Cargo

The aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff from Bagram Air Base, Bagram, Afghanistan. All seven crewmembers—the captain, first officer, loadmaster, augmented captain and first officer, and two mechanics—died, and the airplane was destroyed from impact forces and postcrash fire. The 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 121 supplemental cargo flight, which was operated under a multimodal contract with the US Transportation Command, was destined for Dubai World Central - Al Maktoum International Airport, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The airplane’s cargo included five mine-resistant ambush-protected (MRAP) vehicles secured onto pallets and shoring. Two vehicles were 12-ton MRAP all-terrain vehicles (M-ATVs) and three were 18-ton Cougars. The cargo represented the first time that National Airlines had attempted to transport five MRAP vehicles. These vehicles were considered a special cargo load because they could not be placed in unit load devices (ULDs) and restrained in the airplane using the locking capabilities of the airplane’s main deck cargo handling system. Instead, the vehicles were secured to centerline-loaded floating pallets and restrained to the airplane’s main deck using tie-down straps. During takeoff, the airplane immediately climbed steeply then descended in a manner consistent with an aerodynamic stall. The National Transportation Safety Board’s (NTSB) investigation found strong evidence that at least one of the MRAP vehicles (the rear M-ATV) moved aft into the tail section of the airplane, damaging hydraulic systems and horizontal stabilizer components such that it was impossible for the flight crew to regain pitch control of the airplane. The likely reason for the aft movement of the cargo was that it was not properly restrained. National Airlines’ procedures in its cargo operations manual not only omitted required, safety-critical restraint information from the airplane manufacturer (Boeing) and the manufacturer of the main deck cargo handling system (Telair, which held a supplemental type certificate [STC] for the system) but also contained incorrect and unsafe methods for restraining cargo that cannot be contained in ULDs. The procedures did not correctly specify which components in the cargo system (such as available seat tracks) were available for use as tie-down attach points, did not define individual tie-down allowable loads, and did not describe the effect of measured strap angle on the capability of the attach fittings.

The Sandy Lake Seaplane Service Cessna 207, registration C-GHKB, was departing Island Lake, Manitoba, for St. Theresa Point, Manitoba, a VFR flight of about 7 miles. The aircraft departed runway 30 at 14:55 CDT and began a left turn about 300 feet. agl for a landing on runway 22 at St. Theresa Point. Almost immediately the aircraft entered white-out conditions in snow and blowing snow. The pilot was not IFR rated but attempted to stop the rate of descent that he noticed on the VSI. As the nose was pulled up the aircraft flew into the snow covered lake. There was no fire and the pilot was not injured. The pilot attempted to call FSS at 14:58 CDT. Communications were not established but FSS detected an ELT signal in the background of the transmission. The RCMP was notified and the pilot was rescued by snowmobile at 15:37 CDT. Company owner contacted Custom Helicopters and they dispatched two helicopters to pick up the downed pilot. Custom Helicopter was able to rescue the pilot and fly him to Island Lake nursing station. Pilot was shaken but otherwise uninjured.

Aircraft was destroyed when it impacted rising terrain about 10 miles east of Aleknagik, Alaska. The airplane was operated as Flight 51, by Alaska Central Express, Inc., Anchorage, Alaska, as an on demand cargo flight under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 135. The airline transport certificated captain and the commercial certificated first officer sustained fatal injuries. Instrument meteorological conditions were reported in the area at the time of the accident, and the airplane was operating on an instrument flight rules (IFR) flight plan. The flight had originally departed Anchorage about 0544, and made a scheduled stop at King Salmon, Alaska, before continuing on to the next scheduled stop, Dillingham, Alaska. According to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) personnel, as the airplane approached Dillingham, the flight crew requested the RNAV GPS 19 instrument approach to the Dillingham Airport about 0757 from controllers at the Anchorage Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC). The ARTCC specialist on duty subsequently granted the request by issuing the clearance, with instructions to proceed direct to the Initial Approach Fix (IAF) to begin the approach, and to maintain an altitude of 2,000 feet or above. A short time later the flight crew requested to enter a holding pattern at the IAF so that they could contact the Flight Service Station (FSS) for a runway conditions report, and the ARTCC specialist granted that request. The ARTCC specialist then made several attempts to contact the aircraft, but was unsuccessful and subsequently lost radar track on the aircraft. When the airplane failed to arrive at the Dillingham Airport, ARTCC personnel initiated a radio search to see if the airplane had diverted to another airport. Unable to locate the airplane, the FAA issued an alert notice (ALNOT) at 0835. Search personnel from the Alaska State Troopers, Alaska Air National Guard, and the U.S. Coast Guard, along with several volunteer pilots, were dispatched to conduct an extensive search effort. Rescue personnel aboard an Air National Guard C-130 airplane tracked 406 MHz emergency locater transmitter (ELT) signal to an area of mountainous terrain about 20 miles north of Dillingham, but poor weather prohibited searchers from reaching the site until the next morning. Once the crew of a HH-60G helicopter from the Air National Guard's 210th Air Rescue Squadron, Anchorage, Alaska, reached the steep, snow and ice-covered site, they confirmed that both pilots sustained fatal injuries.

