Tuninter Flight 1153
Coordinates: 38 ° 24 ′ 29 ″ N , 13 ° 30 ′ 31 ″ E
| Tuninter Flight 1153 | |
|---|---|
 The TS-LBC , same type as the TS-LBB aircraft involved in the accident |
|
| Accident summary | |
| Accident type | Ditching |
| place | Mediterranean Sea , near Sicily |
| date | August 6, 2005 |
| Fatalities | 16 |
| Survivors | 23 |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | ATR 72-200 |
| operator | Tuninter (renamed Tunisair Express) |
| Mark | TS-LBB |
| Surname | At-Tāhir al-Haddād |
| Departure airport | Bari airport |
| Destination airport | Djerba airport |
| Passengers | 35 |
| crew | 4th |
| Lists of aviation accidents | |
The Tuninter flight 1153 was a scheduled flight of the airline Tuninter from Bari , Italy, to Djerba , Tunisia. On August 6, 2005, the aircraft had to make an emergency landing off the Sicilian coast near Palermo due to lack of fuel . The aircraft was flown by 45-year-old flight captain Chafik Al Gharbi and 28-year-old co-pilot Ali Kebaier Al-Aswad.
plane
The aircraft was an ATR 72-200 built by the French aircraft manufacturer Avions de Transport Régional . Shortly before, a new fuel gauge had been installed, which, however, displayed the level incorrectly.
Flight history
The plane took off from Bari Airport in Italy and was supposed to land on the island of Djerba in Tunisia. The cockpit crew consisted of the flight captain Shafik Al Gharbi and his chief officer Ali Kebaier Lassoued. On the night before the flight, a fuel gauge that was not suitable for the ATR 72-200 and was designed for the much smaller ATR 42 machine was installed on the machine as part of maintenance work. This fake instrument now showed more fuel than was actually in the tanks. At an altitude of 23,000 ft (7,000 m), the right engine initially failed due to lack of fuel. When the left engine failed shortly afterwards due to insufficient fuel, the machine lost more and more altitude.
The pilots then declared an air emergency and requested clearance for an emergency landing at the airport in Palermo. In addition, an aircraft technician was asked for support who happened to be on board as a passenger and who, together with the pilots, was now trying to find the cause of the total failure of the engines. However, due to the incorrect fuel gauge, the cockpit crew did not recognize that the empty fuel tanks were the reason for the failure of both engines. Instead, a technical defect was suspected and attempts were made several times to restart the engines while the machine was gliding with a course on Sicily and steadily losing altitude. The propellers had to remain in flight position to attempt to start the engines during the flight. However, this leads to high air resistance and reduced the distance that the aircraft could cover while gliding without propulsion. Since the take-off attempts were unsuccessful due to the empty tanks, the crew had to make an emergency landing with the non-powered aircraft 43 kilometers northeast of Palermo Airport, and the aircraft broke into three parts.
Investigations
In March 2009 the captain of the plane, Shafik Al Gharbi, was charged with manslaughter by an Italian court. The prosecutor alleged that after the engines failed, Al Gharbi failed to comply with safety regulations and instead prayed , according to the voice recorder .
In addition, there were inconsistencies in the refueling of the aircraft before the flight, as this was not carried out and documented in accordance with the regulations. The crew did not compare the amount of fuel filled with the amount of fuel displayed in the cockpit. Because of these discrepancies and the incorrect display, no one noticed that the plane was not sufficiently fueled for the flight to Djerba. If the refueling had taken place properly, the crew should have noticed from the documentation that the amount of fuel refueled did not match the amount displayed in the cockpit.
Due to the incorrect fuel gauge, the pilots did not know that they had run out of fuel and that any attempt to start the engines would be pointless. If the crew had decided to go into gliding flight immediately after the failure of both engines and to bring the propellers into the sail position , the machine could have continued to glide due to the lower air resistance and thus still reach the airport in Palermo. Instead, the pilots tried several times to start the engines with the propellers in flight position, whereby the air resistance is higher and the machine sank faster as a result.
consequences
Italy banned Tuninter's air traffic over Italian airspace when it was discovered that the wrong fuel gauge had actually been installed in the aircraft. In the plane crash, 15 of the 35 passengers and one flight attendant died. Tuninter compensated the families of the victims and the survivors with € 20,000 each. An aircraft technician who had gone into the cockpit after the engine failed to assist the pilot in troubleshooting also died on board. However, this is counted as a passenger because he happened to be on board and was therefore not a member of the flight.
Media processing
The crash of flight 1153 was the subject of the sixth episode of the seventh season of the Canadian documentary series Mayday - Alarm im Cockpit , which was broadcast in Germany under the title Emergency Landing on the Water (original title: Falling Fast ).
Similar incidents
- Air Canada Flight 143
- Air Transat Flight 236
- Avianca flight 052
- Hapag-Lloyd flight 3378
- LaMia flight 2933
Individual evidence
- ↑ FINAL REPORT. (PDF) Accident involved aircraft ATR 72, registration marks TS-LBB Ditching off the coast of Capo Gallo (Palermo - Sicily), August 6th 2005. (No longer available online.) ANSV , archived from the original on May 14, 2011 ; accessed on May 27, 2015 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b Tuninter 1153 plane crash at BBC News , published March 24, 2009, accessed May 19, 2015
- ↑ a b Incorrect fuel gauge installed in ATR-72 , published on September 15, 2005, accessed on May 19, 2015 (English)
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCrZwctnNWo
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCrZwctnNWo
- ↑ Consequences of the crash , published on March 24, 2009, accessed on May 19, 2015 (English)
- ↑ Families of the victims receive remuneration , published on August 16, 2005, accessed on May 19, 2015 (English)
