Airport (less than 10 km from airport)

On 18 February 2012, at approximately 1918 local time (L), a United States Air Force U-28A aircraft, tail number 07-0736, crashed five nautical miles (NM) southwest of Ambouli International Airport, Djibouti. This aircraft was assigned to the 34th Special Operations Squadron, 1st Special Operations Wing, Hurlburt Field, FL, and deployed to the 34th Expeditionary Special Operations Squadron, Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti. The aircraft was destroyed and all four aircrew members died instantly upon impact. The mishap aircraft (MA) departed Ambouli International Airport, Djibouti at 1357L, to accomplish a combat mission in support of a Combined Joint Task Force. The MA proceeded to the area of responsibility (AOR), completed its mission in the AOR and returned back to Djiboutian airspace at 1852L arriving overhead the airfield at 1910L to begin a systems check. The MA proceeded south of the airfield at 10,000 feet (ft) Mean Sea Level (MSL) for 10 NM then turned to the North towards the airfield, accomplished a systems check and requested entry into the pattern at Ambouli International Airport. This request was denied due to other traffic, and the MA was directed to proceed to the west and descend by Air Traffic Control (ATC). The MA began a left descending turn to the west and was directed by ATC to report final. The mishap crew (MC) reported they were passing through 4,000 ft MSL and would report when established on final approach. The MA, continuing to descend, initiated a right turn then reversed the turn entering a left turn while continually and smoothly increasing bank angle until reaching 55 degrees prior to impact. Additionally, the MA continued to steadily increase the descent rate until reaching 11,752 ft per minute prior to impact. The MC received aural “Sink Rate” and “Pull Up” alerts with no apparent corrective action taken. The MA impacted the ground at approximately 1918L, 5 NM southwest of Ambouli International Airport, Djibouti.

Following an uneventful flight from Heho, the aircraft bounced six times upon landing on runway 20. The final touchdown was reported some 1,500 feet past its threshold. The last bounce was very rough so the nose gear collapsed. The aircraft the skidded on runway and overran. On soft ground, both main landing gears collapsed and the aircraft hit a sand pile before coming to rest. while all 54 occupants escaped uninjured, the aircraft was damaged beyond repair as some blade of the right engine penetrated the fuselage after they hit the sand pile. It appears that the copilot was the PIC at the time of the accident.

During the takeoff roll from runway 27 at Brooksville-Hernando County Airport, control was lost. The aircraft veered off runway and came to rest. All three crew members escaped uninjured while the aircraft was damaged beyond repair.

The crew started the takeoff procedure from runway 09 at Craiova Airport in a visibility of 500 metres due to freezing fog. During the course, the aircraft deviated to the right, causing the right engine to struck a snow berm (one meter high). The right propeller was torn off then aircraft rolled for few metres before coming to rest in snow. All 55 occupants evacuated safely while the aircraft was damaged beyond repair.

The aircraft was performing a flight from Kinshasa to Bukavu with an intermediate stop in Goma on behalf of the DRC Government. After touchdown at Bukavu-Kavumu Airport, the aircraft failed to stop within the remaining distance. It veered off runway to the left, went down 20 metres high embankment before coming to rest, broken in two. There was no fire. Both pilots, a passenger and two people on the ground were killed. All others occupants were seriously injured. Fifteen days later, on 27FEB2012, a second passenger died from his injuries. The Governor of Katanga Katumba Mwanke was killed as well as the Deputy of Lukunga District Oscar Gema di Mageko who died on 27FEB2012. The survivors were the Finance Minister Matata Ponyo, the Governor of Sud-Kivu Marcelin Cishambo and the Ambassador of the President Antoine Ghonda.

The pilot took off at around 14 h 45 from Maribo aerodrome (Denmark) bound for Cuers. He filed an IFR flight plan that he cancelled(2) at 17 h 15 near the St Tropez VOR (83). He explained that he had overflown the installations at Cuers at 1,500 ft and started an aerodrome circuit via the north for runway 11. He was visual with the ground and noted the presence of snow showers. He reckoned that these conditions made it possible to continue the approach. At about 600 ft, he went into a snow shower. At about 400 ft, he noticed that the horizontal visibility was zero and that he had lost all external visual references. He tried to make a go-around but didn’t feel any increase in engine power. At about 200 ft, he saw that he was to the right of the runway and decided to make an emergency landing. The aeroplane struck the ground on the right side of the runway. It slid for 150 metres and swung around before stopping. All three occupants escaped with minor injuries and the aircraft was damaged beyond repair.

The twin engine aircraft departed Bukavu-Kavumu Airport at 0745LT for a one-hour cargo flight to Namoya. On approach, the crew encountered marginal weather conditions when the aircraft crashed in a dense wooded area located 10 km short of runway threshold. Two passengers among them a 60 years old women were seriously injured while three other occupants were killed, among them both pilots, a Russian captain and an Indian copilot.

