freak congo accident

[fruitbat]

Scores die in freak air tragedy


More than 120 people are feared dead in the Democratic Republic of Congo after being sucked out of a cargo plane.

Military officials are quoted as saying that the rear ramp of a plane became detached soon after it had taken off from the capital, Kinshasa, on an internal flight.

Airport sources told the BBC in Kinshasa that only the Russian crew members survived.

An inquiry is said to be under way.

[jetstream7]

This link will provide further information from the BBC...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3013911.stm

[flynverted]

Just heard the same thing, except it was Singapore Airlines??

[canileb]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...tic_accident_dc

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Passengers were sucked out of a Russian-made plane over the Democratic Republic of Congo late on Thursday after a door opened accidentally during the flight, a military official said on Friday.

'The doors opened including the ramp as the pressure system broke down. Everybody was sucked out and is presumed dead,' the official in the capital Kinshasa said.

It was not immediately clear how many passengers were on board. A Russian aviation official in Kinshasa, who declined to be named, said he believed there were 129 people on board.

He said the pilot had managed to turn the plane around and land in Kinshasa after the accident.

Congo's Minister for Peace Vital Kamerhe confirmed that a cargo door had opened mid-flight and that there was some damage.

The Russian official said the plane was an Ilyushin 76 and had been chartered by the Congolese army to fly from Kinshasa to Lubumbashi, Congo's second biggest city in the southeast and home to a big military base.

He said he believed the passengers were a mixture of military officials and civilians.

The four-engined Ilyushin 76 is a versatile transport aircraft widely used in Africa, the Middle East, India and China, and remains in service despite its age because of the shortage of cargo aircraft worldwide.

The ruined state of Congo's road network means that long-distance journeys have to be made by air, though many aircraft are old and poorly maintained.

[Kerosene Kraut]

All pax sucked out while the plane managed to return? Doesn't that sound a little odd to you? So many mil a/c fly with an open backdoor for paradrops and stuff. Even a rapid decompression can't blow the whole cabin overboard can't it? And only special forces and their relatives onboard...

[Notso Fantastic]

No not odd. With a sudden decompression at altitude, there would be an awful drift off the ramp. The same happened to a Lockheed Galaxy carrying scores of Vietnamese orphans being evacuated during the Vietnam war before crashing. Paradrops are controlled conditions, not sudden decompressions. Remember the BAC-111 that lost its flight deck windscreen and went into Southampton? That was only at 17,000', yet it blew off the Flight Deck door and would have sucked the Captain out had he not been lapstrapped. As it was he ended up outside the aeroplane with his head getting battered on the fuselage above the window! Sudden pressurisation effects are immensely powerful, even at medium altitudes.

[BoeingMEL]

I'm with Kerosene Kraut on this one.... something very fishy! The Galaxy and BHX 1-11 incidents are not comparable (by the way Capt Tim Lancaster wasn't strapped in). If it was uncommanded ramp opening or loss the difference in pressures would have balanced swiftly..and once pressure balance was restored, passengers could not be "sucked out". Wait for the report or more news. All passengers sucked out but aircraft returns to land safely? Round up the usual suspects! BM

[bigbeerbelly]

Well, I do not think this accident can be reported as freak. I am sure the accident was a long time coming, but I doubt the government of Congo will prove any safety violations when they are trying to fly for free or as close to it as possible. BTW, CNN reported that only the back 12 were sucked out.

BBB

[TheShadow]

Received this email from an old mate: (Anyone know the IL-76 system/able to verify these possibilities?)

"The doors opened including the ramp as the pressure system broke down," a military official told Reuters news agency.

"Everybody was sucked out."

Methinks no-one checked that the rear electrically activated door-locks were made before they got airborne - or that an electrical/wiring failure unmade them (or see further more likely possibility below in italics). The C130/C133/C141/C117 rear ramp upper doors are plug type (open inwards) and cannot open while pressurized. Petal doors such as on the IL76 aren't plug-type but wouldn't (like cargo-doors) be on a ground-bus that's safely deactivated airborne. Why not? Well because it's used for aerial drops and para-trooping just like C130's. So an active inflight bus plus non-plug petal-type doors? Lethal combo. A manufactured mishap.

I'm only guessing but it's probable that to open the doors the primary latchings would have been powered away but the doors would still be held closed (against indicator-light driving microswitches) by hydraulic pressure (and then reversed hyd pressure through the door-jacks would be required to open them at a damped rate/stop them fluttering in the breeze).

