Afriqiyah Airbus 330 Crash

[STC-8]

Eyewitness from a private air company 'Global Aviation' reports seeing plane plowing through trees, buildings & automobiles. Also he reports that visibility was extremely poor at the time of the crash.





'Vliegtuig ploegde door gebouwen heen' - Binnenland - Telegraaf.nl [24 uur actueel, ook mobiel] [binnenland]

'Vliegtuig ploegde door gebouwen heen'

TRIPOLI - Het vliegtuig uit Johannesburg dat woensdag in Libië kort voor de landing neerstortte, kwam ongeveer een kilometer voor de landingsbaan terecht. „Toen ploegde het door bomen, enkele gebouwen en een paar voertuigen heen”, vertelde ooggetuige Juan Wolmarans (36), een manager van de particuliere luchtvaartmaatschappij Global Aviation in Tripoli, die op een collega wachtte die in de Airbus A330 zat.






Dat berichtten Zuid-Afrikaanse media. „Het zicht was erg slecht”, aldus Wolmarans. „Toen ik op de plaats van het ongeluk kwam, was de staart van het vliegtuig het enige deel dat nog herkenbaar was. Wrakstukken en lichamen lagen verspreid over een gebied van 800 meter. Er was geen teken van leven. Het was gruwelijk.”

[marsipulami]

Was just looking at the AVHerald' picture of the tail section and noticed the stabilizer trimmed in the fully nose up position. Could it be moved into that position during the event or is it likely to indicate the position of the last moments of the flight?

[STC-8]

The tragic human element of the crash is quickly becoming apparent in the Dutch news as many people were on holiday so there were families, sisters, parents with children onboard. There are victims from the region where I'm living in, even from nearby locations 10-15 kms away. Horrific for their families, colleagues & friends!

[6000PIC]

Firstly , I doubt the integrity of Libyan officials investigating a Libyan air accident in Libya , even though foreigners were carried , to give the public timely and accurate information , even with Airbus and Dutch oversight . Therefore , I don`t think we`ll have many solid answers soon. I`m also sure someone at the Libyan transport ministry has since made a call to someone somewhere inquiring about the capital and installation cost of an ILS system for this airport. To fly an all night flight and then choose to land into the rising sun using a non precision approach at your " home base " is at least suspect , if not suspicious . Even if the minima was the same on 27 , the difference of not staring into a rising sun in reduced visibility is profound. RIP.

[deSitter]

C-SAR,

The only other cases of fragmentation to this extent without any fire damage that I can remember, are the Avianca 707 at New York, and the United DC-8 at Portland. There is supposed to be adequate fuel onboard for diversion but still, the margins are not extensive and a math error can still happen. Even though this flight takes place within African borders, it's a long flight, nearly 9 hours. That's also a long time in which to make errors in fuel management. But in any case the complete lack of soot is very telling.

-drl

[nugpot]

Andrasz, we get it, you are a racist...

The only thing dumber than not going around when you should is a racist..

uberwang ,
Sorry, I don't get it. What race are Libians?

I think that andrazs is very restrained in his commentary of Libian press freedom/press releases.

[Gretchenfrage]

PJ2 wrote:

At present, experienced, knowledgable members know that their contributions won't even be read or valued

You read what's been written already now, do you therefore consider your contribution just as 'not experienced and knowledgable', or do you consider yourself above all other contributors?

then you continue:

In the meantime, please don't consider the level of discussion here, especially the usual conspiracy and standard anti-Airbus agendas

Are you asking us to consider your level of discussion however?

finally you write:

I don't get the feeling that this outcome had anything to do with the airport, the navaids, ATC or the country the accident occurred in

This is legitimate. You contribute your actual oppinion, which with the momentary absence of facts is just that. But please let others contributors state their oppinion just as much without instantly belitteling them.

(By the way, in your last quote, did you deliberately leave out 'aircraft'? That might be considered anti-Airbus as well ....)

[onetrack]

A close examination of the 23 pictures on the following SA news site link shows very little evidence of charring on any of the debris. Even the tyres are unmarked. One has to conclude that a lack of motion lotion has to be high on the list of suspects, particularly in a near new Airbus with up-to-date terrain avoidance warning equipment. Even though the debris field is over 800 metres, one would expect some visible charring on a % of it, even with low fuel reserves.

