Scheduled Revenue Flight

On approach to Sapporo-Okadama, the aircraft was too high on the glide and approached at an excessive speed. It landed too far down a snow covered runway and was unable to stop within the remaining distance. It overran, collided with snow bank and came to rest. All 41 occupants escaped uninjured while the aircraft was damaged beyond repair.

While taxiing for departure at Dakar-Yoff Airport, the left main gear unsafe alarm came on in the cockpit panel. The captain decided to return to the apron to proceed to an inspection when the left main gear collapsed. The engine n°1 struck the ground and partially torn off. A fire erupted and quickly spread to the left wing. All 182 occupants evacuated safely but the aircraft was considered as damaged beyond repair. It just came out from a C Check maintenance program.

The airline transport certificated pilot was landing a twin-engine turboprop airplane at a remote airport on a scheduled air taxi flight. Rising hilly terrain is located east of the airport. The pilot said that during the approach for landing, he noticed the airport wind sock indicating a wind from the east about 25 knots. When the pilot descended to 500 feet, about mid-base, the airplane encountered moderate turbulence and an increased rate of descent. He added engine power to arrest the descent. As he turned toward the runway, the airplane encountered 3 to 4 rolling oscillations with a bank angle up to 90 degrees while descending toward the runway. According to a company mechanic who traveled to the scene, it appeared that the airplane struck the runway about 1,200 feet from the approach end with the left wing and left elevator, while yawed about 45 degrees to the left of the runway centerline. The airplane then slid off the left side of the runway. After the collision, the pilot evacuated the passengers, and noticed the airport wind sock was indicating a tailwind. The Airport/Facility Directory contains the following in the airport remarks: 'Unattended. Easterly winds may cause severe turbulence in vicinity of runway.'

The aircraft was towed at Tehran-Mehrabad Airport when it was struck by a IRIAF Lockheed C-130 Hercules that crashed on takeoff. At impact, both aircraft exploded and were totally destroyed by a post crash fire. All six crew members on board the Hercules were killed as well as three people who were on board the Airbus.

On January 31, 2000, about 1621 Pacific standard time, Alaska Airlines, Inc., flight 261, a McDonnell Douglas MD-83, N963AS, crashed into the Pacific Ocean about 2.7 miles north of Anacapa Island, California. The 2 pilots, 3 cabin crewmembers, and 83 passengers on board were killed, and the airplane was destroyed by impact forces. Flight 261 was operating as a scheduled international passenger flight under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 121 from Lic Gustavo Diaz Ordaz International Airport, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Seattle, Washington, with an intermediate stop planned at San Francisco International Airport, San Francisco, California. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed for the flight, which operated on an instrument flight rules flight plan.

On Sunday 30 January 2000, the Kenya Airways Airbus 310-304, registered 5Y−BEN, was undertaking the scheduled international flight KQ 431 transporting passengers from Abidjan to Nairobi, via Lagos. On board there were 10 crewmembers and 169 passengers. On the same day, in the afternoon, 5Y-BEN had flown in from Nairobi and landed at Félix Houphouët-Boigny International Airport in Abidjan at 15 h 15. The unfavorable meteorological at Lagos had obliged the pilot, after a thirty minutes hold at Lagos, to divert to Abidjan. The relief crew, which had arrived two days previously on flight KQ 430 on Friday 28 January 2000, at 15 h 44, took over on board 5Y-BEN, to undertake flight KQ 431 from Abidjan to Nairobi, via Lagos. Departure was scheduled for 21 h 00, in accordance with the initial program. The copilot was pilot flying, the Captain was pilot not flying. At 20 h 55 min 22 s, the crew established contact with Abidjan Airport control tower and asked for start-up clearance. This was granted. At 20 h 56 min 09 s, the Captain ordered the checklist to be performed and announced the type of take-off by saying "Flex sixty" at 20 h 56 min 19 s. At 21 h 00 min 18 s, three minutes and nineteen seconds after the start-up of the first engine (engine n° 2), the Captain announced over the interphone that linked him with the ground mechanic “we have two normal start-ups”. At 21 h 01 min 07 s, the crew of 5Y-BEN asked for clearance to taxi. The tower controller put them on standby. A few seconds later, he cleared them to taxi. At 21 h 02 min 33 s, the Captain ordered the Copilot to set the flaps at 15°. Later, at 21 h 04 min 50 s , the copilot announced "trim: 0.9 nose up, Slats/flaps 15/15". The airplane began to taxi at 21 h 07 min 35 s, the tower controller informed the crew of the latest wind, cleared them to take off and asked the crew the call back when they reached flight level 40. At 21 h 07 min 45 s, the copilot read back the clearance. This was the last communication between the crew and the control tower. At 21 h 08 min 08 s, the copilot announced "Take-off checklist completed … cleared for take-off". At 21 h 08 min 18 s, the Captain applied take-off power and announced "thrust, SRS, and runway" then, nine seconds later “100 knots”. At 21 h 08 min 50 s, the Captain announced "V1 and Rotate(4)", then two seconds later "Positive". The airplane took off. At 21 h 08 min 57 s, the copilot announced "Positive rate of climb, gear up". Less than two seconds later the stall warning sounded. At 21 h 09 min 07 s, the automatic call out (AC) announced 300 feet. At 21 h 09 min 14 s, the copilot asked "what’s the problem?". From 21 h 09 min 16 s, the AC announced successively 200, 100, 50, 30, 20 and 10 feet. Meanwhile, at 21 h 09 min 18 s, the copilot ordered the aural warning to be cut. Two seconds later, the GPWS sounded the “Whoop...” alarm followed, a half a second later, by the AC announcement of 50 feet. At 21 h 09 min 22 s, an aural master warning started, immediately followed by an order from the Captain to climb: "Go up!", though this was preceded six tenths of a second by the AC announcement of 10 feet. At 21 h 09 min 23.9 s, end of the master warning, followed immediately within a tenth of a second by the noise of the impact. The time of the accident is presumed to be 21 h 09 min 24 s.