But if the electrical latching had failed (at some earlier date) due to an intermittent wiring fault, they'd probably not be aware of that. Why not? Well as long as the hyd system held the doors positively closed against the microswitches, those microswitches would keep the loadmaster's panel lights and the cockpit caution lights from illuminating. However once they then had the hyd system failure that these guys had, the latent defect in the primary locks meant that they wouldn't have been there as the (now effectively) "secondary" safety-latching system...... and the doors just blow open, courtesy of the differential, as the hyd pressure falls away.

Latent undetected faults are a real bitch....particularly when they only show up at the point where their system's performance is critical.
http://www.iasa-intl.com/imagery/gash/il-76_3.jpg

http://www.iasa-intl.com/imagery/gash/il-76_7.jpg

[Eboy]

According to this Evening Standard article, they were sucked out at 7,000 feet. Does it still make sense?

http://www.thisislondon.com/news/articles/4760811?source=Evening%20Standard

[PaperTiger]

this Evening Standard article
Seems to be at odds with other reports, which include quotes from surviving passengers. How many were sucked (or fell) out remains unconfirmed (between 7 and 200 !), as does the actual passenger count. Probably be days before the real numbers are known.

[ockham hold]

Very strange things happen in Africa.

About 15 years ago there was an almost unbelievably catastrophic railway accident in Ethiopia. In spite of the fact that the state of the track means that speeds of over 15 mph are impossible, they still managed to kill over 150 people in the accident!

[LatviaCalling]

What I can't understand from some of the news media is that there were injured survivors. That seems unreasonable if people were sucked out at 7,000 feet, or even lower. It seems to me that if you're out of there at that altitude without a parachute, it is all over.

[BlueEagle]

I'm guessing here but it sounds as though the pax may not have been seated or strapped in but loaded behind some freight etc. and may even have been sitting ON the doors? Possible?

[Bubbette]

I don't think there's any question they were not strapped in.

[dicksynormous]

Blue Eagle,
Very possible.A while ago now i was drinking with a chap in africa called igor or ivan i cant remember(i'm serious) who flew the last aircraft (il76 )out of kigali. it was so full that when the ramp came up people rolled off it squashing the people on the main deck and vice versa. Still better than being chopped to little bits by a hutu with a serious chip, and an even more serious machete.
Having flown a ramp a/c round east and central africa nothing surprises me, it doesnt need a war to over fill an aircraft by a factor of two or three. dont worry the conspiricy theorists will be out in force anyway as they do for any death in africa.particularly ones connected to the establishment. any thing can kill you in africa except hiv, and natural causes, apparrantly.

just another victim of the free for all in african avaition.
jolly good fun as well.

interesting to note , not a single pprune cheesy "our thoughts are with them etc" .or is that only reserved for middleclass white pilots and their associated mishaps.How about a " ooo the poor things" at least


yours chippily

dicksy

[Konkordski]

I've seen a report from someone stood next to the aircraft at Kinshasa who says that one of the rear loading doors is bent back on itself.

[PaperTiger]

Latvia, the survivors were not ejected. One describes hanging on to the (cargo ?) netting while people and things flew past. No IL-76 has 200 seats, most would have been standing/sitting on the floor. As others have said, not unknown in the 'third world'.

[planetblu]

I had a little flying experience in Africa and I am not surprised something like that can happen. Every time I used to walk on african aprons it was a very interesting show to watch the loading phase of the military flights: for example people hanging out from the front door while the IL 76 was already taxying, etc.... :confused:
The maintenance standards are often very different from what we are used to. But that's Africa. And the flying activity in those skyies is amazing.:O
To understand what could have happend you have to forget the normal operations we have in mind in the "first world countries". Sorry for the poor passengers that will never fly again on the IL76.
:cool:

[Kerosene Kraut]

Any pic available of the a/c or any of their crew's comments on what really happened?

[LatviaCalling]

PaperTiger, sorry for the confusion, but the very early news reports indicated all passengers having been swept out like the domino theory. Now we know that at least some clung on to webbing, netting, trucks and others. Poor people. What a terrible way to go.

[Bubbette]

Yeah, but don't they go unconscious at that altitude?

[Onan the Clumsy]

Not meant to be a flippant post, but they had a scene like that in a James Bond movie once. Hanging onto the net behing a C130 (or something similar).

