Aviation
6 August 2005 Sicily, (TS-LBB)
At least five people were killed when a Tunisian passenger plane made an emergency landing in the sea off the coast of the Italian island of Sicily. The Tunis Air passenger plane was thought to be carrying at least 35 passengers. Several passengers were reported to have been rescued; some had been seen in the water by emergency services. The plane was on its way from the southern Italian town of Bari to the Tunisian resort island of Djerba. A full search and rescue operation is now under way at the crash site some 30 km (18 miles) off the Sicilian coast. Two passengers were seen on the wing of the plane, according to one report. The pilot of the plane advised air traffic control in the Sicilian town of Palermo that he had been trying to make an emergency landing at Palermo airport, but came down in the sea instead. “The plane had engine problems and was trying to land in Palermo and had to land in the sea,” a spokeswoman for ENAV, Italy’s air safety agency, told the Associated Press news agency. The aircraft is said to be an ATR-42 twin-engine turbo-prop aircraft which can carry up to 50 passengers.
7 August 2005. Survivors of an aircraft crash that killed at least 13 people described today how they swam for their lives after the Tunisian holiday charter flight ditched in the sea off Sicily and broke apart. The ATR 72 turbo-prop aircraft, with 39 people on board, was taking Italian holidaymakers from Bari in south-east Italy to the popular Tunisian resort island of Djerba when it went down in the sea yesterday after engine problems. “At a certain point we realised one of the engines had stalled,” said passenger Rosanna di Cesare who was going on holiday with her boyfriend and his mother.“After a few minutes the other one stalled too and the plane started to lose altitude. Suddenly we hit and then it all went dark and the plane split apart,” the 36-year-old from Taranto, near Bari, said. “My boyfriend and I managed to swim out of the plane. The sea was rough and I grabbed hold of one of the wings while my boyfriend continued to look for his mother.” The pilot told hospital staff after he was rescued from the wreckage that both the engines failed, forcing him to make an emergency landing at sea. The flight was operated by Tuninter, a subsidiary of Tunisair. “All of a sudden one of the engines stopped,” the pilot said, according to Mario Re, chief doctor at the emergency ward of Palermo’s Civico hospital. Less than an hour into the flight, the pilot made a distress call asking to land at Palermo, but the aircraft never made land and he was forced to put down 12 miles out at sea. All 34 passengers on the flight were Italian. Three people were still missing by midday today, according to Palermo’s chief magistrate Piero Grasso. Newspapers reported that several of the holiday makers had chosen Djerba instead of Sharm el Sheikh because of fears of terrorism at the Egyptian resort where bomb attacks killed at least 64 people last month. Investigators have begun probing the crash, and a team of experts from Italy’s air safety agency arrived in Palermo overnight to inspect the largest chunk of the fuselage which the coastguard had towed ashore. An ENAC official said the aircraft had passed safety inspections in Italy, most recently in March.
8 August 2005. Investigators were today focusing on whether tainted fuel or dwindling fuel supplies played a role in the crash of a Tunisian charter aircraft at sea that left at least 13 dead, officials said today. Investigators say it is rare for both engines to give out – in this case within minutes of each other. The head of Italy’s civil aviation agency ENAC, Vito Riggio,said authorities were investigating the possibility that the pilot failed to check how much fuel was on board or that the fuel gauge malfunctioned. “The plane’s fuel could have run out,” Riggio said. Other officials suggested impurities from the refuelling tanker could have contaminated the fuel supply and clogged the motors, the ANSA news agency reported. Thirteen people were killed and 23 survived Saturday’s (6 August) crash of the ATR-72 Tuninter charter aircraft, which was bound for the Tunisian resort of Djerba. The aircraft slammed into the choppy waters of the Mediterranean about ten miles north of Sicily as the pilot, realising he would not make it to the airstrip,brought it down on the water. Survivors said both engines went silent soon before impact. Rescue workers continued their search today for three people missing from the crash. Riggio said the result “was good” in tests for impurities in the type of fuel loaded into the aircraft in Bari, and that several other planes using the same fuel on Saturday experienced no problems. Other tests by Tunisian authorities on the fuel loaded onto the aircraft in Tunisia, where it originated, are pending, said Riggio, and the tanker that refuelled the aircraft before its departure from Bari was sequestered. The engines from the aircraft have been recovered, he said. Meanwhile, two officials from the Toulouse, France-based ATR aircraft manufacturer were heading to Italy to take part in the investigation, said spokesman Frederic Lahache. The search for two passengers and a mechanic continued for a third day in the seas around the point of the crash, said Palermo Port Authority Lt Antonino Indelicato. In Tunis, Tuninter’s director Mohamed Ali Tlili said the missing mechanic verified the aircraft’s functions before it took off from Bari. When the aircraft was experiencing problems “the captain called the mechanic into the cabin for help,” said Riggio. “He was not strapped in and therefore was thrown from the aircraft when it ditched into the sea.” Much of the wreckage, including the engines, was brought ashore on Saturday night,but Riggio said investigators had not decided whether they would try to haul up the remainder or try to retrieve the aircraft’s “black box” of instrument recordings, which apparently sank in the 4,000-foot-deep sea. “We have the engines, the fuel tanks, and the pilot and co-pilot are still alive. We have the most important elements,” Riggio said.