Aircraft HB-AKK had landed in Zurich on 10 January 2000 as Crossair flight CRX 842 from Guernsey and reached stand F74 at 16:00 UTC, which is located near to the threshold of runway 28. The aircraft was then prepared for the next flight at this stand. According to statements from the Swissport ground personnel the preparation of the aircraft took place without any special occurrence. During its time on the ground, the aircraft was supplied with electric power by a ground power unit (GPU). An air-conditioning truck was not used and the aircraft was not de-iced. The crew prepared for the flight using the computer-aided briefing system. The following description of the history of the flight was reconstructed with the help of recordings from the cockpit voice recorder (CVR), digital flight data recorder (DFDR), voice radio communications and ATC radar (cf. Annex 1). According to the available recordings, the commander, as planned by the crew, was pilot flying (PF) and the first officer was pilot non flying (PNF) throughout the flight. At 16:39:14 UTC, flight CRX 498 to Dresden received from clearance delivery (DEL) the following ATC-clearance: "runway two eight, Dresden, Zurich East One Yankee Departure, squawk three zero zero four". The crew was then instructed to change to the apron (APR) frequency. Permission to start engines was given at 16:45:00 UTC by APR. At 16:49:22 UTC the first officer signaled readiness to taxi to APR. While the crew waited for taxi clearance, a few points of the taxi checklist were performed. At 16:50:30 UTC APR cleared flight CRX 498 to follow a Swissair Airbus A320 (SWR 014) to the holding position of runway 28. In accordance with this clearance, CRX 498 started to move. The flight crew performed the outstanding items on the taxi checklist and contacted the tower (TWR), which gave line-up clearance at 16:52:36 UTC. Take-off clearance was given at 16:54:00 UTC: "Crossair four nine eight, wind three zero zero degrees, three knots, cleared take-off runway two eight". According to the automatic terminal information service (ATIS) at 16:50 UTC the following meteorological conditions existed: wind 290° at 2 knots, visibility 6 km in drizzle, broken, cloud base at 500 feet above ground level, temperature 2 °C, dew point 1 °C, QNH 1032 hPa. The aircraft began its take-off roll at 16:54:10 UTC in darkness. The landing lights were on and the flaps were fully retracted. After take-off at 16:54:31 UTC the landing gear was retracted. Then, on the commander's order, the flight director (FD) was switched on and the NAV mode was armed. Both pilots confirmed that the long range navigation system number 1 (LRN 1) was following the track (LRN 1 captured). The commander controlled the aircraft in a stable climb with a pitch of 15° attitude nose up (ANU) and a speed of 136 knots indicated airspeed (KIAS). For the remaining flight, the autopilot was never engaged. Since the cloud base was indicated as 500 ft above ground level (AGL), it can be assumed that the aircraft, once above an altitude of approx. 1900 ft above mean sea level (AMSL) entered instrument meteorological conditions (IMC). The initial flight path, at a heading of 276°, followed the centre line of the runway. After the request from TWR, CRX 498 switched to the departure control frequency (DEP) at 16:55:07 UTC. The radar recording then showed a deviation in the flight path by 5° to the south. However, this slight deviation was reduced before waypoint DME 2.1 KLO was reached by initiating a right turn. At 16:55:15 UTC flight CRX 498 was cleared to climb to flight level 110. At 16:55:39 UTC, Zurich departure issued the instruction to turn to VOR ZUE: "four nine eight, turn left to Zurich East". The first officer confirmed by radio: "turning left to Zurich East, Crossair four niner eight". At the same time the aircraft reached waypoint DME 2.1 KLO. At this point the departure procedure ZUE1Y specifies a left turn, in order to capture and follow radial 255 of VOR KLO. At 16:55:45 the bank angle to the left reached a maximum of 16.9° on a compass heading of 270°. At 16:55:47 UTC the first officer informed the commander that the LRN system was programmed from the present position to ZUE: "from present, LRN is to Zurich East, yeah". The commander confirmed with: "checked". The left turn instruction from DEP was not mentioned. After the aircraft had remained briefly at a 16° bank angle to the left, it began to roll to the right. From 16:55:47 UTC the bank angle rate amounted to 3°/s to the right. In this phase the first officer was very busy carrying out the orders routinely issued by the commander ("CTOT/APR off, yaw damper on, bleed air on"). All relevant flight parameters in this phase indicated a stable climb with a pitch of 13-14° ANU. The communication being conducted internally did not give any indication of difficulties of any kind. At 16:55:55 UTC, at a bank angle of 8.4° to the right, the bank angle rate increased and the nose of the aircraft began to drop from 14.2° to 10.8° ANU. At 16:56:00 UTC the right bank angle attained a value of 31.0°, when the commander gave the order to set climb power: "set climb power". The first officer confirmed with a whispered "coming" and began to set the climb power – a procedure which takes quite some time. Between 16:56:03 UTC and 16:56:10 UTC the commander stabilized the bank angle to the right between 39° and 42° by corresponding flight control inputs. The pitch reduced further and stabilized at a value of 1° ANU at 16:56:06 UTC as a result of corresponding elevator inputs for four seconds. As a consequence, the trajectory reached its maximum altitude of 4720 ft AMSL. According to information from the crew of the preceding flight SWR 014 the cloud top at that time was approx. 5000 ft AMSL. The speed of the aircraft involved in the accident increased to 158 KIAS. 16:56:10 UTC marked the beginning of a nine-second period which was characterized by destabilization of the attitude. It featured uncoordinated deflections of the ailerons to the left and right. Meanwhile, the elevator remained practically in the neutral position. Since the rightward deflections of the aileron were dominant, the bank angle increased from 42° to 80° to the right. Given the neutral position of the elevator, because of the high bank angle the pitch increased to 25° attitude nose down (AND). The aircraft therefore quickly lost altitude and its speed increased to 207 KIAS. At 16:56:12 UTC the first officer made the commander aware that they should turn left to ZUE: "turning left to Zurich East, we should left". At 16:56:15 UTC, at a bank angle of 65.8° to the right, the commander muttered unclearly: "ohna-na". Three seconds later at 16:56:18 UTC, DEP requested confirmation that the aircraft was turning to the left: "Crossair four nine eight, confirm you are turning left". The first officer responded immediately: "moment please, standby". DEP then instructed the crew to continue the right turn: "ok, continue right to Zurich East." In the final phase of flight, beginning at 16:56:20 UTC, the aircraft went into a spiral dive. As a result of massive aileron deflections, the aircraft attained a maximum bank angle of 137° to the right. The engines still provided high power, since setting of climb power had not yet been terminated. At a speed of 250 KIAS the over speed warning horn sounded. At 16:56:24 UTC the first officer vigorously warned the commander to turn left: "turning left, left, left, left... left!" At the end of the data recording at 16:56:25 UTC the aircraft still exhibited a bank angle of 76° to the right. The nose of the aircraft had dropped to 63° AND at an air speed of 285 KIAS. Several witnesses observed the aircraft breaking out of the clouds in a steep descent and performing a right turn. At 16:56:27.2 UTC the aircraft crashed in an open field near Au, Nassenwil, ZH. None of the three crew members and seven passengers survived the impact.

