Aviation

Citation

(2003), "Aviation", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 12 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2003.07312aac.001

Aviation

Aviation

17 January 2002 – Concorde

A much-awaited French government report on the crash of an Air France BAe Concorde (F-BTSC) confirmed a long-held theory that a piece of debris from a Continental Airlines aircraft was a factor in the deadly accident. The 400-page report released today by France's accident investigation bureau, or BEA, said the crash on 25 July 2000, could not have been foreseen. However, it also criticised what it said were some sloppy operations by Air France and Houston-based Continental. Continental today sharply denied any suggestion that it was responsible for the crash, which killed 113 people. The report said a Continental Airlines McDonnell Douglas DC-10 shed a piece of metal known as a wear strip on to a runway that the Concorde later used for take-off. The strip caused a Concorde tyre to burst, propelling rubber debris into the fuel tanks and sparking a fuel leak and fire that brought the aircraft down. The loss of the metal piece "originated from a lack of rigorous maintenance", the report said. The report marks an end to the investigation into what caused the aircraft to crash minutes after take-off from Charles de Gaulle Airport outside Paris. An inquiry to determine legal responsibility for the crash is still under way. "We acknowledge the efforts of the BEA to establish the cause of the accident, but we disagree strongly with the findings in their report. We deny responsibility for the accident", said Continental spokesman Nick Britton. Britton said airports have a statutory duty to sweep runways and keep them free of debris and that, in any event, a burst tyre should never be the cause of the loss of an aircraft. He also said Continental has not been able to confirm that the wear strip came from the DC-10 that took off five minutes before the Concorde. "Even if it did come from our aircraft, the wear strip is not the root cause of the accident. That was the inherently unsafe design of the Concorde, which is vulnerable to catastrophic damage in tyre bursts." Britton also said BEA's recommendation that the US Federal Aviation Administration audit maintenance procedures at Continental Airlines was unnecessary. "All our maintenance has been in accordance with FAA regulations and manufacturer's procedures", he said. Britton noted the report said that Continental's overseas maintenance sub-contractors also should be examined. He said the wear strip was installed on 11 June 2000, by a contractor, Israel Aircraft Industries, under Continental supervision. It was replaced9 July 2000, by a Continental mechanic in Houston. "Once we discovered the wear strip was missing, we introduced supplemental procedures to ensure wear strip installation was secure in the future", Britton said. The report also cited a number of weaknesses in the way French air carrier Air France maintained its fleet of Concordes, although the report stressed that the deficiencies were not to blame for the crash. "The technical investigation brought to light various malfunctions relating to the operation of the aircraft, for example the use of non-updated flight preparation data, the absence of archiving of certain documents or incomplete baggage inspection", the report said. Air France said that its faults cited in the report had been corrected. "Although they did not contribute to the accident, the faults pointed out in the BEA report have been the object of detailed analysis and appropriate corrective measures", the French air carrier said in a statement. Concordes in the fleets of Air France and British Airways – the only two carriers to fly the supersonic jet – were grounded after the accident as changes were made to its design. Engineers say those changes have now made the Concorde safer. The aircraft has been fitted with fuel-tank liners of bullet-proof Kevlar, a flameproof reinforced undercarriage and newly designed, extra-resistant radial tyres.

17 January 2002 – USA

US Federal safety investigators said they have discovered internal damage in the tail fin of the American Airlines jet (N14053) that crashed last November in New York, but further testing is needed to determine if it occurred before or after the accident. The National Transportation Safety Board said on Tuesday (15 January) that NASA scientists examining the 27-foot tail fin found that some layers of the advanced composite material used to build it had peeled apart from each other, a phenomenon known as "delamination".

It was the first tentative indication of possible flaws in the material. The tail fin of the Airbus A300 jet broke off shortly after take-off from John F. Kennedy International Airport, and Flight 587 crashed into a nearby neighbourhood, killing all 260 on board and five people on the ground. The crash was the first civil aviation disaster involving the failure of a major component built with composites, which are lighter and stronger than most metals. Composites are built of many layers of carbon fibres embedded in a special resin and moulded together under heat and pressure. They lose their strength when delamination occurs. The NTSB said its investigators are continuing their search for a mechanical malfunction or structural defect that may have caused or contributed to the accident. However, they have not come across any evidence of an in-flight explosion or fire that might indicate sabotage. "Some delamination has been noted", the NTSB said in a statement, referring to the internal damage found in the tail fin. "But at this time, it is not known whether this occurred before impact or as a result of impact." An Airbus spokesman declined to comment. The NTSB said tests at NASA's Langley Research Centre in Virginia will "take many more months". Up to now, the tests have been conducted with ultrasound and other scanning devices. New tests will be "more extensive and intrusive" the NTSB said.

17 January 2002 – Ecuador

A Fairchild aircraft, operated by Ecuador's state oil company Petroecuador, with 21 passengers and five crew members on board, went missing today while heading for a city in the Amazon jungle, the civil aviation office (DAC) said. The aircraft, bound for the city of Lago Agrio in the Amazon jungle, made its last contact with air traffic control at 1058, local time (1558, UTC), 50 miles from its destination, the DAC said in a statement. The DAC declared the aircraft, which took off from Quito earlier this morning, in emergency at 1112 hrs, the statement said. Pablo Lopez, the chief of Quito's airport said an operation was underway to find the aircraft, which Petroecuador used to transport staff to oil fields in the crude-rich Amazon jungle. "The aircraft was declared missing because it used up its fuel reserves", Lopez, said. The 21 passengers all were state oil company employees or contract workers and all were Ecuadorian, a company spokeswoman said.