9 August 2005. Tuninter ATR 72- 202, TS-LBB, Bari to Djerba,reportedly developed engine problems at 1524, 6 August. The crew contacted Palermo for an emergency landing. They did not make it to Palermo and ditched in the sea around 1540 hours. Some 20 persons are said to have been rescued by coast guard vessels. Fourteen people have died and five are still missing.
7 September 2005. Italy’s Civil Aviation Authority today suspended a Tunisian airline from operating in Italy after an investigation found that one of its aircraft went down off Sicily last month because the wrong type of fuel gauge had been installed. The Tuninter ATR-72 (TS-LBB) hit the water near Palermo on 6 August, killing 16 people, after the aircraft ran out of fuel because the gauge was the wrong model and did not show that the tanks were nearly empty, according to ANSV, the Italian national agency for flight safety. The Civil Aviation Authority ENAC acted on the agency’s recommendation.“It’s not a hypothesis” that the fuel ran out, agency spokesman Cmdr. Aldalberto Pellegrino said. “It’s a fact.” The Tuninter charter, carrying 39 people, was flying from the Adriatic port of Bari to the Tunisian resort of Djerba. Twenty-three people, including the pilot, survived,and some of the passengers recounted how they heard one engine die, and then the other, before the small propeller aircraft went down. An ANSV investigation found that the fuel gauge installed in Tunisia on 5 August was actually designed for a smaller ATR-42 aircraft and could not read the larger aircraft’s fuel load correctly, Pellegrino said. “It was indicating more fuel than there was in the tanks,” he said. The pilot believed there were 1,984 pounds of fuel for each engine “when in fact there was none,” Pellegrino said. Tuninter said it was studying the investigation’s conclusions and had no immediate reaction. Prosecutors in Palermo investigating the accident had previously said the aircraft’s fuel tanks, which were recovered, were still well-stocked. However, Pellegrino said the tanks contained no fuel, only seawater. Separate tests on fuel from a tanker that restocked the aircraft before it took off from southern Italy did not contain impurities that could have caused the accident, Pellegrino said. “The fuel was clean, but unfortunately there was too little of it,” he said. ENAC said it was suspending authorisation for Tuninter to operate in Italy immediately and it asked the European Aviation Safety Agency to carry out urgent checks on procedures for the installation of fuel gauges on all ATR-42 and ATR-72 aircraft.