On final approach to Abuja-Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport runway 22, the crew declared an emergency and reported smoke in the cockpit and cabin. Shortly later, the aircraft stalled and crashed 120 metres short of runway. A passenger and one people on the ground were killed while 12 other occupants were injured.

The twin engine aircraft departed Simara Airport at 1457LT on a schedule flight to Kathmandu with 10 people on board. Three minutes after takeoff, while climbing in marginal weather conditions, the aircraft struck the slope of Mt Burja Lek located few km from the airport. The aircraft disintegrated on impact and all 10 occupants were killed. At the time of the accident, the visibility was estimated to be 5 km with low ceiling.

The certificated commercial pilot, with five passengers aboard, was departing runway 18 on a scheduled commuter flight. The pilot stated that the flight's original departure time was delayed for two hours due to ice fog, and low visibility. He said that just after takeoff, the engine surged followed by a loss of power. The airplane collided with snow-covered terrain during an off-airport emergency landing, and sustained substantial damage to the propeller, fuselage, and wings. Following retrieval of the airplane, an FAA airworthiness inspector examined the airplane, and found no mechanical anomalies. While still attached to the airplane, the engine was started and run at idle. The engine later produced full power on an engine test stand. A pilot-rated Alaska State Trooper, with extensive experience in the accident airplane make and model, examined the airplane soon after the accident. He said the wings, horizontal stabilizer, and elevators had an accumulation of frost.