18 January 2002 – Rescuers on foot and in helicopters searched Ecuador's rugged jungles today for a missing aircraft that was carrying 26 workers from Ecuador's state-owned oil company. The twin-engine propeller aircraft lost contact yesterday morning while it was headed from Quito to Lago, 110 miles north-east of the capital. All 21 passengers and five crew members on board were Ecuadorean, Petroecuador said. Air Force Colonel Humberto Andrade, who is directing the search operation, said an emergency radio signal had been detected today coming from a hill in Colombian territory along a river that divides the two countries. The aircraft is believed to have lost radio contact near the Ecuadorean town of Lumbaqui, about 30 miles south-east of the border area and 35 miles west of Lago Agrio. Foot patrols and three helicopters were combing the wooded area crisscrossed with streams and hills.

20 January 2002 –

The wreckage of an Ecuadorean state oil company aircraft that disappeared earlier this week with 26 people on board was found in the Colombian jungle today, a company official said. There was no immediate word on whether any of the five crew or 21 passengers survived the crash. "At 1020 hrs an air force helicopter found remains of a white-and-blue plane, which are our colours. They are now over the area and soldiers are going down to see if there are survivors", Petroecuador vice-president Rosendo Santos said. He confirmed the wreckage was the missing Petroecuador plane. Petroecuador's twin-engine Fairchild plane, which was more than 30 years old, disappeared on Thursday morning during a routine flight that shuttled oil workers from Quito to Ecuador's oil-rich Amazon. After the aircraft failed to reach its destination, rescue teams began an intense search. Following an emergency tracking signal, they found the wreckage in southern Colombia about 2.5 miles across the border, Santos said.

24 January 2002 – Search patrols have found the wreckage of an aircraft from Ecuador's state-owned oil company that crashed into a hill in Colombia. None of the 21 passengers or five crew members survived, Air Force Colonel Humberto Andrade said. The twin-engine propeller plane had been missing since last Thursday (17 January) after it failed to arrive at Lago Agrio, an oil outpost in the Ecuadorean Amazon 110 milesnorth-east of Quito and near the border with Colombia. All of the passengers were Ecuadorean, according to a passenger list released by Petroecuador, which owned the plane.

28 January 2002 – Colombia-Ecuadorian Border

An Ecuadorean jetliner carrying 94 people crashed today in the foggy Andes Mountains across the border in Colombia, an airline spokesman said. The Boeing 727-100 from Ecuador's TAME airline lost radio contact at 10.23 hrs, the Civil Aviation department said in a statement. It was carrying 85 passengers, including seven children, and nine crew members, the statement said. The aircraft, which originated in Quito, crashed in Colombian territory near Ipiales, a city just across the border from the aircraft's destination, the Ecuadorean city of Tulcan, said TAME spokeswoman, Toa Quirola. "We don't have any more information at this time", she added. Diego Vallejo, a spokesman for the Ecuadorean Red Cross, said rescue workers knew where the aircraft crashed but that they had not been able to reach the site. "The plane is located in Colombian territory", he said, without specifying where. Vallejo said his organization had contacted the Colombian Red Cross about co-operating in rescue efforts. Colombia offered to help locate the aircraft, Colombian civil aviation director Juan Carlos Velez said, but he added that he could not confirm that the plane went down in Colombian territory. The aircraft's planned flight path took it into Colombian airspace and over Ipiales as it headed to Tulcan, 110 miles north-east of Quito, the TAME spokesman said. The mayor's office of Ipiales, located six miles north-east of Tulcan, said the city's airport was closed because of fog.

29 January 2002 – Authorities suspended until dawn the search for an Ecuadoran Boeing 727-100 that disappeared with 92 people on board in the remote mountains of southern Colombia. Ecuador's state-run TAME airlines, which earlier said the aircraft was carrying 94 people, later amended the figure to 92 on board, according to a source at TAME. The governor of the Andean province, Carchi Edgar Moscoso, says the search has been focused on the Ecuadoran-Colombian border and a committee of inquiry was examining every possibility. Ecuador's civil aviation chief says an explosion was heard as the plane flew low over remote mountains of southern Colombia. The CAA said the aircraft lost contact with the control tower in Tulcan three minutes before it was scheduled to land. A civil aviation spokesman said that over-flights of the Colombian villages of Cumbal and Pueblo Nuevo had so far revealed nothing. Colombia and Ecuadoran authorities launched aerial and ground searches for the missing aircraft near Ipiales, just north of the border with Ecuador, where locals reported seeing the aircraft flying low.

29 January 2002 – Search teams found the wreckage of an Ecuadorean airliner that crashed with 92 people on board near a volcano at the Colombia-Ecuador border, an Ecuadorean official said. There was no word on survivors. It would take rescue workers at least two hours to reach the remote site of the crash near Chiles Volcano near the Ecuadorean border, Minister of Government Marcelo Merlo told reporters in Ecuador's capital, Quito. Merlo did not say whether there were any survivors. It was not clear whether the wreckage was found on the Ecuadorean or the Colombian side of the Chiles Volcano, whose 15,668-foot summit lies on the border between the two nations. Rescue teams from both nations were focusing on the region of the Chiles and another nearby volcano, Nevado de Cumbal. Witnesses reported hearing a plane flying through the clouds yesterday and then an explosion in the area. Clouds persisted today and delayed the resumption of the search. At midmorning, a search flight took off from Ecuador, entering Colombia as the crew peered through breaking clouds. In Cumbal, fire-fighters drove up a misty road into the mountains to try to locate the crash. Cumbal, Colombia, 29 January, searchers found the wreckage of an Ecuadorean Boeing 727 and confirmed that all 92 people on board died when it crashed into Colombia's Cumbal volcano, officials said today, a day after the aircraft went down. TAME airlines Flight 120, which took off from Ecuador's capital Quito yesterday morning, broke off radio contact as it flew into Colombian territory to avoid the treacherous mountains during the 30-minute flight to Tulcan. "The remains of the aircraft have been found on the highest point of the Cumbal volcano", army Colonel Henry Salcedo said. "There aren't any survivors. The passengers were all burned up", said Alvaro Emilio Hucheli, the mayor of the nearby town of Cumbal. Two infants and five older children were among the 92 passengers and crew on board. The passengers included two Spaniards, two Italians, one French, one German, one Mexican and one Cuban, said a TAME spokeswoman in Ecuador Toa Quirola. The aircraft went down yesterday morning but its wreckage was not found for a full day because of fog and rugged terrain, even though emergency crews had immediately focused their search on the Cumbal volcano. Rescuers said they did not know what had caused the accident. The Colombian air force had pointed to bad weather.

