Location Photos
C-SAR:
I do not see the tracks left in the sand by the landing gear as shown in video taken from a jet posted in an earlier thread. Did you see evidence of landing gear making contact with ground? Where?
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I happen to know a colleague of the deceased pilot (Capt. Yousif Saadi) and spoke to him on the phone yesterday. Pilot is experience, UK trained in 1970s, flew Boeing 727 for 2 decades then worked outside Libya for 6 years in 1990s. Joined Afriqiyah and converted to A330 with Air France. His colleague says he is a good pilot with excellent record (40 years flying), but the Tripoli-Johanesburg trip is a killer. Pilot gets less than 12 hours net resting time during daylight between two 9 hour flights (10 in the cockpit) - not enough to refresh. Having two FOs is no help because they are equally not fresh. He says that he himself begged to be removed from similar flights because on occasions he knew he was too fatigued to take quick important decisions if an emergency or bad visibility is encountered. He recalled an FO recently trying to persuade him to go low to identify runway in poor visibility in Benghazi. Under such circumstances ILS or an accurate system is a must. He said the late Capt Yousif knew the problems with Tripoli VOR system but can only explain what happened in two ways: either fatigue got the better of him and he did not check his decent soon enough to keep plane above minima or there was something wrong with the instruments that made him realise he was too close to the ground too late in poor visibility. Given VOR's performance for Tripoli 09, visual identification is needed for safe landing. In poor visibility, which is now confirmed for the time of the accident, pilots either abort early and request somewhere else (fuel considerations?) or push the limits towards a possible and predictable lethal outcome.
Commercial considerations and pressures would make the airways lethal without ILS and quality information and directions. Pilots are always pushed to the limit of their human capacity and can only survive by relying on automation, which is not always helpful in emergency. Recall the Hudson river pilot's testimony before congress? He spoke about the conditions pilots increasingly face.
By the way, in Libya, although the authority do not equip airports well at all, they apparently would bring a pilot before a committee if (minima) rules are breached or even if diversion is requested to expalin their decision. Effect on pax connections, fuel cost, etc. will all be discussed by such committee. Sounds familiar, anyone?