18 August 2005 Greece, (5B-DBY)
The Cypriot plane that crashed and killed all 121 people aboard flew on autopilot to its Athens destination – but passed thousands of feet above the airport runway, the chief accident investigator told The Associated Press today. Helios Airways Flight ZU522 then turned toward the sea, flying in a holding pattern for more than an hour before changing course again and crashing into a mountain north of Athens. Chief investigator Akrivos Tsolakis told AP that an air traffic control diagram showed the plane had flown on automatic pilot to the Greek capital’s international airport, but it was flying at 34,000 feet and turned south into a holding pattern over the island of Kea.“What troubles us is that the automatic pilot was functioning up to a certain point, and then it was disengaged, possibly by human action,”Tsolakis said. He said the automatic pilot had been programmed to fly the plane up to Athens’ airport and it was unclear how or why it was disengaged.“Possibly, there was human intervention. I’m not speaking with certainty, because I don’t have all the evidence yet,” Tsolakis stressed. Investigators are examining whether the 115 passengers and six-member crew aboard the Boeing 737-300 had lost consciousness, possibly just after takeoff. The aircraft appears to have flown from Cyprus to Athens on autopilot– a flight of about an hour and a half. Tsolakis’ comments were the first official confirmation that the autopilot was disengaged after the plane flew over the Athens airport. That could give credence to speculation that somebody tried to take control of the plane before it crashed. The strange circumstances of the flight – and disturbing scenes witnessed by F-16 fighter pilots sent to intercept the plane – have baffled authorities. Officials have said there were no indications of sabotage or terrorism. According to the government, the two F-16 fighter pilots – who first established visual contact with the plane while it was flying above Kea –reported seeing the co-pilot slumped over the controls, apparently unconscious. They said the pilot was not in his seat, and they later saw what appeared to be two people trying to regain control of the plane. Oxygen masks also were seen dangling from the ceiling of the passenger cabin. Tsolakis said investigators were still examining the possibility that those on board lost consciousness because of sudden cabin decompression. A six member team of coroners also was conducting toxicology tests on some of the bodies to determine whether the passengers and crew might have inhaled something – possibly carbon monoxide – that rendered them unconscious. Results of those tests were expected by the weekend. A total of 118 bodies have been recovered from the crash site. Crews were still searching for three bodies, but Kalogrias said they might never be found. Autopsy results on 26 bodies identified so far have shown passengers and at least four crew members – including the co-pilot –were alive, but not necessarily conscious, when the plane went down. The body of the plane’s German pilot has not been identified, and it was unclear whether he was one of the three still missing. Some answers could be provided by the contents of the plane’s flight data recorder, or black box, which has been sent to Paris for decoding.
31 August 2005. It has been reported in the local press today that about Cyprus Pounds 3.8 million (US$8.1 million) in Life Insurance and Personal Accident policies, is due to be paid to relatives of holders who died in the 14 August crash.
2 September 2005. Two Greek air traffic controllers face disciplinary procedures for allegedly failing to make contact with a Cypriot plane which went on to crash. They should have tried to hail the plane when it entered Greek air space, the Civil Aviation Authority said. But it said the alleged negligence did not directly contribute to the crash. In a statement about the disciplinary procedures, the civil aviation authority said all other personnel involved in handling Helios flight 522 had acted according to regulations.
7 September 2005. Alarms heard on a Cyprus passenger plane that crashed near Athens last month confused pilots, who did not realise there was a lack of oxygen in the cabin, the International Herald Tribune reported today. The German captain and his Cypriot co-pilot struggled to communicate effectively in English and misinterpreted the alarms, failing to identify problems with the pressurisation of the plane, the report said, citing sources close to the crash investigation. According to the newspaper, the crew first heard an alarm warning of a failure to pressurise but which they mistakenly thought was indicating a malfunction of their controls. A second alarm related to the air-cooling system went off minutes later, prompting the captain to leave his seat to try to turn it off. He quickly lost consciousness due to lack of oxygen, officials told the newspaper. An official involved in the investigation refused to comment on the report. “This is all speculation and until the official results of the inquiry are released they will remain only speculation,” the official told Reuters. Pilots of two Greek fighter jets that were escorting the plane until the crash have confirmed the crew was visibly unconscious and the captain was not in his seat minutes before fuel ran out and the aircraft rammed into a hillside. The failure of the plane to pressurise stemmed from maintenance the night before the flight, the report said. The maintenance crew apparently left a pressurisation controller rotary knob out of place and the crew did not catch the mistake during pre-flight checks the next day, it said.
