DC9 crash in Goma, DRC

[gofor]

A DC9 has just crashed after take off - Goma to Kinshasa. CNN has the latest. Thoughts go out to all....

[SIERRA ECHO XRAY]

Another flying coffin....83 dead....any information on this please...really sad sad day indeed. RIP to crew and PAX...:sad::sad::sad:

[four engine jock]

(CNN) -- A plane crashed Tuesday in a northeastern province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, killing 78 people on board, a foreign ministry spokesman said.

The Hewa Bora Airways flight was heading from the eastern city of Goma to the capital, Kinshasa, when it crashed in North Kivu province near the Rwandan border, spokesman Antoine Ghonda said.

[four engine jock]

(CNN) -- A plane crashed Tuesday in a northeastern province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, killing 78 people on board, a foreign ministry spokesman said.

The Hewa Bora Airways flight was heading from the eastern city of Goma to the capital, Kinshasa, when it crashed in North Kivu province near the Rwandan border, spokesman Antoine Ghonda said.

[chefrp]

HOW OLD ARE THESE PLANES, AND WHY ARE THEY STILL FLYING?

If I had to get into one of these "ancient" jets I think I would be shaking in my shoes.

Anyway I feel sorry for all the people that were involved in the accident.

[gofor]

Breaking News (from skynews)

Plane Crash In Eastern Congo
Updated:15:16, Tuesday April 15, 2008

A passenger plane carrying up to 70 people has crashed into a residential area in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Crash in Goma, near Rwanda borderGovernment officials said a DC-9 plane hit the Birere neighbourhood in the town of Goma.

The crash happened when the flight faltered after take-off, according to Julien Mpaluku, the governor of the province.

A rescue team is on its way to the scene of the crash.

The number of dead or injured is not yet known.

"The plane appears to have missed its take-off and crashed in a populated neighborhood," said Mpaluku.

"As the plane has just now crashed, we have sent a team to the site to determine how many passengers were on board."

A spokesman for the UN mission in Congo, Kemal Saiki, said: "It is a plane from the company Hewa Bora with 60 to 70 passengers on board."

Birere is located just beyond the runway, which used to continue into the neighbourhood but was partially destroyed by lava from a volcanic eruption in 2002.

Democratic Republic of Congo has one of the world's worst aviation safety records.

There were eight plane crashes in the country last year, including one in the capital Kinshasa which killed more than 50 people.

More to follow...

[WhinerLiner]

Deepest sympathies to the families and friends of all aboard

[Safetyman]

Plane Crash In Eastern Congo

A plane has crashed into a residential area in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Government officials said a DC-9 plane hit the Birere neighbourhood in the town of Goma.

The crash happened when the flight faltered after take-off, according to Julien Mpaluku, the governor of the province.

*Plane Crashes in Congo Neighborhood

A rescue team is on its way to the scene of the crash.

The number of dead or injured is not yet known.

"The plane appears to have missed its take-off and crashed in a populated neighborhood," said Mpaluku.

"As the plane has just now crashed, we have sent a team to the site to determine how many passengers were on board."

Democratic Republic of Congo has one of the world's worst aviation safety records.

There were eight plane crashes in the country last year, including one in the capital Kinshasa which killed more than 50 people.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1312951,00.html

[grjplanes]

Wasn't Hewa Bora banned from EU airspace just yesterday?

Just like TAAG last year, few days after being banned, they have a crash...

[HighFlyer68]

Just called a friend in Goma, didn't have a lot of news, only that airplane crashed in the Birere district, very populated area.
CNN and other news channels report that both pilots alive plus 10-15 pax. Expect many casualties on the ground.
Seems the result of a late rejected takeoff after tyre failure a high speed according to some.

[joe north]

just a matter of time for anything operated and maitained in the drc, anybody who as seen the facility in kin****hole knows what i am talking about.

[VAFFPAX]

HighFlyer, your report confirmed by BBC...

S.