The aircraft was completing a cargo flight from Kananga to Goma with an intermediate stop in Lodja, carrying four passengers, 6 crew members and a load of various goods. On final approach to Goma Airport Runway 36, the crew encountered poor weather conditions with limited visibility due to heavy rain falls. On final, the aircraft contacted the roof of a house and crashed in the garden of a residential area, coming to rest upside down. Three passengers were seriously injured while seven other occupants were killed.

The pilot landed at the airport to refuel the airplane and pick up cargo. The pilot spoke with three employees of the fixed base operator who stated that he seemed alert and awake but wanted to make a "quick turn." After the airplane was fueled and the cargo was loaded, the pilot departed; the airplane crashed 1 minute later. Night visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time. An aircraft performance GPS and simulation study indicated that the airplane entered a right bank almost immediately after takeoff and then made a 42 degree right turn and that it was accelerating throughout the flight, from about 75 knots groundspeed shortly after liftoff to about 145 knots groundspeed at impact. The airplane was climbing about 500 to 700 feet per minute to a peak altitude of about 260 feet above the ground before descending. The simulation showed a gas generator speed of about 93 percent throughout the flight. The study indicated that the load factor vectors, which were the forces felt by the pilot, could have produced a somatogravic illusion of a climb, even while the airplane was descending. The postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. Based on the findings from the aircraft performance GPS and simulation study, the degraded visual reference conditions present about the time of the accident, and the forces felt by the pilot, it is likely that he experienced spatial disorientation, which led to his inadvertent controlled descent into terrain.