7 September 2005. Cyprus’s Helios Airways denied a report today that the below-par language skills and the inexperience of one pilot contributed to last month’s crash of an Athens bound flight (Boeing 737-31S 5B-DBY)which resulted in the deaths of all 121 people on board. The daily International Herald Tribune said crash investigators believed the pilots’ inability to respond to warning signals, inexperience and poor communication skills in technical English, all contributed to the crash. However, asked whether he was confident the pilots were able to understand each other in English, Nicos Anastassiades of Helios replied: “Absolutely.” Anastassiades said:“I’ve spoken to both pilots and their English was of a good standard.”Citing sources close to the probe, they said an air system knob, incorrectly set during maintenance, prevented the Boeing from pressurising properly and the crew failed to notice the problem during pre-flight checks. As the aircraft ascended through 3,000 metres, cockpit voice recordings showed that an alarm sounded,which confused the pilots because of its dual purpose. The report said that before takeoff, the alarm warned of improper pre-flight settings. Afterwards, it meant that the cabin was not pressurising, and the pilots did not realise that. The sources said as the oxygen masks deployed while the aircraft continued to climb on autopilot, another alarm sounded, further confusing the pilots. It was at this point that the pilots realised they did not possess any shared language well enough to discuss complex technical problems, according to the report,which described Cyprus co-pilot Pambos Charalambous as young and inexperienced. The sources said for normal flight operations, both had adequate command of English – the accepted default language for pilots – but they had difficulty working together to solve the unexpected technical problems they faced. Anastassiades also defended German pilot Hans Jurgen Mertens, 58, saying he was “up to scratch.” “The German pilot was very capable. He possessed all the relevant certificates. He was in his second season with us and had more than 17,500 hours flying time.” The spokesperson said Helios did not want to speculate on the causes of the crash. According to the IHT report,Mertens left his seat to try to fix the alarm problem, at a time when oxygen was already becoming thin. The report also said the crash of the aircraft –after a long period in an automatic holding pattern – came when one of its two engines cut out because fuel was running low.
18 August 2005 Martinique (HK-4374X)
Prosecutors in Martinique prepared a manslaughter inquiry today into the crash of a West Caribbean Airways jet as French experts began identifying the remains of the 160 victims of the accident. The Colombian charter airliner was carrying tourists home to Martinique from Panama on Tuesday (16 August) when it reported failures in both engines and minutes later plunged into a remote farm in western Venezuela. Most of the 152 passengers on West Caribbean flight 708 were Martinique government officials who had been on holiday with their families. The eight crew members were Colombian. French investigators, experts and doctors arrived in Venezuela late yesterday along with mobile morgues to join the investigation and prepare for hundreds of family members who will travel to identify their relatives this week. Recovery workers scoured for the last bodies in the twisted fuselage, which lies scattered across waterlogged fields near the Colombia frontier. Authorities said today they had only identified three bodies so far and many corpses in the morgue were mutilated by the impact. As recovery workers picked through wreckage, prosecutors in Martinique were preparing to open a manslaughter inquiry into the crash with the agreement of French Justice Minister Pascal Clement, a French legal source said. West Caribbean’s safety and aircraft maintenance record is now coming under increasing scrutiny. Colombian authorities said they had suspended the airline’s flights while they reviewed previous West Caribbean inspections. The MD-82 airliner that crashed had passed a Colombian safety check on Monday (15 August)and cleared two inspections while on French territory. But the airline has been penalized for excessive weight and safety violations. An audit by Colombian authorities into West Caribbean, which operates two McDonnell Douglas MD-81s,two ATR42s and several smaller aircraft, found a lack of crew training,incorrect use of flight logs and maintenance problems. The audit also said the airline failed to properly check routes or register flights and crew time, and that it exceeded permitted flight times. Capt. Alberto Padilla, president of the Colombian Association of Civil Aviation, said there was a lack of qualified personnel to properly inspect aircraft in Colombia. “We have to be careful with air safety in Colombia. They are doing their best, but we must improve it,”he said. Venezuelan civil aviation investigators are working with Colombian and French authorities to see if the flight data recorder, cockpit voice recorder and tests will establish how both engines of the MD-82 could have failed. Investigators will focus on the flight data recorder, which should be able to pinpoint engine performance. Failure of one engine is not unusual but it is rare for both to fail. Experts said that could point to fuel starvation, fuel quality problems, maintenance or crew handling of the engines.