The pilot entered the left downwind leg of the traffic pattern to land to the north. A surface wind from the west prevailed with gusts to 15 knots. Radar data revealed that the airplane was on final approach, about 1.16 miles from the runway and about 210 feet above the ground. The airplane then crashed in a pasture south of the airport, in a slight left-wing-low attitude, and came to rest upright. The cockpit and cabin were consumed in a postcrash fire. The pilot's wife, who was in the aft cabin and survived the accident, recalled that it was choppy and that they descended quickly. She recalled hearing two distinct warning horns in the cockpit prior to the crash. The airplane was equipped with two aural warning systems in the cockpit: a landing gear warning horn and a stall warning horn. The pilot likely allowed the airspeed to decay while aligning the airplane on final approach and allowed the airplane to descend below a normal glide path. Examination of the wreckage revealed that the landing gear were in transit toward the retracted position at impact, indicating that the pilot was attempting to execute a go-around before the accident. The pilot made no distress calls to air traffic controllers before the crash. The pilot did not possess a current flight review at the time of the accident. Examination of the wreckage, including a test run of both engines, revealed no evidence of a pre-existing mechanical malfunction or failure that would have precluded normal operation of the airplane.

On Tuesday, 24 January 2012, a McDonnell Douglas MD-83, registration EC-JJS and operated by Swiftair, took off from the Dubai Airport (United Arab Emirates) at 02:08 UTC on a scheduled flight to the Kandahar Airport (Afghanistan). Its callsign was SWT094 and there were 86 passengers (one of them a company mechanic), three flight attendants and two cockpit crew onboard. Swiftair, S.A. was operating this regularly scheduled passenger flight under an ACMI arrangement with the South African company Gryphon Airlines. The crew was picked up at its usual hotel in the emirate of Ras al-Khaimah (United Arab Emirates) at 21:00. The airplane was parked in the Ras al-Khaimah airport and had to be flown empty to the Dubai Airport. This flight departed at 00:20 UTC en route to Dubai. Once there, an agent for Gryphon Airlines gave the crew the documentation for the flight to Kandahar. They went through customs at the Dubai Airport, boarded the passengers and the cargo and refueled the airplane with enough fuel to make the return the flight, a typical practice so as to avoid refueling in Kandahar. The airplane took off from runway 30R at the Dubai Airport at 02:08 on standard instrument departure RIKET2D and climbed to flight level FL290. The first officer was the pilot flying. At 03:42, while over SERKA, they were transferred to Kabul control, which instructed them to descend to FL280. The crew reported its ISAF callsign (ISF39RT) to this ATS station, which allowed the aircraft to fly over Afghan airspace, and entered the new stipulated squawk code. Kabul Control instructed the crew to follow some radar vectors that took them to point SODAS, where they were transferred to Kandahar Control at 03:46. The crew reduced the airspeed to 250 kt above this point. Kandahar Control cleared them for an RNAV (GPS) approach to runway 05, providing a direct vector to point FALOD (the IAF), and to descend to 6,000 ft. The weather information provided on the ATIS “F” broadcast was runway in use 05, wind from 060º at 17 kt gusting to 24 kt, visibility 1,200 m, scattered clouds at 2,700 ft and broken clouds at 3,000 ft, temperature 1 ºC, dewpoint -7 ºC and QNH 30.06 in Hg (1,018 mbar). This information was practically the same as that radioed to the crew by the Kandahar control tower a few minutes before landing: wind from 060 at 15 kt gusting to 21 kt. They reached point FALOD (IAF) under cloud cover (and thus in IMC conditions). They did not exit the clouds until 1,500 ft before minimums which, for this approach, according to the associated chart, was an altitude of 3,700 ft, or 394 ft AGL. They established visual contact with the runway 500 ft above minimums and noted that they were a little right of the runway centerline. Since the captain had more operational experience at the destination airfield, he decided to take over the controls and fly the last phase of the approach maneuver. The PAPI was out of service, meaning that in final approach they only had visual references to the runway and over the ground. During short final they corrected the deviation from the runway centerline by adjusting their path from right to left. They landed at 03:58. During the flare, the crew noticed the airplane was shifting to the left, threatening to take them off the runway, as a result of which the captain applied a right roll angle. This caused the right wing tip to strike the ground before the wheels made contact with the ground. The captain regarded the maneuver as a hard landing, although the first officer thought they might have struck the runway. The autopilot was engaged until visual contact was established with the runway and the auto-throttle until the landing. On exiting the runway, the airport control tower personnel (who had witnessed the contact with the ground) ordered the crew to stop and informed them of the damage they had seen during the landing. They dispatched the emergency services (firefighters), which forced them to turn off their engines. Once it was confirmed that there was no fuel leak or damage to the wheels or brakes, they allowed the crew to restart the engines and proceed to the stand. The wing made contact with the ground some 20 m prior to the threshold, resulting in five threshold lights being destroyed by the aircraft and in damage to the aircraft’s right wing. According to the crew’s statement, the passengers were not really aware of the contact between the wing and the ground and they were subsequently disembarked normally.

The twin engine aircraft departed Santiago-Eulogio Sánchez Errázuriz-Tobalaba Airport at 1815LT on a flight to Puerto Montt, carrying seven passengers and one pilot. On approach to Puerto Montt-Marcel Marchant Airport runway 19, his attention was focused on the GPS and he forgot to lower the landing gear. The aircraft belly landed and slid for few dozen metres before coming to rest on the main runway. All eight occupants escaped uninjured while the aircraft was damaged beyond repair.