31 January 2002 –

Searchers today found "black boxes" storing cockpit conversation and flight data that could tell why an Ecuadorian Boeing 727 crashed into a Colombian volcano this week, killing all 92 people aboard. "The black boxes from TAME's Boeing 727 were found and are right now in the Colombian army's custody", Cesar Naranjo, director of Ecuador's Civil Aviation office, told reporters.

1 February 2002 – Black box flight recorders have been recovered from the wreckage of an Ecuadorian airliner. Investigators hope the cockpit voice and data recorders will reveal why it crashed into a Colombian volcano. All 83 passengers and seven crew were killed in the crash. Ecuador's president, Gustavo Noboa, has declared an official day of mourning for the victims. The TAME Boeing 727-100 crashed into the slopes of Cumbal volcano near the border with Ecuador. It lost radio contact as it circled towards its destination of Tulcan, then vanished in the fog.

26 January 2002 – Luena, Angola

An aircraft chartered by the Angolan Government has crashed in the east of the country. Most of the 34 passengers managed to escape the wreckage alive, however three have now been confirmed dead. Initial reports said that up to 30 people had died. The aircraft crashed as it was making its descent into Luena airport in Angola's eastern province of Moxico. The aircraft, a Russian Antonov 12, fell to the ground about eight kilometres from Luena, catching fire as it landed. At least 31 people were admitted to the military hospital in Luena according to state radio. Official reports have blamed mechanical failure for the accident.

30 January 2002 – An aircraft crash in Angola killed some 30 people, including Angolan passengers and at least one of the Russian crew, Russia's foreign ministry said today. Details about the crash of theSoviet-built An-12 plane were sketchy, but a ministry statement said it happened Sunday (27 January) near the city of Luena in south-eastern Angola. The crew had called air traffic control and reported technical problems. It was not clear if those aboard were strictly civilian, military or a combination of both. The Angolan government sometimes charters planes for troop movements and then allows paying passengers on board as well. The Angolan government declined to comment, but state-run Angolan radio said Sunday that three people had died. However, the Russian ministry statement today said "about half" of more than 60 Angolan passengers aboard had died.

12 February 2002 – Iran

An Iranian passenger aircraft carrying 105 people has crashed in the mountains of western Iran, say officials. There are no details on the number injured or killed yet, and there is no information on the cause of the crash. The state-owned Iran Air Tours plane had left Tehran at 0730 hrs, heading for Khorramabad when it crashed near the village. Residents of a village near Khorramabad heard a "big explosion" and fire after the Tu-154 plane, a Russian-made Tupolev, went down, state radio reported. An official at the Khorramabad governor's office says the plane was carrying 105 passengers and crew members. The official added that the aircraft has not yet been found, but searchers have identified the area of the crash.

12 February 2002 – All 117 people on board an Iranian passenger aircraft were killed when the aircraft crashed into a mountain while trying to land in western Iran today, a government official told Reuters. "All 117 are dead", said the official, declining to be identified. Those killed included four government officials and two foreigners, the official said. The Russian-built Tupolev-154, belonging to Iran Air Tours, an affiliate of the state carrier Iran Air, was flying from the capital Tehran to Khorramabad when it disappeared off radar screens south-west of the city earlier today. State radio said villagers in the area were startled by an explosion early in the morning. Low clouds and heavily overcast skies in the city may have hampered landing, residents said. Iranian airlines have been dogged by a history of accidents in recent years.

12 February 2002 – An Iranian Tupolev Tu-154, operated by state-owned Iran Air Tours, left Tehran at 0730, today, bound for Khorramabad. At least 118 people, 105 passengers and 13 crew members, were aboard Flight 956. The aircraft crashed in the snowy Sefid Kouh mountains, 15 miles west of Khorramabad. No information on the cause of the crash. Search teams were sent to the site, but they were having difficulty reaching the crash scene, due to heavy snow in the Sefid Kouh mountains. Teams that had neared the site had found one of the aircraft's tyres. The residents of a village near Khorramabad heard a "big explosion" and fire after the Tupolev went down, Iran state radio said. A team of experts from the Transportation Ministry was heading to Khorramabad, it said. Minutes before crashing, the aircraft lost contact with the control tower at Khorramabad airport, the television said.