24 AugustPeru, (OB-1809P)
A Boeing 737-200 (OB-1809P) has crashed in Peru’s Amazon jungle killing at least 40 people and injuring many more. The death toll could rise even further, with the country’s President, Alejandro Toledo, saying 70 to 80 were dead. Reporters at the scene have said the dead include many children and those injured sustained burns and fractures. The Boeing 737-200 operated by the Tans airline was carrying about 100 people on an internal flight from the capital, Lima, when it went down in a storm. “There were between 20 and 30 survivors,” Mr Toledo said. The crash happened at about 1620, local time,35 km from Pucallpa, which is 490 km north-east of Lima. “It seems it was a matter of the weather. Ten minutes before we were to land in Pucallpa, the plane began to shake a lot,” said passenger Tomas Ruiz. Another survivor,William Zea, who sustained a burned hand in the crash said “the plane had problems and we fell”.
24 August 2005. A Tans Boeing 737-200 (OB-1809P) has crashed in Peru’s Amazon jungle, with at least 40 of the 100 on board now known to have died. The aircraft was on an internal flight from Lima to Pucallpa when it made an emergency landing in bad weather. The death toll had initially been put as high as 70, but local officials now say 40 bodies have been recovered. Sixteen foreigners, including 11 Americans, were on board when the plane crashed yesterday afternoon. Flight TJ204 had 92 passengers, including eight crew, 11 US citizens, two Italians, one Colombian and one Spaniard. The aircraft came down in a swamp just five kilometres from Pucallpa airport at 1506 hours (2006, UTC). After a stop in Pucallpa the plane had been due to travel on to Iquitos in the northern jungle near the Colombian and Brazilian borders, a popular tourist destination. Although the cause of the crash is not yet known, a storm had just broken as the plane came in to land, witnesses said. A Tans spokesman said that“preliminary information” indicated that wind shear caused by violent crosswinds could be to blame. It is not yet known whether the pilot is among the survivors. The search of the crash site has now been abandoned for the night,and will resume early this morning. Police said that survivors suffered severe burns and broken limbs.
25 August 2005. Rescue workers with machetes hacked through swamps today, to search for bodies in the wreckage of a TANS Boeing 737-200 (OB-1809P)that crashed in Peru’s northern jungle, killing at least 41 people including foreign tourists. Police and fire-fighters knee-deep in water pulled five bodies from wreckage as the search restarted at daybreak. The airline said 57 people survived the crash but authorities did not expect to find more passengers alive. The TANS aircraft, carrying 92 passengers, came down in swamps 1.8 miles from Pucallpa Airport as it tried to land yesterday in heavy storms. The flight was due to fly on to the Amazon city of Iquitos, a popular tourist destination. “We’ve also found five more survivors and that takes the number of survivors to 57. Two people are still missing and there are 41 dead,”TANS executive Jorge Belevan said. TANS said 11 US citizens were on board, along with two Italians, a Colombian, an Australian and a Spanish woman. Local authorities said the death toll could still rise because of the difficult terrain for searchers near Pucallpa, 490 miles from Lima. An America Television reporter said the aircraft debris was scattered over a 5,300-square-foot area.“It’s very inaccessible territory. The fuselage is totally shattered. We just have to keep looking,” Luis Aldana, mayor of the nearby village of Portillo, said. Police said an Italian man died in the crash, but the Italian Foreign Ministry in Rome said it was not aware of an Italian who had died. RPP radio and police said an American man and a Colombian woman also died in the crash but TANS declined to comment. TANS said the aircraft, built in 1983 and leased from a South African company, made an emergency landing and did not crash. Experts said the harsh weather at the time of landing meant there was little the two pilots could have done to avoid the accident. About ten minutes before landing, the aircraft was caught in a fierce storm that was unusual for the time of year, and it went down in flames, survivors said. “Those cross winds produce air currents that go up and down and a pilot simply cannot fly in such conditions,” John Elliot, president of the Peruvian pilots association, said. The airline said its flights continued as normal on Wednesday.