A loud crash, then bodies everywhere: News24: South Africa

[Gringobr]

Winglet

If it was missing a winglet, that would reduce furl consumption by at least 5% which could mean they ran out of fuel (lack of serious fire)

[sharksandwich]

sharksandwich,

You need to do a little research using some of the very good web databases before you talk about disproportionately large number of incidents involving the A330. All modern Boeing and Airbus products enjoy very low accident rates in comparison to their earlier stablemates. Just look at how many B737s were going down in their first 13 years of operation and you'll see that there is no comparison between them and the A330.

AS far as I am aware, no airliners crashed before 1909.
What did they do right that we are now getting wrong?

[hawker750]

Fuel thoughts
Tripoli has probably the cheapest fuel in the world especially for a local based airline, so I should imagine he would not be taking anything other than minimum fuel.
The route was probably up A403 and once past N'djamena the only runway before Tripoli is Sebha which from experience is probably not equipped to take a 330.
If I were an investgator I think I know where I would start

[kwateow]

Did any plane ever get critically low on fuel without the crew telling someone?

[Victor Juliet]

Fact: the one with a missing winglet is 5A-ONF, the one crashed is 5A-ONG.

[Lamyna Flo]

Did any plane ever get critically low on fuel without the crew telling someone?

What about Avianca Flight 52, in 1990? The crew did advise but I don't believe they declared an emergency and the aircraft went down Avianca Flight 52 - The Delays That Ended in Disaster - NYTimes.com Avianca Flight 52 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Not sure of any others; stand to be corrected.

[stressmerchant]

From Sharksandwich:

AS far as I am aware, no airliners crashed before 1909.
What did they do right that we are now getting wrong?

1909??

And I'm not sure what date you could put in there that would allow your post to make some form of sense. Ever since there have been airliners, there have been accidents.

[HotDog]

Gringober.

If it was missing a winglet, that would reduce furl consumption by at least 5% which could mean they ran out of fuel (lack of serious fire)

Where do you get this misinformation from? The fuel penalty for one missing winglet on the A330 is 1.2%. Was it sharksandwich per chance?

[BOAC]

Could all those widly 'stabbing in the dark' take time to read heli-mate post #158 - someone who knows what he/she is talking about (and is feeling the loss of friends and colleagues). There you will see the winglet was absent well before this flght, so fuel penalties should have been factored in, and they were in fact "4%".

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

I worked at HLLT in the 60s and had the misfortune to be there when an airliner crashed. It was early morning, very quiet traffic-wise, weather good but some mist patches. Aircraft was on a fairly short flight with an experienced crew including a check-captain on the flight deck. A visual approach was made from some distance out but slant vis close-in caused a go-around. The pilot elected to make a visual circuit to the opposite end and crashed several miles short of the runway.

There was no problem with ATC or the airfield. There was no ILS but weather was usually good enough for visual approaches, which was the preferred approach for the majority of crews, whether based or not.

Many airfields around the world are not so well equipped as say JFK, CDG, Heathrow, etc., but they function quite normally with no problems, H24 365 days a year.

My thoughts are with the crew and pax who lost their lives and with the ATC staff who were on watch.

[omaaa]

Hi thanks for your comment, as a Libyan it is amazing to see how suddenly people are dying to have a go at Libya, what is it? why is it? yes we are a developing country, yes we have oil wealth? but every year the country is safer and better then the previous year, we can't be up to your British or any other standards overnight, there is millions being spent on the aviation and many other industries.

And the comments on Libyan Pilots sat at home waiting for sanctions to be lifted is simply untrue, Many Libyan Pilots left during the sanctions to Singapore, Qatar and many other middle eastern airliners who have returned also please note during the sanctions the 727s still operated domestic flights and many other Russian aircraft continued to fly around the country, given Libya's terrain flying is sometimes the only way from A to B. I have a few relatives who fly for the 3 main airlines in Libya, and happen to know captain Yusuf of flight 771.

Libyans are a hospitable people, who enjoy looking after expats and visitors, please show the same respect back for the people, who are doing their best to change the view of their homeland, the normal men and women on the street who don't deserve such a reputation.

[forget]

There you will see the winglet was absent well before this flght, so fuel penalties should have been factored in, and they were in fact "4%".

Where does this number come from? See manufacturers figures here.

http://www.pprune.org/5682784-post20.html