[Toppled AH]

Hey CHRFRP.....how can you say that about the DC9...are you telling me the 737-200 that nationwide fly are any younger??? .....are you also saying the NG a/c never crash!!!!!!! besides if the only job you could get was on a DC9, would you take it????? I BET YOU WOULD.....:ugh::ugh:

May they rest in peace

[chefrp]

your right the 737-200 are very old as well.

it s a very sad day.

[Soap Box Cowboy]

Just clarify things, where is this neighberhood located, North or south? I thought procedure was to land in a northerly direction and take off to the south over the lake?

As for the DC-9 it is reported to have been charetered by Hewa Bora, looking at the pictures it's not a Hewa Bora plane, looks more in line with the Presidents 727 colour scheme. Don't recall seeing a plane like this in Kinshasa.

But also recall seeing all kinds of wrecks there on the main ramp, not just the maintence side.

As a side note, anyone know anything about the C-130 in the goverment hanger?

[OpenSky2008]

http://www.lesoir.be/actualite/monde/congo-crash-aerien-a-goma-80-2008-04-15-591863.shtml

Le soir belgian newspaper said an blowing tire at high speed may be the cause of the accident. The pilot try to stop the plane but loose control. I think it was too late to stop the plane.

[atedo]

Hewa Bora can not maintain an airframe that entered service 1977:ugh:.


http://www.airliners.net/search/photo.search?cnsearch=47731/860&distinct_entry=true

With their reputation of no standard; pax and vegetables allowed in the cabin, they can not maintain an aged acft.:=

My good tots to the crew and pax.

[V1... Ooops]

If the aircraft in question is 9Q-CHN, MSN 47731 (as ASN reports), then it was Hewa Bora's own DC-9 Series 51.

It is very sad to hear of this accident. I flew jumpseat on that exact aircraft on February 14 this year from Kinshasa to Goma - the crew were very professional.

My condolances to all.

[lowbypass]

It appears that the foward left door was not used to evacuate, I wonder how flight crew escaped as there is a thread mentioning crew survived.

[Lifes-a-Beech]

According to Sky News there are 6 survivors - 2 pilots and 4 pax, 2 of which are children

[embrunman]

According to some French news, it looks at most of the passengers escaped form the front door, so very few were killed if any.
By DRC being what it is, they don't even know the exact numbers of pax:ugh:

[I.R.PIRATE]

Very considerate of them to crash near civilisation, or else we would still be searching for the wreck, Nigeria style.

[Contract Dog]

Why were there pix of the wreck on BBC news where they showed the DC9's Tail, then went to another picture, saying it was the same crash and there was an AN12's tail sticking up out of the mound of smouldering metal?

Dog

[Soap Box Cowboy]

Yes sw that as well, definetly a AN-12 tail. As for the R1 door being closed, if you look at the picture of the cockpit you can see the Captains window is open, I'm guessing the flight crew got out that way.

[embrunman]

Sure....and the 53 pax as well?
At the moment, they think that all the pax and crew survived. They only found 53 pax alive plus all crew, but they think that the remaining survivors just got back home by their own means:ok:

[V1... Ooops]

Here's an article about the accident from AIR SAFETY WEEK:

A DC-9 operated by Hewa Bora, a private Congolese air carrier, crashed while attempting to take off from the airport at Goma, in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on April 15.

The jetliner reportedly blew a tire and suffered an engine failure during departure with the DC-9 traveling through an airport fence, coming to rest in a crowded marketplace. By the end of the week, the death toll stood at 44 with 146 injuries, but many of the 79 passengers and six crewmembers aboard the DC-9 survived with serious injuries.

The governor of the Nord-Kivu province said in a phone interview with CNN that his administration has asked the central government several times to fix the airport's runway, which was shortened six years ago when a volcano eruption destroyed nearly half of the city of Goma.

And the pilot of the plane told United Nations officials that engine failure and the shortened runway contributed to the crash. The pilot, who is hospitalized, told U.N. officials he tried to abort the takeoff after one of two engines failed.