13 February 2002 – Heavy cloud over treacherous mountain peaks hampered efforts today to recover the wreckage of a crashed Iranian passenger plane and the bodies of the 117 who died on board. A large patch of blackened rock marked the point where the Russian-built Tupolev-154, belonging to state-owned Iran Air Tours, smashed into the mountainside yesterday. Wreckage was strewn across a swathe of jagged outcrops high up on the side of a mountain topped with thick mist. In the valley below, security forces held back distraught relatives who tried to break through a cordon and attempt to climb the rocky crags to find their loved ones. Rescuers with ropes tried to scale the cliffs while a row of crude wooden coffins were laid out on the ground waiting to receive bodies. The provincial Natural Disaster Organisation denied media reports that some bodies had already been found. Four Iranian government officials and four Spanish citizens from a Basque domestic appliance company were among the dead. Some 200 mountaineers are being drafted into the area from around the country to help the army, civil defence units and local people search the crash scene. Army commanders ordered fires to be lit around the site overnight and troops fired shots into the air to frighten away wild animals that might ravage the bodies on the slopes. While the plane's manufacturer, Tupolev, said the aircraft was in first class condition, Iranian media were quick to apportion blame. "Again another old Russian plane crashed", declared the Siyasat-e Rouz daily in a banner headline. Parliamentarians have called for the resignation of Transport Minister Ahmad Khorram and aviation agency head Behzad Mazaheri. President Mohammad Khatami ordered a special task force to investigate the crash. Aviation officials at the scene said the plane had diverted from its normal flight path before the crash, but they would not know why until the "black box" flight recorders were found and analysed.

14 February 2002 – Russian aviation experts left Moscow for Iran early today to join a commission of enquiry to determine what caused a Tupolev-154 airliner to crash in Iran with the loss of 119 lives, the Ria Novosti news agency reported. Investigators believe that the aircraft either suffered a catastrophic technical failure or simply took a wrong line through a mountain range. The Iranian authorities announced on Wednesday they were grounding all Russian aircraft in use in the country after the Iran Air Tours Russian-built jet crashed in mountains on Tuesday(12 February) while trying to land at the south-western city of Khorramabad on a domestic flight. All 117 people on board the aircraft were killed. "Following this accident, we are withdrawing all Russian-made aircraft", Iran's transport minister Ahmad Khorram said on television. The three-engine Tu-154 model was launched in 1968 and some 1,000 were built. Aviation officials say the aircraft has a relatively good safety record.

16 February 2020 – Search teams have only recovered 37 bodies from an Iranian airliner, which crashed with 119 people on board. Heavy wind and dense fog are hampering the recovery high up the Sefid Kouh mountain and prevented helicopters from carrying down two large metal boxes, each containing five or six bodies. Hamzah Imani, a climbing expert involved in the operation said bodies, body parts and pieces of the plane were scattered across several miles on the mountain. "We are collecting the bodies, some of which have been covered in snow, in subzero temperatures on the mountain", Mr Imani said. "It is a depressing operation. There is so much blood on the rocks and all the bodies have been mutilated" by the force of the crash and the rough terrain, Mr Imani added. Behrouz Goudarzi, deputy governor general of Lorestan province, said recovery teams have brought 37 bodies to the Lorestan army base. Of the bodies, 12 have so far been identified, he said. He was speaking from Khorramabad airport, the control centre for the recovery operation. The Russian made Tupolev Tu-154 airliner, carrying 107 passengers and 12 crew, crashed on Tuesday morning into the Sefid Kouh mountains. All aboard were presumed dead. The aircraft lost contact with the Khorramabad airport control tower minutes before crashing into the mountain. The cause of the crash was unknown, but officials said the aircraft went down in bad weather.

17 February 2002 – Search teams have recovered the black box flight recorder from an Iranian airliner that crashed last week, killing everyone on board. The black box was found near the crash site on the Sefid Kouh mountains, south-west of Tehran. The Russian-made Tupolev-154 was carrying at least 117 people when it crashed. So far, 84 bodies have been found.

22 February 2002 – Iran today completed retrieval of all 119 bodies of those killed aboard a Russian-made Tupolev-154 aircraft, which crashed on jagged mountains near this western city on 12 February. The last bodies were transferred from the Sefid Kouh mountains this evening, following 11 days of strenuous search and relief operations, which were repeatedly hampered by snow and rain as well as hardly surmountable passes. So far 97 bodies, in addition to those of four Spanish passengers, have been identified and handed over to their families, a head at the natural disasters department of the Lorestan province, Reza Niknam, said. The Spanish nationals, engineers of the Fagor home appliances company, were travelling to Khorramabad on business. Niknam said the identities of 22 victims have still remained unknown despite "ceaseless efforts" to identify them. The aircraft, chartered by the Iran Air Tours, an affiliate of the national flag-carrier Iran Air, crashed on the mountains a only few minutes before landing at the Khorramabad airport. It was on a domestic flight. The cause of the crash has still to be announced once the contents of the aircraft's "black box", containing conversations of the pilot are examined. Shortly after the tragic incident, several MPs called for the resignation or dismissal of Iranian Transport Minister Ahmad Khorram as well as the Civil Aviation Organization head, Behzad Mazaheri. Some 150 MPs, in a letter to President Mohammad Khatami, also asked him to take necessary measures for the cause of the crash to be brought into light. Iran Air Tours also announced that it would take away Tupolev aircraft from its fleet.

18 March 2002 – After a month of investigations, Iran's Civil Aviation Organisation (CAO) announced yesterday that pilot error caused last month's crash of a Tupolev Tu-154 en route to Khorramabad from Tehran. The director of the CAO Public Relations Office, Reza Ja'farzadeh, said that the evidence had confirmed human error, specifically pilot error, was a cause of the crash but that weather conditions and equipment failure may have been factors, although this has not been confirmed. He said that the black box data showed that there was contact with the air controllers at Khorramabad Airport and that the navigational instruments had been functioning correctly. "Regarding the data, including communications between the pilot and his flight crew and the control towers of Khorramabad and Tehran, there is no sign of technical problems in the aircraft's equipment", he added. He said that there were no weather problems and the runway was not overcrowded. The CAO official added that the conclusions were reached after thousands of hours of discussions among flight experts and examinations of the aircraft's black boxes. The aircraft crashed on 12 February, killing all 119 people on board.

