I just saw photos on CNN. Couldn't see props. Cockpit area did not look severely damaged. Rest of aircraft destroyed.

D**n

luxembourg crash
 

Just a thought
do we know if the a/c had been holding prior to the approach
the idea of a fuel starved engine failure would account for the course deviation maybe?
I realise that there was a post crash fire but a little fuel goes a long way in crash

:mad:
I live only a few miles from the crash site, about right at the FAF 24. At the time I was on the phone so I didn’t hear it pass by but my mailman told me that he heard it pass by “making a funny noise”. Of course such a “layman observation” could mean a lot of things but obviously something was already going wrong.

The aircraft crashed about half a mile right of track with a considerable off-track heading (45 to 60º). From the pictures it is clear that the right prop isn’t damaged much suggesting its engine wasn’t running at the time.

From a point of view of topography the airport is about 500-600ft above the level where I live and a good 400ft above the crash site. Also the airport was fogged in but at my place was about 400ft ceiling with a visibility of about 2 miles. This suggests that the crew could have been VMC in the very final stages of the flight.

Thus far for the facts – the rest is pure speculation at this stage. However, there are wild rumors going around already.

- The aircraft just came out of a service and rumor has it that the right engine had been changed;
- Luxair will resume operations tomorrow but only “experienced” pilot will be allowed to fly;
- All the local political dignitaries were having a “field day” and Mr. H. Grethen, Minister of Transport and Economy was once again making a fool of himself.

Rumor has it that Mr. Grethen has more expertise regarding alcoholic beverages than his about his functions. Well I personally don’t know about his drinking habits but a can confirm his poor judgment regarding aviation from first hand experience. Since he became minister back in 1999 the civil aviation scene in Luxembourg has been in permanent state of crisis.

So far many forces try to “unseat” Mr. Henri Klein, the director of the DACL (Direction de l’Aviation Civile de Luxembourg = the Luxembourg CAA), as a consequence of his minister’s decisions. And to name the account of such decisions and scandals would go far beyond this sad story. Let me just say as much as since Minister Grethen has taken over the DACL is forced to “police” their airlines in the worst possible way.

As a result communications and collaboration between authority and airlines have gone done here in Luxembourg which took its toll and training standards, maintenance quality, etc are going downhill. I fear that today’s sad accident may be the result.

In my opinion, and whatever the accident investigations reveals as primary cause, the JAA should take a very close look at Luxembourg. The time where airlines and crews have to fear their authority should be over and even in Luxembourg the industry and the authority should team up to improve safety.

In Luxembourg pressure is already rising that “heads must roll”. I sincerely hope that it will be Henri Grethen and not Henri Klein. Otherwise, the DACL will lose its most competent member.

So, without knowing the cause of this accident yet a lot of problems within the country’s aviation industry are finally coming to light. I hope that this sad day will be the turn around for Luxembourg.
:mad:

BeePee

Condolences to all. Used to have a lot of involvement with LUX and LG in particular, though on the handling side so do not know flight crew.

I may be in totally the wrong area, but I know on one of the approaches to LUX, if slightly too steep before capturing the glide, you often used to get a 'spurious' GPWS warning due to hills in the area, even though your turn to capture the ILS avoided these. As I said, I may be totally in the wrong area, and the comments above regarding the 'stationery' prop may point to other causes, but could CFIT be an issue?

Reports now say 20 of the 22 people on board didn't make it. One pax survived after being "catapulted" (reporter's words) out of the aircraft when it crashed. One of the pilots also survived.
Was just wondering if that off-track condition could have been because he was heading to DIK for another approach?

Lots of sorrow... lots of questions. As a controller my immediate reaction was "how could it crash 5km (6m in one quote) from touchdown simply because of fog?" Mode C should have been visible to ATC and no controller is going to allow an a/c to descend to ground level without doing something. I therefore suspect a major control problem, but who knows - yet?

I do get very distressed at the media - BBC, papers, etc., implying that fog was a major cause. A/c land in thick fog day after day with no hassle.

Don't know if this is relevant, but I'm sure the authorities will be checking; this flight was the second flight after it's 220Hr maintenance check - first flight being the outbound to Berlin early in the morning.

Some reports give bird strike as a _possible_ cause. Huge flocks of migrating birds in the vicinity at time of impact.

Does anyone know if birds fly in cloud/fog?

bluskis,

I wondered myself, and after a very quick search found a (what seems to me reliable) source stating reported deaths of 1000s of migrating birds in fog.

http://www.darksky.ch/texte/sempach.pdf
(in German)

Birds do fly during fog. They are obviously being attracted by strong sources of light during fog, especially at night - collisions of flocks of birds with light houses etc. are common, according to that source.

Of all the possible causes, and I am not one to speculate, Brookmans Park's takes the cake.

Would you like to pop over to Luxembourg and convene a kangaroo court for the surviving pilot too?

:mad:

Just saw a big picture of the Fokker 50 from behind. Badly "flattened". Definitely no flaps extended, and the right propeller seemed undamaged, not feathered. The left propeller destroyed, it seems. Could the "flattened" wreckige suggest little forward motion at the moment of impact? A stall, or spin? Just thoughts. The plane had apparently (according to a newspaper) just left a holdingpattern, heading for the airport. (I'm not a pilot, obviously). I guess the two survivors were very lucky. The captain will surely end all speculations, when he can be questioned.

Following my posting I received an irate private mail from a pilot who had taken umbrage at my post because I mentioned "control problem". He viewed this as some sort of criticism of the crew! How anyone could jump to such a conclusion is totally beyond me but let me emphasise that nothing was further from my mind. By "control problem" I meant that perhaps there was a malfunction preventing control of the aeroplane and this seems to be backed up by other postings on here.

Am I correct in saying that the auto feather function is not operative on approach and only available for T/O? I cant remeber but I do recall an eng fail on my days on the FK on approach was a pig to handle.

My sympathies to all.
Bear

A/F on an F50 is inhibited in descent, as the power levers must be in T/O detent for A/F to be armed. When experiencing an engine failure during approach, the propeller will not autofeather when initiating a G/A because of this.

have found added some arr charts for ELLX rwy 24

Autofeather
 

Hello guys

U have talking about autofeather function of the Prop during approach.

I don't know the Fokker 50. In the Aeroplane I fly (Saab 2000), this function is fully operational during all phases of flight.

If somebody has other infos about the Fokker I would highly apprechiate any comments. ;)


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My deeply condolences to all people concerned.

Has anyone noticed the left hand elevator is completely missing
whereas the right hand one is still attached ???
Hard to see how the inpact forces would have done that.
Anyone know where it is ??

Don't know the F50 either, but in the Viscount autofeather was dependent on throttle position such that an engine could flame out or have the fuel shut off but would not autofeather until throttle advanced into takeoff/climb range -- at least that's how it worked in the simulator.

Luxembourg ceash
 

Two photographs in the Luxembourg press show the right tailplane and elevator almost intact. On the left side the tailplane appears to have been boken by impact damage at about mid point. the outer half together with parts of the elevator seem to have been twisted underneath and lie still partly attached to the inner part of the tail plane. The aircraft's wheels initially touched in a field about two meters before the road. After crossing the road the aircraft struck an embankment rising about two meters above the road and planted with trees and bushes. It is likely that the left tailplane was damaged by contact with the embankment or the trees. An arial view taken from a helicopter makes this clear.