The jetliner had been headed to the central city of Kisangani and then to the capital, Kinshasa, 700 miles to the west.

The European Union recently added Hewa Bora to its blacklist of carriers. Although all other Congo carriers had been previously banned by the EU, Hewa Bora operated a weekly flight to Belgium "under a special arrangement." That flight was halted because of safety violations. Congolese authorities had not suspended the airline, but that will probably change in light of the fatal accident.

An Antonov An-26 turboprop on Oct. 4, 2007 crashed into a residential market area of Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of Congo's capital, destroying homes and killing at least 19 people, including the three Ukrainian crew members, all the passengers on board and others who were in the teeming neighborhood located three miles from Ndjili International Airport.

The transport operated by Africa 1, a Congolese carrier, had just taken off from the airport en route to central Congo. Investigators will attempt to determine the cause of latest crash in Africa where aircraft are often old and poorly maintained and flown by pilots from former Soviet states.

In 1996, a Russian-made An-32 crashed after takeoff from Kinshasa's airport, plowing into a crowded open-air market. The crash killed as many as 350 people in the nation's worst air accident.

Africa 1 is on the European Union's airline blacklist. All Congolese air carriers, except for Hewa Bora Airways, are banned from the EU.

The continent has the worst air safety record based on the number of fatal crashes per million departures in the decade, 1996 to 2005. In the first half of the decade, Africa registered 3.6 fatal crashes per million departures. In the second half of the decade, that number rose to five.

The Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire, has a dismal aviation record. There have been 10 plane crashes in the nation since February of last year, resulting in 76 deaths -- not including the April 15 crash -- according to Aviation Safety Network.

Only one other region of the world had a rising fatal crash rate, the Middle East, increasing from 0.5 to 1.8 fatal crashes per million departures. Meanwhile, Latin America, with the second-worst safety record, dropped from 2.4 to 1.7 fatal crashes per million departures. In contrast, the United States, with the best safety record, declined from 0.7 to 0.4 in that period.

[Mobotu]

The story from one of the pilots goes something like this......

They elected to take off to the South when the runway was wet, with standing water, while other aircraft were waiting for the runway to dry out. Nothing wrong with the TOW. They had about 50-80 pax, depending on who you listen to, and were apparently 4,000 lbs below performance limit.

The captain briefed, reducing V1 to 100 kts, with VR around 125, but didn’t change the speed card.

At 100 kts the F/O called “V1”

At about 125 kts, at the point of rotation No. 2 engine failed. (Or possibly barked with a compressor stall)

It was then that the captain elected to abort the take off.

They had so much speed that the airplane actually became airborne. When it slammed back onto the runway they took the nose gear off and subsequent braking with the main gear bouncing off the runway took some tires out.

They shot off the end of the runway at high speed, down the embankment into the residential and market complex. The airplane caught fire and came to rest by the mosque.

All of the crew, including all of the flight attendants managed to escape injury and the fire while most of the pax and people at the market were burned to death.


So what MAY have been the contributing factors:

- Standing water on the runway MAY have caused the engine to stall or fail
- A shortened runway(2000m at 5500ft) due Lava on the rest of the runway
- The Captain's decision to abort the takeoff at Vr instead of taking-off
- No accelerate stop OR overrun area to prevent ground fatalities and stop

You decide.......................:rolleyes:

[NG Driver]

"They elected to take off to the South". Come on Mobutu, being in the DRC you should know that taking off to the north at Goma isn't an option, so there's nothing elective about a southbound departure. Still, an informative post.

[Soap Box Cowboy]

Intresting point moboto, you say number 2 engine failed, I have seen pictures of the crash wher eth enumber 2 engine brakes are deployed, Engine no 1 not visibble or seperated from fuselage.

[BUSHJEPPY]

Hewa Bora ban fails to derail Brussels Airlines' AirDC plans
By Victoria Moores

Brussels Airlines is pressing ahead with its AirDC Congolese start-up project in co-operation with Hewa Bora Airways, despite its partner’s recent fatal McDonnell Douglas DC-9 crash and European Union ban.