26 April 2002 – Iranian search teams and mountaineers have recovered the remaining bodies of six victims, who were killed along with 113 others on board an aircraft 12 February, from the crash site on jagged mountains near the western city of Khorramabad, press said today. According to the evening daily Kayhan, they found the bodies several thousands metres from the crash site more than two months after the mishap which coincided with a heavy snowfall at the time. Except for a three-year-old child, identified as Khashayar Biranvand, the rest of the bodies are beyond recognition, the paper cited a coroner in Khorramabad as saying. "Efforts are underway to identify the rest of the bodies, but the victims will most probably remain unidentified because of the gravity of the incident and the damage inflicted on them", he said. Kayhan quoted an official at the natural disasters department in Khorramabad as saying the bodies will be buried in the city as unknown victims of the crash, similar to seven other victims who were buried in Tehran shortly after the crash. The Russian-made Tupolev-154, chartered by the Iran Air Tours, an affiliate of the national flag-carrier Iran Air, crashed on the mountains only few minutes before landing at the Khorramabad airport. It was on a domestic flight. Initial examinations of the aircraft's "black box" and its cockpit recorder have blamed human fault as the cause of the crash. The accident prompted harsh criticisms of MPs who called for the resignation or dismissal of Iranian Transport Minister Ahmad Khorram as well as the Civil Aviation Organisation head, Behzad Mazaheri who was replaced days later.

22 February 2002 – Russia

A military Antonov An-26 cargo aircraft carrying 356 Russian naval officers and their relatives crashed as it tried to land amid heavy snow in northern Russia, killing 17 people and injuring three, officials said today. The aircraft was making its third attempt to land late yesterday at the airport in Lakhta, near the White Sea port of Arkhangelsk, some 600 miles north of Moscow, the Interfax-Military News Agency reported. The plane was carrying eight crew members and 12 passengers, including an 11-year-old girl, the Emergency Services Ministry said. The majority of passengers were naval officers returning from a meeting of the Northern Fleet in the Murmansk region. The aircraft sliced treetops and slammed into a field a mile short of the runway, officials said. One of the aircraft's pilots said bad weather may have contributed to the crash. "It happened unexpectedly. We were already landing. There was a strong wind, and it was snowing", he was quoted as saying. Officials said that the crew had not reported any trouble with the aircraft. A team of Defence Ministry investigators was examining the crash site, and the aircraft's black boxes had been found.

28 February 2002 – Russia

Families of the Russians killed when a Sibir Tupolev-154 crashed into the Black Sea,4 October 2001, after it was shot down by a Ukrainian missile will get at least $10,000 in compensation, a report said today. RIA-Novosti news agency, quoting Russia's ambassador in Kiev, said the agreement for Ukraine to pay out was reached last week between Russian officials and Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma. A total of 15 families of Russian victims of the disaster had said they would sue after rejecting an initial offer from the Ukrainian government of $2,000 per family. After repeated denials, Ukraine finally admitted that the aircraft had been downed by a ground-to-air missile.

15 March 2002-10-13 – Santa Clara, Cuba

A small aircraft crashed in central Cuba yesterday afternoon, killing 17 people, including 13 foreigners, authorities said. The aircraft, described as an AN-2 Aerotaxi, went down around 1630, local time, near Santa Clara, the capital of Villa Clara province about 165 miles east of Havana. It was believed to be on a flight to the island resort of Cayo Coco. The cause of the crash was not immediately known. The victims were listed as six Canadians, five Britons, four Cubans and two Germans, an official from the International Press Centre said last night. A doctor answering the telephone in the emergency room of Santa Clara's Arnaldo Milan Castro Hospital, said he was among those who went out to the crash site and confirmed that 17 had died. He said there were no survivors. The doctor said police and rescue teams were still working to retrieve the bodies late yesterday evening. It had not been decided where the bodies would be taken, he said.

15 March 2002 – Authorities are pulling the bodies of 17 people, including four Britons, from a lake in Cuba after a biplane crashed. No-one has survived the crash near Santa Clara. Air accident investigators are looking into the cause of the crash. The AN-2 aircraft was a small chartered aircraft travelling from Cienfuegos to Cayo Coco, an exclusive resort in the keys on the main island's northern coast. Witnesses who rushed to the lake to investigate said they could see the aircraft's tail jutting out of the water. Authorities have blocked access to the lake. Seven funeral cars with caskets inside have been seen leaving the area. The AN-2, the world's largest biplane, was operated by the small local charter company Aerotaxi. The victims include two Germans, six Canadians, including a child, four Britons and four Cubans. A doctor at Santa Clara's Arnaldo Milan Castro Hospital confirmed that 17 had died. There were no survivors, he said.

16 March 2002 – Cuba has grounded about 100 Soviet-made Antonov AN-2 aircraft for passenger flights pending a investigation into why an Antonov AN-2 crashed on a tourist outing, killing 12 foreigners and four Cubans, the head of the country's civil aviation institute said today. A preliminary investigation indicated the accident occurred when the top part of the left wing was ripped off in high winds, causing the aircraft to spiral down out of control. Witnesses told investigators the aircraft was flying at about 3,000 feet when a strong wind apparently snapped off the top part of the left wing, sending the craft into a downward spin. Since the accident, all passenger flights with this type of craft have been cancelled. Investigators drained most of the reservoir's water to collect the aircraft's parts.

