed 275 hours with the Let L-410.

the accident

The plane took off from runway 05 at Cap-Haïtien airport at 16:50 local time. During the initial climb, the air traffic controllers watched the front cargo door open automatically. When the air traffic controller wanted to notify the crew of their observation, they radioed to ask permission to return to the airport to close the cargo door. Clearance was given and air traffic control instructed the pilots to land with a tailwind to the right. The pilots initiated a left turn when they suddenly lost control of the machine. There was a stall , the Let crashed two kilometers southwest of the airport into a sugar cane field and exploded. Thick black smoke rose from the crash site.

After the crash

Residents and rescue workers rushed to the scene of the accident, but could not help the victims. All 21 occupants could only be rescued dead from the burned-out wreckage of the machine. Most of them were burned beyond recognition.

Accident investigation

Investigating the crash was made more difficult by the fact that the machine was not equipped with either a cockpit voice recorder or a flight data recorder . The investigation was based on an inspection of the wreckage of the aircraft and the voice recordings of radio communications with the air traffic controller. Some components could be extracted from the rubble for analysis. The propellers were checked by a delegation from the manufacturer Avia Hamilton and the Czech Civil Aviation Authority. Investigators found that the propellers were still spinning at high RPM on impact and none of them were in the sail position on impact. The position of the buoyancy aids was also analyzed. The investigative commission found that the flaps had been extended to the end position of 42 degrees.

The air traffic controller stated that the master appeared to be in control of the aircraft after the problem with the hold door occurred. The air traffic controller stated that the aircraft could have reached the airport. However, the let was flown at a much lower altitude than would have been the case with a conventional approach.

After reconstructing the incident, a test pilot from the manufacturer reported that the flaps of the aircraft involved in the accident had been fully extended when making a right turn at a low altitude. The machine was either fully loaded or overloaded, which meant that the speed decreased significantly due to the change in configuration. The investigators could not determine the total weight of the machine because the weight of the aircraft and the loaded cargo had not been documented. While the turn was being flown, the rudder could have been in an uncoordinated position, and the engines could also have generated asymmetrical thrust in this attitude. The combination of these factors could have increased aerodynamic drag to a critical level, leading to the stall.

The captain's file identified him as a qualified and experienced pilot. In the three months prior to the accident, he worked according to a shift schedule that included seven working days followed by seven days of rest. In August - the month in which the accident occurred - this shift schedule was deviated from. The master flew continuously from August 9 to 24 and was therefore overworked and possibly suffered from sleep deprivation as a result.

A contributing factor to the accident was also found to be poor crew resource management and, associated with this, poor coordination between the crew members.

swell

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jochen K. Beek: Airplanes of the world 1919-2000 , Motorbuchverlag, ISBN 3-613-02008-4

Coordinates: 19 ° 44 ′ 6 "  N , 72 ° 12 ′ 23"  W.