25 August 2005At least 58 people managed to escape a flaming Peruvian airliner that splintered as it crash-landed in the Amazon jungle, killing 37. One aviation expert called it a “miracle” that so many walked away. TANS airline said wind shear may have forced the pilot’s emergency landing attempt. The Boeing 737-200 was carrying 98 people, including six crew members,on a domestic flight from the Peruvian capital of Lima to the Amazon city of Pucallpa, company spokesman Jorge Belevan said today. The plane’s pilot was among the dead; of the crew, only two flight attendants survived. Belevan said three missing people might include survivors from Pucallpa who returned home after the crash without receiving medical assistance. Television images of the crash site showed mutilated bodies being retrieved from a marsh near the Pucallpa airport where the pilot had attempted an emergency landing. The fuselage was shattered and pieces strewn along a 1,640-foot path made by the plane as it crash-landed. “A plane is totally destroyed and more than 50 per cent of the passengers have survived,” John Elliot, an experienced Peruvian pilot and aviation expert, said in an interview with The Associated Press, calling it “a miracle.” Jose Leandro Vivas, 43, a Peruvian-American from the Brooklyn borough of New York, survived the crash along with his three daughters, his brother and his sister-in-law. “We jumped out the plane and unfortunately we were thigh deep in the marsh water. It was just mud,” Vivas said Wednesday. “We had to practically crawl out of there and try to get to some high ground.” Yuri Salas, 38, also walked to safety after crawling from the wreckage. “I felt a strong impact and a light and fire and felt I was in the middle of flames around the cabin, until I saw to my left a hole to escape through,” he said. He said he heard another person shouting to him to keep advancing because the plane was going to explode.“The fire was fierce despite the storm,” he said. “Hail was falling and the mud came up to my knees.” The pilot began his approach to the airport in torrential rains and strong winds, which passengers said began rocking the plane ten minutes before the scheduled landing yesterday afternoon. Four miles from the airstrip, he attempted to make an emergency landing, TANS said, after wind shear apparently pushed his plane close to the ground. The pilot apparently aimed for the marsh to soften the impact, but the aircraft broke apart in the landing, strewing pieces of fuselage as it skidded over the boggy ground. Belevan credited the expertise of the pilots and insisted the plane did not crash. “The plane made an emergency landing and the accident occurred during the emergency landing,” he said. But Elliot and Victor Girao, a former president of Peru’s Association of Pilots, said the crash appeared to be due to pilot error. Elliot said the pilot should have opted to avoid the storm and land at another airport. Both said the pilot was flying too close to the ground while making the approach to the airport from four miles out, making it difficult to control the aircraft against wind shear. “They were coming in very low, looking for the airstrip,” Girao said. Search teams have recovered the plane’s cockpit flight data recorder, said Pablo Arevalo, a prosecutor in Pucallpa. Among the dead were at least four foreigners– an American man and woman, a Spanish woman and a Colombian woman, said Manuel Rodriguez Rojas, a government identification expert sent to Pucallpa to help identify the dead. He identified the Americans as Stephen Michael Lotti,28, through his boarding pass, and Sherra Young Gay through a visa card found on her body. Many bodies could not immediately be identified.
26 August 2005. Hundreds of people have been combing through the wreckage of a Peruvian plane, possibly hampering an ongoing investigation into the crash. The knee-deep mud is reportedly littered with thousands of banknotes,presumably pay flown in for police in the Amazon city of Pucallpa, but some people were leaving the site carrying seemingly useless objects as well as sensitive electronic equipment. A US aviation expert, Paul Czysz, later said the pieces could have been crucial to the investigation into the circumstances of the accident. “You’re depriving the investigating team of a piece of information they might need,” he said, referring to the insert panel, which might have been part of the cockpit controls, but the dozens of local police,air force and army officers deployed at the site seemed unfazed by the pillaging. “We are verifying that all the bodies have really been recovered,” said Air Force Commander William Rodriguez, who is in charge of security at the site. “If these people want to search for things, perhaps they’ll encounter another body,” he added. So far, the plane’s data recorder has been recovered, but the search continues for the cockpit voice recorder. Several of the scavengers told Reuters the authorities had offered a reward for whoever found the black boxes, but police could not confirm this. The search continues for three people who are still unaccounted for. The airline believes they might have been locals who survived the ordeal and went home without seeking medical assistance.
30 August 2005. The missing flight data recorder from a Peruvian Boeing 737-200 (OB-1809P) that crash-landed last week has been recovered, turned in by a man who scavanged it from the wreckage, a prosecutor said today. The man had taken the data recorder home but handed it over to civil aviation investigators yesterday in exchange for a $500 reward posted by TANS Peru airlines. The box was opened but apparently had not suffered any alteration,(and) the optic fibre it contained hadn’t been damaged. A Peruvian passenger died over the weekend of cardiac arrest associated with skull fractures from the accident, raising the death toll to 40.