22 March 2002 – Egypt

Egypt's Civil Aviation Authority (ECAA) plans to appeal formally against the final report by the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) into the crash of EgyptAir Flight 990 (SU-GAP) in October 1999. The report publicly blamed the aircraft's co-pilot Gameel el-Batouty – and not mechanical failure – for causing the crash, which killed all 217 people on board. Cairo has consistently rejected the theory that el-Batouty deliberately crashed the aircraft, with officials and public opinion alike adamant that pilot suicide could not have been to blame. The Egyptian aviation authority said US investigators had failed to consider evidence regarding the possibility of mechanical failure. "NTSB investigators failed to consider a credible body of evidence supporting multiple failures in the aircraft's elevator control system as the probable cause of the accident and, as a result, further investigation is required", the ECAA said in a statement. However, according to the report, "there was no evidence of any airplane system malfunction, conflicting air traffic or other event that would have prompted these actions". The NTSB report released yesterday said the Boeing 767 crashed "as a result of the relief first officer's flight control inputs". The NTSB said el-Batouty was alone in the cockpit when the aircraft started its plunge, and made no attempt to stop it. It did not offer any explanation for the co-pilot's actions. However, it said el-Batouty had calmly repeated the phrase "I rely on God" for more than a minute. This was "not consistent with the reaction that would be expected from a pilot who is encountering an unexpected or uncommanded flight condition", the report said. However, the ECAA said "errors in translating words on the cockpit voice recorder caused the NTSB to focus its attention on the presumed actions of the pilot".

15 April 2002 – Air China

An Air China passenger aircraft crashed into a wooded South Korean mountain in heavy rain and fog today, killing many of the 166 people on board but at least 54 survived, rescue officials said. Flight 129, a Boeing 767 belonging to China's national carrier, was flying to Husan from Heijing carrying 11 crew and 155 passengers, mostly Korean. Many traders use the flights connecting the cities. The 17-year-old aircraft crashed and broke into pieces near apartments, apparently as it struggled to land in thick fog at Kimhae Airport in Husan soon after 1100, local time, today. Local television said at least one of the flight recorders had been recovered. Television pictures showed hundreds of rescuers combing through smoking wreckage strewn amid trees on a foggy hillside. Yonhap news agency said most of the survivors were seated in the front of the aircraft and quoted Husan aviation officials as saying the rear part of the aircraft appeared to have hit ground first. Hospital and government officials said 54 people had so far been taken from the site alive. Officials said 33 people were confirmed dead as of 1730 hrs. China's Xinhua news agency quoted Ma Songwei, chief publicity official of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, as saying of 155 passengers, 135 were Korean nationals and 19 Chinese. There was one Uzbek, it said. A Kimhae police official said the weather and rugged terrain were hampering rescue efforts, but firemen and the steady rain had extinguished burning debris at the crash site. An official at Seoul's domestic Kimpo Airport said 38 flights from there to Ulsan, Pusan, Yeosu, Pohang and Mokpo and 42 flights from the cities to Kimpo had been cancelled because of heavy rain and fog that had closed some airports in the south of the country. More flights were expected to be cancelled.

15 April 2002 – At 1040, 15 April, Boeing 767, operated by Air China, on flight CCA129 from Heijing, China, to Busan, with 156 passengers and "10" crew, crashed on approach to Kimhae Airport and was destroyed. A total of 102 passengers and 10 crew died – 54 persons survived, but injuries unknown.

16 April 2002 – The pilot of an Air China aircraft which crashed in South Korea yesterday killing nearly 120 people is alive in hospital but has yet to talk about the accident, a South Korean official said today. Cho Kwang-sig of the Home Affairs Ministry's emergency situations centre told Reuters the death toll had gone up to 119 overnight because a survivor died in hospital. Nine people are still unaccounted for and 38 survivors are in hospital, 28 of them in serious condition. Officials revised the total of people on the flight back down to 166 from 167 – 155 passengers, mostly Koreans, and 11 crew. "He did not lose consciousness", Mr Cho said of the pilot. He said the man had face injuries and lost some teeth. "The pilot would not say anything about the accident and said he would speak to Chinese embassy officials first before making any comment", Mr Cho said. Chinese investigators flew to Kimhae yesterday to join South Korean experts to find out why the aircraft crashed. Most of the survivors were in the front section of the Boeing 767-200-ER, officials said.

17 April 2002 – Aviation authorities suspect that an erroneous pilot decision to attempt a landing in inclement weather resulted in Monday's (15 April) crash of an Air China jet near Busan, which took the lives of at least 125 people. Sources said yesterday that the pilot must have miscalculated the time and location of the turn toward the runway, thus hitting the top of a 380-metre-high mountain located several kilometres from Kimhae airport. Investigators, who launched a full-scale probe of the case, are expecting to determine soon the cause of the disaster, encouraged by the survival of the pilot of the doomed flight, CCA129, and the recovery of its "black boxes". Two Korean investigators and a prosecutor yesterday had a one-hour meeting with the pilot at the hospital. They confirmed his identity and asked some questions. "I didn't detect any kind of structural problems of the aircraft. And I lost my memory upon impact", the pilot was quoted as saying. "A Korea-China investigation team will further question the pilot on the situation at the time of the crash", said Kim Jong-hee from the emergency countermeasure center of the Ministry of Construction and Transportation (MOCT). A total of 38 survivors were hospitalised as of yesterday afternoon, while three were still unaccounted for. The confirmed death toll stood at 125, but the number is feared to rise since many survivors are in serious condition. As another core part of the investigative process, the joint team will today begin the analysis of the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder recovered from the 17-year-old crashed Boeing 767-200. "Seven US investigators will participate because the crashed aircraft was made by a US firm", said the MOCT official. The group of American officials consists of five from the National Transportation Safety Board and one each from the Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing. The analysis is to be conducted at a MOCT facility in Seoul. "Unless the cockpit voice recorder was badly damaged, it might only take a few hours to decipher its contents", said Kim, "If so, we will be able to determine the probable cause of the accident earlier than expected". But it will require at least three or four months to analyse the flight data recorder, which will provide decisive details, he added.

