LAM Mozambique Airlines Flight 470

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LAM Mozambique Airlines Flight 470
LAM Mozambique Airlines Embraer 190 Volpati.jpg
A LAM Mozambique Airlines Embraer 190, similar to the one involved in the incident.
Incident summary
Date 29 November 2013
Summary Deliberate crash by pilot
Site Bwabwata National Park, Namibia
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Passengers 27
Crew 6
Fatalities 33 (all)
Survivors 0
Aircraft type Embraer 190
Aircraft name Chaimite
Operator LAM Mozambique Airlines
Registration C9-EMC
Flight origin Maputo International Airport, Maputo, Mozambique
Destination Quatro de Fevereiro Airport, Luanda, Angola
LAM Mozambique Airlines Flight 470 is located in Africa
MPM
MPM
LAD
LAD
Crash site
Crash site
Location of departure (MPM) and destination (LAD) airport, and crash site.

LAM Mozambique Airlines Flight 470 (TM470/LAM470) was a scheduled international passenger flight from Maputo International Airport, Mozambique that crashed on 29 November 2013 into the Bwabwata National Park in Namibia en route to Quatro de Fevereiro Airport, Angola. The aircraft operating the flight, an Embraer 190, departed Maputo at 11:26 CAT (09:26 UTC) and was due to land at 14:10 WAT (13:10 UTC), but failed to arrive at its destination.[1][2] The wreckage of the aircraft was found the following day on 30 November 2013 at the Bwabwata National Park in northern Namibia, halfway between its departure and scheduled arrival airport. All 27 passengers and six crew members were killed. Preliminary findings of the Mozambican Civil Aviation Institute (IACM) showed that the pilot intentionally crashed the jet.[3] The Mozambican Association of air operators (AMOPAR) disputes the conclusion of the IACM.[4]

It was the first fatal incident for LAM Mozambique Airlines since 1970,[5][6] and the deadliest for a Mozambican airline since the Mozambican presidential Tupolev Tu-134A-3 aircraft carrying President Samora Machel crashed in 1986.[7]

Aircraft

The aircraft involved in the incident was an Embraer 190 with manufacturer serial number 581, registered as C9-EMC and named "Chaimite". Built in October 2012, it was first delivered to LAM Mozambique Airlines in November 2012 and had since accumulated 2905 flight hours in 1877 flight cycles.[8] It was powered by two General Electric CF34-10E engines.[9] The airframe and the engines were last inspected on 28 November 2013, one day before the crash.[2]

Incident

The aircraft was cruising at an altitude of Lua error in Module:Convert at line 1851: attempt to index local 'en_value' (a nil value). over Botswana airspace about halfway between Maputo and Luanda when it began to lose altitude abruptly.[2][10] The aircraft descended rapidly at a rate of about 100 feet (30 m) per second and was being tracked on radar.[10] The aircraft's track was lost from screens at Lua error in Module:Convert at line 1851: attempt to index local 'en_value' (a nil value). above sea level, after about six minutes of losing altitude.[10] The last contact with air traffic control was made at 13:30 CAT (11:30 UTC) over northern Namibia during heavy rainfall.[11]

Weather was reported to be poor at the time of the incident with heavy rainfalls in the vicinity of the flight path.[1][12]

Passengers and crew

LAM Mozambique Airlines confirmed there were a total of 33 people on board (27 passengers and six crew members).[13] The Namibian Police Force Deputy Commissioner Willy Bampton stated that none of them survived the incident and that "the plane [was] completely burned to ashes."[14]

Passengers by nationality[13]
Nationality Total
 Mozambique 10
 Angola 9
 Portugal 5
 France 1
 Brazil 1
 China 1
Total 27

The crew comprised two pilots, three cabin attendants, and a technician.[13] The captain, Herminio dos Santos Fernandes, had logged 9,053 flight hours in total while the first officer had accumulated 1,418 hours of flying experience.[2]

Response

The government of Mozambique announced it would declare a period of national mourning.[11] Portuguese President Aníbal Cavaco Silva expressed condolence to victims' families.[11] LAM Mozambique Airlines reported it was providing counselling and legal advice to families in both Mozambique and Angola and had set up an information hotline.[11]

The pattern of debris indicated that the aircraft slid along the ground for several hundred metres.[15]

Both flight recorders, the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and the flight data recorder (FDR), were recovered from the crash site within four days of the crash and were subsequently sent to the United States' National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) for readout.[2]

Investigation

On 21 December 2013, the Mozambican Civil Aviation Institute (Instituto Moçambicano de Aviação Civil, IACM) head João Abreu presented the preliminary investigation report, according to which Captain Herminio dos Santos Fernandes had a "clear intention" to crash the jet and manually changed its autopilot settings, making this a suicide by pilot.[16] The plane's intended altitude was reportedly changed three times from 38,000 feet (11,582 m) to 592 feet (180 m), the latter being below ground level, and the speed was manually adjusted as well.[17] The cockpit voice recorder captured several alarms going off during the descent, as well as repeated loud bangs on the door from the co-pilot, who was locked out of the cockpit.[2][18] Contrary to regulations by Mozambique Airlines, no third crew member was deployed in the cockpit during the time of the co-pilot's absence.[19]

Investigations on the plane's pilot revealed that 49-year old Captain Fernandes had suffered a number of blows of fate prior to the accident. His son died in a suspected suicide in November 2012; Fernandes stayed away from the funeral. His daughter was in hospital for heart surgery at the time of the suicide, and his divorce proceedings were unresolved for over a decade.[19]

Despite the conclusion of the IACM, the Mozambican Association of air operators (AMOPAR) disputed the preliminary report, explaining that the maneuvers of Captain Fernandes are from the Manual of Standard operating procedures of the Aircrafts Embraer (stricken aircraft manufacturer) about how to "act in emergency situation to avert disaster". According to the AMOPAR document, the Mozambican Government has not complied with the standards and recommendations of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) "about the disclosure, contents and procedures relating to the preliminary report of the investigation of the crash of flight TM 470."[4]

On Apr 15th 2016 DAAI released their final report.[20]

See also

References

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Further reading

External links

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ Missing Mozambican plane wreck found in Namibia, all 33 on board dead, AFP (via The Daily Telegraph), 30 November 2013.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found..
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ http://www.vf.se/nyheter/karlstad/dronare-till-hjalp-vid-katastrofer
  16. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  18. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  20. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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