5 September 2005 Sumatra,(PK-RIM)
An Indonesian Boeing 737 operated by local carrier Mandala Airlines, with more than 100 people on board, crashed in a populated area near the Sumateran city of Medan today, Metro TV reported. A government spokesman in Medan said the incident occurred as the aircraft was taking off from the city’s airport but he had no further details. It was heading to Jakarta, Metro TV said.
5 September 2005. An Indonesian jetliner crashed into a crowded residential neighbourhood in the city of Medan shortly after takeoff today,killing all 117 on board and an unknown number on the ground, officials said. The Mandala Airlines Boeing 737 was heading to Jakarta when it crashed one minute after takeoff and burst into flames, said Transport Minister Hatta Radjasa. It was carrying at least 117 passengers and crew, said the airline’s acting president, Maj. Gen. Hasril Hamzah Tanjung. “They have all died,”Edi Sofyan, a government spokesman in Medan said. There were also casualties on the ground, he said, though he did not know how many. Smoke billowed from the burning debris and dozens of houses and at least ten cars were in flames or damaged. Hundreds of policemen, paramedics and residents were trying to evacuate victims. Syahrial Anas, a doctor overseeing the removal of charred bodies, said flames were hampering their efforts. Officials said one of the dead included the governor of North Sumatra province, who was heading to the capital for a meeting with the president. Mandala Airlines is a Jakarta-based domestic carrier founded in 1969 by a military-run foundation. Its 15-plane fleet consists mainly of 1970s-vintage Boeing 737-200 jets. In recent years, the financially troubled airline has been forced to cut services and fares to remain competitive. Tanjung said an investigation was being carried out into the cause of the crash. The aircraft was nearly 25 years old, he said, and received its last comprehensive service in June. It had flown more than 50,000 hours and was due to be retired in 2016.
5 September 2005. A Boeing 737-200 (PK-RIM) crashed in a residential area of Indonesia’s third biggest city just after take-off today, killing more than 100 people on board as well as 30 bystanders in an inferno on the ground. A spokesman for local carrier Mandala Airlines said several passengers had survived the crash in Medan, contradicting the city’s top rescue official who said all 117 on board died. The official Antara news agency put the number of survivors at six. The aircraft was carrying 112 passengers and five crew. “I could not believe it. After taking off, the plane really shook and then suddenly it plummeted to a main road on top of the cars below,”passenger Freddy Ismail told El Shinta radio station from hospital. His name was on the passenger manifest. Mandala’s director Asril Tanjung said the cause of the crash was being investigated, but added foul play was highly unlikely. Zainul Kahar, head of operations at Medan’s search and rescue agency, said 30 people on the ground were also killed. The aircraft slammed into the heart of a major residential area in the capital of North Sumatra province, breaking into pieces, setting fire to homes, cars and motorbikes, and sparking widespread panic, witnesses said. “I arrived around ten minutes after the accident. Burning bodies were everywhere,” one local reporter said from the scene.“Around ten houses were burnt, along with five to six minibuses. The plane was torn into pieces, we could only see the tail.” Among those on board the flight were the North Sumatra governor and his predecessor. Fierce flames licked at the wreckage as it lay on one of Medan’s main roads before fire crews were able to extinguish the blazes. Plumes of thick black smoke rose into the air. Kahar said some 20 homes were damaged by fire. Mandala’s Tanjung said the aircraft had been made in 1981 and was fit for eight more years of flying. It was not raining when the aircraft took off, witnesses said. “Temporarily,we are saying the cause is from take-off failure but we don’t know yet whether it was from engine trouble, human error or weather,” Tanjung said. The aircraft came down 500 metres from the runway in Medan, Transport Minister Hatta Radjasa told El Shinta radio station. It was en route to Jakarta. A few hours after the crash, heavy rain began to fall, hindering recovery efforts.