The pilot began flying the twin piston-engine airplane model for the cargo airline about 11 months before the accident. Although he had since upgraded to one of the airline’s twin turboprop airplane models, due to the airline’s logistical needs, the pilot was transferred back to the piston-engine model about 1 week before the accident. The flight originated at one of the airline’s outlying destination airports and was planned to stop at an interim destination to the southwest before continuing to the airline’s base as the final destination. The late afternoon departure meant that the flight would arrive at the interim destination about 10 minutes after sunset. That interim destination was situated in a sparsely populated geographic bowl just south of terrain that was significantly higher, and the ceilings there included multiple broken and overcast cloud layers near, or lower than, the surrounding terrain. Although not required by Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations, the airline employed dedicated personnel who performed partial dispatch-like activities, such as providing relevant flight information, including weather, to the pilots. Before takeoff on the accident flight, the pilot conferred briefly with the dispatch personnel by telephone, and, with little discussion, they agreed that the flight would proceed under visual flight rules to the interim destination. Information available at the time indicated that the cloud cover almost certainly precluded access to the airport without an instrument approach; however, the airplane was not equipped to conduct the only available instrument approach procedure for that airport. Additionally, the pilot did not have in-flight access to any GPS or terrain mapping/database information to readily assist him in either locating the airport or remaining safely clear of the local terrain. Although the airplane was not being actively tracked or assisted by air traffic control (ATC) early in the flight, review of ground tracking radar data showed that the flight initially headed directly toward the interim destination but then began a series of turns, descents, and climbs. The airplane then disappeared from radar as the result of radar coverage floor limitations due to high terrain and radar antenna siting. The airplane reappeared on radar about 24 minutes after it disappeared and about 9 minutes after the FAA-defined beginning of night. Based on the flight track, it is likely that the pilot made a dedicated effort to access the airport, while concurrently remaining clear of the clouds and terrain, strictly by visual means. This task was made considerably more difficult and hazardous by attempting it in dusk conditions, and then darkness, instead of during daylight hours. About 15 minutes after the airplane reappeared on radar, when it was at an altitude of about 13,500 ft, the pilot contacted ATC and requested and was granted an instrument flight rules clearance to his final destination. About 3 minutes later, the controller cleared the flight to descend to 10,000 ft, and the airplane leveled off at that altitude about 6 minutes later. However, upon reaching 10,000 ft, the pilot requested a lower altitude to escape “heavy” upand down-drafts, but the controller was unable to comply because the ATC minimum vectoring altitude was 9,700 ft in that region. About 1 minute later, radar contact was lost. Shortly thereafter, the airplane impacted terrain in a steep nose-down attitude in a near-vertical trajectory. Although examination of the wreckage did not reveal any preimpact mechanical deficiencies that would have prevented normal operation and continued flight, the extent of the damage precluded, except on a macro scale, any determination of the preimpact integrity or functionality of any systems, subsystems, or components, including the ice protection systems, autopilot, and nose baggage door. Analysis of the radar data indicated that the airplane was above 10,000 ft for at least 41 minutes (possibly in two discontinuous periods) and above 12,000 ft (in two discontinuous periods) for at least 18 minutes. Although the airplane was reportedly equipped with supplemental oxygen, the investigation was unable to verify either its presence or its use by the pilot. Lack of supplemental oxygen at those altitudes for those periods could have contributed to a decrease in the pilot’s mental acuity and his ability to safely conduct the light. Analysis of air mass data revealed that mountain-wave activity and up- and downdrafts with vertical velocities of about 1,000 ft per minute (fpm) were present near the accident site and that the largest and most rapid transitions from up- to down-drafts occurred near the accident site, which was also supported by the airplane’s altitude data trace. The analysis also indicated that the last radar target from the airplane was located in a downdraft with a velocity of between 600 and 1,000 fpm. Other meteorological analysis indicated that the airplane encountered icing conditions, likely in the form of supercooled large droplets (SLD), several minutes before the accident. Aside from pilot reports from aircraft actually encountering SLD, no tools currently exist to detect airborne SLD. Further, the tools and processes to reliably forecast SLD do not exist. SLD is often associated with rapid ice accumulation, especially on portions of the airplane that are not served by ice protection systems. Airframe icing, whether due to accumulation rates or locations that exceed the airplane’s deicing system capabilities, mechanical failure, or the pilot’s failure to properly use the system, can impose significant adverse effects on airplane controllability and its ability to remain airborne. Because of the pilot’s recent transition from the Beechcraft BE-99, in which the pitot heat was always operating during flight, he may have forgotten that the accident airplane’s pitot heat procedures were different and that the pitot heat had to be manually activated when the airplane encountered the icing conditions. If the pitot heat is not operating in icing conditions, the airspeed information becomes unreliable and likely erroneous. Erroneous airspeed indications, particularly in night instrument meteorological conditions when the pilot has no outside references, could result in a loss of control. The investigation was unable to determine whether the pitot heat was operating during the final portion of the flight. The investigation was unable to determine whether the pilot used the autopilot during the last portion of the flight. If he was using the autopilot, it is possible that, at some point, he was forced to revert to flying the airplane manually due to the unit’s inability and to a corresponding Pilot’s Operating Handbook prohibition against using it to maintain altitude in the strong up- and downdrafts, which would increase the pilot’s workload. Another possibility is that the autopilot was unable to maintain altitude, and, instead of disconnecting it, the pilot overpowered it via the control wheel. If that occurred and the pilot overrode the autopilot for more than 3 seconds, the pitch autotrim system would have activated in the direction opposite the pilot’s input, and, when the pilot released the control wheel, the airplane could have been significantly out of trim, which could result in uncommanded pitch, altitude, and speed excursions and possible loss of control. Whether the pilot was hand-flying the airplane or was using the autopilot, the encounter with the strong up- and downdrafts and consequent altitude loss likely prompted the pilot to input corrective actions to regain the lost altitude, specifically increasing pitch and possibly power. Such corrections typically result in airspeed losses; those losses can sometimes be significant as a function of downdraft strength and the airplane’s climb capability. If that capability is compromised by the added weight, drag, and other adverse aerodynamic effects of ice, aerodynamic stall and a loss of control could result. Radar tracking data and ATC communications revealed that another, similar-model airplane flew a very similar track about 6 minutes behind the accident airplane, except that that other airplane was at 12,000 ft not 10,000 ft. The 10,000-ft ATC-mandated altitude placed the accident airplane closer to the underlying high terrain and into the clouds with the icing conditions and the strong vertical air movements. In contrast, the pilot of the second airplane reported that he was in and out of the cloud tops and did not report any weather-induced difficulties. The accident pilot did not have any efficient in-flight means for accurately determining the airborne meteorological conditions ahead, and the ATC controller did not advise him of any adverse conditions. Therefore, the pilot did not have any objective or immediate reason to refuse the ATC-assigned altitude of 10,000 ft. Ideally, based on both the AIRMET and the ambient temperatures, the pilot should have been aware of the likelihood of icing once he descended into clouds. That, particularly combined with his previously expressed lack of confidence in the airplane’s capability in icing conditions, could have prompted him to request either an interim stepdown altitude of 12,000 ft or an outright delay in a direct descent to 10,000 ft, but, for undetermined reasons, the pilot did not make any such request of ATC. Based on the available evidence, if the ATC controller had not descended the airplane to 10,000 ft when he did, either by delaying or by assigning an interim altitude of 12,000 ft, it is likely that the airplane would not have encountered the icing conditions and the strong up- and downdrafts. In addition, if the presence of SLD and/or strong up- and downdrafts had been known or explicitly forecast and then communicated to the pilot either via his weather briefing, his onboard equipment, or by ATC, it is likely that the pilot would have opted to avoid those phenomena to the maximum extent possible. The flight’s encounter with airframe icing and strong up-and downdrafts placed the pilot and airplane in an environment that either exacerbated or directly caused a situation that resulted in the loss of airplane control.