17 April 2002 – The aircraft which crashed on approach to Kimhae Airport, 15 April, was Boeing 767 -2J6 B-2552, operated by Air China.

19 April 2002 – Investigators have decided to have the flight data recorder (FDR) of the crashed Air China CCA129 analysed by its manufacturer in the USA, the reason cited being the extent of damage it incurred in the crash. The Ministry of Construction and Transportation (MOCT) said yesterday that it is impossible to analyse the FDR domestically, as its computer connections were impaired by intense heat in the crash. "Without the connection, we can't download any data into a decoder", said Kim Jong-hee, head of the transportation bureau at the ministry, "So, investigators will have to take it to the Seattle laboratory of Allied-Signal, the manufacturer of the black boxes". He added that experts from South Korea, China and the USA will jointly conduct the analysis. But he stopped short of setting a date for when the FDR will be sent, saying, "The visa process needs to be cleared first for the South Korean and Chinese investigators". The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) reportedly survived the crash almost unscathed, enabling investigators to analyse it at the ministry's Kimpo laboratory. It contains the pilot's last words before the aircraft hit the mountainside near Kimhae International Airport. The ministry official expects that its results would be released sometime next week. However, it won't go far towards finding the cause of Monday's crash, which led to at least 122 deaths, experts said. "Most important is to scrutinize the FDR, which contains some 300 types of data on such things as altitude and flight conditions at the time of the accident", said Lee Young-hyuk, a professor at Hankuk Aviation University. "That process usually takes three to six months". Meanwhile, the bereaved families are pressing the government for a prompt conclusion as to the accident's cause and identification of the bodies. With only six bodies identified, the authorities have begun taking DNA samples from the relatives of those who did not survive. The analysis should be completed in two months. Officials raised the number of missing from two to six. That lowered the number of the dead to 122 from the 126 reported earlier, while that of survivors, 38, remains the same.

26 April 2002 – Taiwan

Pilot error was the chief probable cause in the crash of a Los Angeles-bound Boeing 747-412 (9V-SPK), which tried to take off on the wrong runway in Taiwan and slammed into construction debris, killing 83 people in October 2000, a government report said today. However, the Taiwanese-led probe also concluded that confusing runway markers and broken taxiway lights had contributed to the crash of Singapore Airlines Flight SQ006. "The flight crew did not review the taxi route in a manner sufficient to ensure they all understood" they were taking off on the correct runway, Taiwan's Aviation Safety Council said in a statement released with the report. The pilots had tried to take off from Taipei's Chiang Kai-shek International Airport in a heavy rainstorm brought by an approaching typhoon. Before the flight, the pilots were warned in a pre-flight briefing that a runway next to the one they were supposed to use was partially closed and cluttered with construction debris, the report said. Despite the warnings, "the flight crew lost situational awareness and commenced take-off on the wrong runway", the crash report said. "The CKS airport should have placed runway closure markings adjacent to the construction area" on the closed runway, the report said. There were a number of things at the airport that did not meet international standards, the report said. Taxiway lights were broken, and a centreline on the taxiway did not extend all the way to the lane where the aircraft should have taken off. Taxiway signs that guide aircraft to their take-off positions were not properly located, the report said. The airport also did not undergo regular safety reviews to ensure that it met international standards, the report said.

4 May 2002 – Kano, Nigeria

A Nigerian airliner has crashed into a densely populated district of the northern city of Kano, killing at least 116 people, including 40 on the ground, aviation officials have said. The airliner, bound for the commercial capital Lagos, crashed as it took off from Kano's airport, ploughing into shacks and a mosque and starting a number of fires, the officials said. "There were 69 passengers and seven crew members on board", an official of the Federal Aviation Authority of Nigeria said, correcting earlier reports of 105 on the aircraft. "All passengers and crew are feared dead", he added. A fire service official said dozens of people were killed in their homes when the twin-engined HAC 1-11-500 operated by EAS Airlines crashed into the impoverished residential district of Gwammaja. "Ten buildings were hit by the plane. As of now the bodies of about 40 people have been recovered from the houses", he said. The aviation official said the aircraft had stopped over in Kano on a flight from the central city of Jos. Airport officials said earlier it crashed as it came in to land from Jos. Poorly equipped fire crews and other emergency workers battled flames and thick smoke from the smashed buildings, which included a school.