The European Commission has a blanket ban on air transport operations from Democratic Republic of Congo because of its dissatisfaction with regulatory oversight. Despite the ban, Hewa Bora had until recently been allowed to operate a single aircraft in Europe under a special arrangement, but this agreement has now ended.

On 15 April, a Hewa Bora DC-9 crashed into a residential and commercial area of Goma in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Latest estimates suggest that there were 40 fatalities.

The developments are a blow to Brussels Airlines, which was planning to launch Congolese start-up AirDC last month. Kinshasa-based Air DC is 49%-owned by Brussels Airlines’ Mauritius-based affiliate Pan African Airlines, while Hewa Bora holds the remainder.

A Brussels Airlines spokesman says: “Hewa Bora is a partner in the project, at least financially. That’s important because all of the operational elements will be performed by Brussels Airlines. Hewa Bora is involved more on the commercial side, as they are familiar with the market in Congo and the agency network.

“For us Hewa Bora being on the blacklist and having suffered an accident does not impede our plans substantially, although it does slow them down a bit because we don’t want to take any risks with security.

“We have re-checked the infrastructure at the airports to make sure everything complies with international operational standards. It is our intent to go on with the project and we are hoping for the first flights before the summer.”

He says the airline plans to launch with two British Aerospace 146s, which are ready to leave Brussels after being adapted for African operations. They will soon be dispatched to Mauritius, where they will be locally registered.

AirDC will initially fly from Kinshasa to the Democratic Republic of Congo’s major domestic destinations, but will later branch out into international operations. A third aircraft will later be added, depending on the success of AirDC’s initial operations.

The spokesman says some of AirDC’s planned destination airports are ready to receive flights, but others need runway and emergency service improvements. He says this is why AirDC is yet to detail its initial network.

[V1... Ooops]

There is a thought provoking article about this accident (and African sched carriers in general) at this link: Ask the pilot (Patrick Smith) - Salon.com (http://www.salon.com/tech/col/smith/2008/05/02/askthepilot275/)

[doubleu-anker]

If what "Mobotu" says is true, then you have the cause of this needless accident staring us all in the face.

If you abort the take-off at 25kts above V1, you are really asking for trouble.

Not the smartest idea in the world to reduce, V1. Loosing an engine at or just after a reduced V1 and the chances of accelerating away (before the end of the R/W) to become airborne are significantly reduced.

[cubana]

HELLO GUYS,

AIR DC WILL NORMALLY START OPERATION BY MID JUNE BUT THE AIRCRAFTS ARE ARRIVING IN KINSHASA BY THE 25 OF MAY.
INITIAL ROUTES ARE ONLY KINSHASA-LUBUMBASHI-JOHANNESBURG AND LUANDA WITH THREE BAE 146-200 PLUS A B737-400 THAT IS ON D-CHECK WITH LUFTHANSA TECHNIK AND SHOULD ENTER THE AIR DC FLEET BY SEPTEMBER 2008 AND THE FINAL PROJECTS IF EVERYTHING IS GOING WELL ARE BY THE END OF THE YEAR ANOTHER 2 B737-300 WITH WINGLETS EX VIRGIN EXPRESS!

THERE ARE FOR THE MOMENTS FIVE CREWS READY FOR AIR DC ON THE BAE146 AND THEY ARE RECRUITING SOME MORE...

:ok:

[V1... Ooops]

Some fascinating pictures of the Goma DC-9 accident are now available at the Flight International website: Hewa Bora Accident (http://www.flightglobal.com/airspace/photos/hewaboraaccident/default.aspx).

This picture in particular is nicely composed (for a picture, setting aside the sad nature of the content): UN B-1900 (ZS- registration) landing Goma (http://www.flightglobal.com/airspace/photos/hewaboraaccident/images/11264/original.aspx)