5 September 2005. A Mandala Airlines Boeing 737-200 (PK RIM) crashed in a busy residential area of Indonesia’s third biggest city just after take-off today, killing 102 people on board and 47 local residents in an inferno on the ground. Officials said 15 passengers in the tail section of the aircraft survived the crash in Medan, capital of North Sumatera. The Boeing was carrying 112 passengers and five crew on a flight to Jakarta. Transport Minister Hatta Radjasa said in Medan that the number of passengers and crew killed totalled 102, although he gave no breakdown. Officials earlier said 104 people on board had died. The death toll on the ground was 47, he added. Mandala director Asril Tanjung said the cause of the crash was being investigated but added foul play was highly unlikely. The aircraft crashed on a road in the heart of a residential area, breaking apart, setting fire to homes, cars and motorbikes. Officials said some 20 homes were damaged by fire.
6 September 2005. Investigators began a probe into the cause of the crash of Mandala Airlines Boeing 737-200 (PK-RIM) yesterday that killed at least 149 people, including dozens on the ground who lived in a crowded neighbourhood in the city of Medan, officials said. Human error and mechanical failure are among the possibilities being explored in the crash, said Setio Rahardjo,chairman of the National Transportation Safety Committee. Rahardjo said that the aircraft’s black box recorder had been recovered and that investigators hoped it would yield clues. The jet, which was built in 1981 and underwent comprehensive maintenance in June, hit the ground nose first shortly after take-off, officials said. It was bound for Jakarta with a full load of 112 passengers and five crew members.
7 September 2005. A preliminary investigation into the crash of Mandala Airlines Boeing 737-200 (PKRIM), which killed 149 people, has found a problem with one of the aircraft’s engines, a transport safety official said. “During our preliminary investigation we have found a fuel problem on the engine,” said Setyo Rahardjo, head of the National Transport Safety Committee. A Boeing 737-200s has two engines but Rahardjo did not say which was at fault and stressed the findings were preliminary.
8 September 2005. A mass burial was held yesterday for unidentified victims of the crashed Mandala Airlines Boeing 737-200 (PK-RIM). Investigators sifted through the charred wreckage of the aircraft, trying to determine why it slammed into a crowded street in Indonesia’s third-largest city Medan on Monday (5 September), creating a path of destruction as it crashed into houses and pedestrians. Transport Minister Hatta Rajasa said it would be several weeks before the cause of the crash was known but a preliminary investigation found a problem with one of the aircraft’s engines. Survivors said the Boeing shook violently after lifting off the runway and veered left before crashing to the ground. Some described a loud bang while the aircraft was still in flight but officials were quick to rule out terrorism. The dead included 101 passengers and crew and 47 residents on the ground. Sixteen people on board the flight survived. Hundreds of family members gathered at the Adam Malik Hospital morgue,looking for loved ones among a long row of charred bodies. Remains not identified by early yesterday would be buried next to another mass grave for victims of a Garuda Indonesia aircraft crash that killed more than 200 people in 1997, hospital assistant director Dr Suprato said. By late Tuesday (6 September), 40 corpses had yet to be claimed.
10 September 2005 Brazzaville Area, Democratic Republic Of Congo
An aircraft crashed north of the Republic of Congo capital, killing 13 people, officials said today. The Ukrainian-built Antonov 26, registered by Air Kasai in neighbouring Congo, went down 30 miles north of Brazzaville yesterday afternoon, government spokesman Alain Akoula said. Rescue workers found 13 bodies, including those of the four-person Ukrainian crew, he said. The cause of the crash was unknown. The aircraft had taken off from an airstrip in Congo’s Equateur province and was bound for that country’s capital, Kinshasa, after flying over eastern territory of the Republic of Congo. The two capitals of the neighbouring, similarly named countries face each other on opposite banks of the Congo River. Yesterday, Congo’s government pulled operating licenses from dozens of the central African nation’s airlines, grounding their planes after a spate of air accidents. Transport Minister Eva Mwakasa did not name the 33 prohibited airlines, telling reporters only that the companies were all registered in Congo.
12 September 2005. Two flight recorders have been found on the An-26 crash scene in the Republic of Congo. The An-26 crew was made up of two Belarussian citizens and one citizen of Russia. The crash killed the entire crew and 11 passengers – citizens of the Democratic Republic of Congo,counsellor at the Russian embassy in the Republic of Congo Georgy Chepik said yesterday. He said the embassy had received the information from the Congolese authorities and the Air Kasai private airline that owned the crashed aircraft. According to the preliminary information, the crash occurred because of a thunderstorm and strong wind.