6 May 2002 – Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo today walked silently through the wreckage of a Nigerian airliner that ploughed through homes, mosques and a school in Kano. Red Cross spokesman Patrick Hawa said today that 149 people were killed in what was likely to be a final death toll from the Saturday (4 May) afternoon crash of the EAS airliner – unless some of those hospitalised die. The latest figure included three bodies discovered yesterday afternoon and another this morning. The casualties were split almost evenly between those on the aircraft and people on the ground. The army said the country's sports minister was among the passengers killed. Carrier EAS Airlines reported four survivors -a female crew member and three passengers. By this afternoon, the search for dead appeared to have stopped. Bands of youths scavenged through the wreckage for engine parts and other valuables and police stood idly by. Obasanjo later visited the palace of Kano's emir, or traditional Islamic ruler, where he pledged $70,000 to residents of Gwammaja, the impoverished neighbourhood where the crash occurred. The leader also promised to "do all it takes to avert the reoccurrence of such a disaster", but did not elaborate. Obasanjo's government recently proposed banning planes over 22 years old, a move that would ground many of the aging aircraft used by the dozen or more private Nigerian airlines. Residents said the twin-engine jet "wobbled" soon after take-off from Kano's airport on Saturday afternoon, bound for the commercial capital of Lagos, 435 miles to the south. Plunging, the jet sheared roofs from two-storey concrete homes and sliced a mosque in half as it broke apart, exploding in a ball of flames. Obasanjo said yesterday the aircraft apparently lost power. Speaking to the nation on state radio, he promised a full investigation.

8 May 2002 – China

A China Northern Airlines aircraft carrying 112 people has crashed into the sea near Dalian in north-east China. A statement from the airline said there were no survivors. Seventy bodies are reported to have been retrieved. Witnesses quoted by Xinhua said the aircraft – Flight 6136 – crashed into the sea some 20km east of Dalian airport. Liu Jiqing, a loader at Dalian port, said he saw the aircraft "making several circles before plunging into the sea". The MD-82 airliner was flying from Beijing to Dalian, with 103 passengers and nine crew members. Eight foreigners – mainly from Japan and South Korea – were among the passengers. But the majority were Dalian residents, likely to be travelling back to work after China's week-long Labour Day holiday. Ground controllers reportedly lost contact with the aircraft at 2132 hrs (1332, UTC) after its captain reported that a fire had broken out in the cabin. There is speculation that there was an intense fire on board moments before the crash. More than 30 rescue ships raced to the crash site. "We sent every boat we could find", said a Dalian port authority official. "When they heard the news, fishermen set off in their boats of their own accord", he said. Xinhua says rescuers found a food trolley that had been burned black and broken in half, indicating the seriousness of the fire. A team of investigators sent by the Chinese cabinet has arrived in Dalian to probe the cause of the crash.

9 May 2002 – Recovery crews are searching for the wreckage of the China Northern Airlines aircraft which crashed into the sea near Dalian in north-east China on Tuesday (7 May) night with the loss of all 112 passengers and crew. Less than 70 bodies have been recovered and boats and divers have been searching the city's coastal waters to locate the jet's fuselage, which is believed to contain those still missing. The "black box" flight recorder has yet to be recovered from the waters, which are 11 metres deep. A team of investigators sent by the Chinese cabinet has arrived in Dalian to probe the cause of the crash and US investigators including representatives of Boeing are due to assist them.

7 May 2002 – Nahli area, Tunisia

An EgyptAir aircraft has crashed near Tunis, reportedly with more than 60 people on board. A senior Tunisian Government official quoted by Reuters said "some of the passengers are alive". Another source said about 20 passengers had survived. EgyptAir in Cairo said the aircraft was a Boeing 735, capable of carrying about 55 passengers and up to 10 crew. EgyptAir said the flight number was 843. The aircraft was on a short hop from Cairo to Tunis. It crashed as it was coming in to land, about 6km from the Tunis-Carthage airport. The control tower lost contact with the aircraft a few seconds earlier, just after a distress call from the pilot, reports said. The weather was foggy and rainy at the time. Eyewitnesses said that the aircraft hit a hillside and ambulances were rushing to the scene. "The plane is a big passenger plane. It crashed in the Nahli area of Tunis", one eyewitness said.

9 May 2002 – The chairman of EgyptAir has denied Tunisian claims that the landing gear of an aircraft which crash-landed on Tuesday (7 May) failed. Mohamed Faheem al-Rayyan was speaking before leaving for Tunis to head the investigation into the incident in which at least 14 people died. He also rejected reports that the pilot had dumped fuel as the plane got into trouble, the French news agency AFP reported. The EgyptAir Boeing 737-500 broke apart as it rammed into a hill in the Ennahli national park near Tunis airport while attempting to land in heavy rain. About 64 people were on board the flight from Cairo. The Tunisian health ministry said that at least 48 people were injured in the accident, although other reports said several people walked away unhurt. The team of Egyptian civil aviation experts arrived in Tunis today to aid the Tunisian investigation into the accident. A senior security official said the aircraft's flight recorder had been found in the wreckage and handed to the authorities. Tunisian civil aviation chief Hamadi Ben Khalifa told the Reuters news agency the air control tower had given the flight permission to land, but then lost contact with the pilot. Another airport official said there had been problems with the landing equipment. "When he found it difficult to handle the landing gear, he made a half circle before the plane was lost from the airport radar screens", he told Reuters. And another official said: "The plane did not explode when it hit the hill because the pilot ejected the fuel tank as he was making the emergency landing". But Mohamed Amine, the head flight attendant, who escaped with minor injuries, blamed the crash on "bad weather and bad visibility". EgyptAir's vice-president for safety, Shaker Qilada, denied that the aircraft had made an emergency landing. "It was a normal landing approach", she said. "We felt jolts in the plane, and a member of the crew reassured us that it was only clouds", Tunisan passenger, Narjess Hadada, told the Associated Press. "Suddenly, we saw sparks in the plane and then it hit the ground", she said. Another passenger, 42-year-old Houssam Morchedi, said most of the victims were near the back of the plane. The dead included at least six Egyptians, five Tunisians, a Jordanian and two other passengers, the Tunisan health ministry said. The airline had initially said 18 were killed in the crash.