[sirwa69]

The Iraqi Information Minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, has been found!
He has taken up a new job under a different name at the Ukraine Defense Ministry.


Disputing the witness accounts, Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman Kostiantyn Khyvrenko said that about 40 seconds after takeoff from Kinshasa, the aircraft captain noted that the cabin was depressurizing, requested a landing and successfully returned the aircraft to the airport. He cited officials of the state-owned company that operates the aircraft, Ukrainian Cargo Airways.

"Neither the people, nor the cargo, nor the plane itself were hurt or damaged," Khyvrenko told The Associated Press in Kiev, Ukraine.

Full Story (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=8&u=/ap/20030510/ap_on_re_af/congo_air_accident_32)

:confused: :confused:

[Late Landing]

A similar incident took place north of Dubai, five or so years ago. Also an IL76, but a freighter, bound for somewhere north of PAPAR. Clam doors burst and some 4 - 6 tonnes of freight were lost. Can't remeber exactly, but the aircarft departed either SHJ or DXB. The pilot just asked to return due to a tech problem, no emergency declared. One door was blown out and the other was badly bent. The aircraft was some 30 north of Dubai when it happened, so obviously not at any great altitude.

[BlueEagle]

I think it was an IL76 that crashed into the sea just north of Dubai, having taken off from SHJ, no survivors, that would have been about ten years ago.

[Herkybird]

It's unlikely that the IL-76 had any seats. The "passengers" were most likely sitting on the floor, or on the cargo, or just milling-about in the back.

The African landscape is littered with the wrecage of these old Russian junkers that have been put out to work by the Air Forces of the bankrupt republics of the former Soviet Union to earn hard currencies.

These airplanes are not maintained to any kind of standard and are frequently overloaded. They would not be allowed to operate in any country where they would be subjected to CAA scrutiny.

This story plays out time an again in Africa. Recall the Antonov that crashed into the marketplace in Kinshasa a few years ago.

[PorcoRosso]

.interesting to note , not a single pprune cheesy "our thoughts are with them etc"

dicksynormous , If you go to the french forum, you will note that the first post after the news is : "C'est tout simplement effroyable" ? That's mine, and it clearly means my initial thoughts are not technicals, but human

[Gordinho]

Re the altitude confusion, since this is a Russian aircraft it's altimeter will be in meters. The news people probably can't get their heads around this.

[chippy63]

I wonder if the incident would have increased the nose-up attitude; this would have contributed to passengers gravitating to the back of the plane.

[BRISTOLRE]

IL76 only usually has a few side facing seats like in a Herc.
Crew were obviously strapped in well to this UCA aircraft!
What on earth were so many people doing in a cargo aircraft, so so dangerous but thats' Africa...
They are not built for so many people to be onboard, maybe someone landed on the "door open" handle by accident who knows.

[newswatcher]

Don't forget the IL-76 which crashed in Iran last February, allegedly killing 18 crew and 284 of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard.

[I. M. Esperto]

Terror in plane as passengers get sucked out

May 11 2003 at 10:41AM




By Sapa-AP


By Eddy Isango

Kinshasa - Some survived by clutching onto military vehicles, others to ladders, but tearing winds and a pressure drop swept scores of people from the open door of an aircraft flying over the Democratic Republic of Congo's jungles, survivors said on Saturday.

Lieutenant Ilunga Mambaza said he clung to a truck, buried in cartons, when the cargo-bay door of a Russian-built aircraft carrying Congolese police and soldiers, and their wives and children, opened late on Thursday.

"When the back door opened, I fell down and lots of boxes covered me," Mambaza, a policeman, said.

"Lots of my colleagues were sucked out by the wind. I don't know how many, because I fainted," said Mambaza, who estimated that about 350 passengers were aboard the cargo plane.

The flight crew returned the plane to Kinshasa after it was stricken about 45 minutes into the flight. Only about 100 returned safely, Mambaza said. Confusion over the death toll persists.

Congolese authorities were trying to verify how many people died after the Ilyushin 76 lost a door at 10 000m in the air over the region near the city of Mbuji-Mayi, en route to the south-eastern city of Lubumbashi.

Two officials at the international airport said that 129 people were feared dead. A third official estimated the casualties were about half that, saying the exact figure might be difficult to determine because of an incomplete manifest.