The crew was performing a cargo flight from Lima to Las Malvinas (Sabeti), and departed Lima-Jorge Chávez Airport at 1009LT for a 78-minutes flight. 32 minutes into the flight, while overflying the Andes mountains at FL195, the crew lost control of the airplane that crashed in a mountainous area located near Tomas. The wreckage was found the following day and all four occupants were killed while.

The four engine aircraft was completing a cargo flight from Pointe-Noire to Brazzaville, carrying one passenger, a crew of six and a load consisting of automobiles and various goods. On final approach to runway 05L in poor weather conditions, the crew descended too low on the glide when the aircraft impacted houses and tree tops and eventually crashed in the district of La Poudrière, about 900 metres short of runway. All 7 occupants were killed as well as 25 people on the ground. Fourteen other people were injured. At the time of the accident, weather conditions were poor with thunderstorm activity, rain falls and limited visibility. MAK stated in February 2013 that they received the FDR from the Congolese authorities but the recorders show mechanical damages as a result of the impact forces.

The aircraft was completing a cargo flight from Entebbe, carrying four crew members and a load consisting of foodstuffs. After landing, the aircraft was unable to stop within the remaining distance. It overran, lost its left main gear and came to rest in bushes. While all four occupants escaped uninjured, the aircraft was damaged beyond repair.

The crew took off from Leipzig Airport at 0438LT bound for Bratislava Airport (Slovakia). The approximately forty-five minutes flight took place without incident and the crew was cleared for the ILS approach to runway 22. The Captain was PF. During the descent, the controller informed the crew that the wind was from  120° at  7  kt. The crew selected the slats and flaps at 25°. The antiskid and the autobrake were armed in MED mode. The ILS 22 approach was stable until the wheels touched down. The main landing gear touched the runway about 700 m from the threshold of runway  22. The crew deployed the thrust reversers. About six seconds after the nose gear touched, the crew felt strong vibrations that increased as the speed dropped. At 85 kt, the thrust reversers were retracted. The aeroplane veered towards the left. The PF explained that he applied energetic braking and tried in vain to counter the rocking by using the rudder pedals then the nose gear steering control. He  added that the sequence occurred so quickly that he did not think to use differential braking to try to keep the aeroplane on the runway. The aeroplane exited the runway to the left at a speed of about 45 kt. Its nose gear struck a concrete inspection pit and collapsed. The aeroplane skidded for a few dozen metres before coming to a stop. The crew evacuated the aeroplane. Between the start of the vibrations and the aeroplane stopping, it had rolled about 400 metres.