Kareeb Writes

Hi there! I am a student of the Department of Media Studies and Journalism, ULAB and trying to pursue a career in journalism. This blog is the result of my love for investigations and going deep inside a topic. So, here I am writing and presenting four blogs about the air crash investigations. Hopefully you guys will like it!!

[ishmamrahimkareeb]

Turkish Airlines Flight 1951

On 25th February 2009, 135 passengers onboard of Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 traveled from Istanbul to Amsterdam. The Boeing 737 was descending rapidly through fog. The airplane was less than a mile away from the runway at Schiphol Airport when it suddenly crashed.

Turkish Airlines Flight 1951. Photo: collected.

When the plane impacted the ground it broke up into several pieces. The tail broke off and went at an angle, the cockpit broke off in a lateral standpoint and also had a lot of impact damage from the floor and below. Inside the cabin many passengers at first didn’t even realize what had happened. According to one of the passengers, Henk Heijloo, ‘I didn’t realize that there was a Sears excellence.’ Nine people are dead and almost everyone onboard suffers injuries. 

Crash of Turkish Airlines Flight 1951. Photo: collected.

The way the plane dropped from the sky it fueled early speculation that a weather phenomenon called a microburst may be to blame. Why Planes Crash Aviation Analyst John Cox says, ‘A microburst is a condition usually created by thunderstorms where you have a column of air rushing downwards and can be very intense and have shoved airplanes literally into the ground in the past.’ 

The plane is destroyed, the scattered pieces give investigators their first clue as to what happened. The investigation was led by Dutch Safety Board assisted by a team of American NTSB and an expert from Turkish Airlines. Trying to find what really happened investigators located the cockpit voice recorder and flight data. After downloading the data it revealed a dangerous chain of events on Turkish Airlines Flight 1951. Joseph Sedor, Chief of Major Investigations, NTSB Office of Aviation Safety says, ‘As the aircraft was coming in, air traffic control positioned the aircraft in a manner that caused them to be high, so once they did that it required them to do a steep rate of descent.’

Crash of Turkish Airlines Flight 1951. Photo: collected.

The radio altimeter that is used to measure the plane's height above the ground has malfunctioned, it showed that the plane was on the ground where it actually was 2000 ft in the air. The pilots even recognized the problem but what they didn’t realize was that a faulty altimeter reading will have a dangerous effect on the auto throttle system. Auto throttle system controls the speed by adjusting engine thrust. There was another problem, the plane was nearing the runway but the crew wasn’t finished preparing for landing. 

This accident led to significant changes to the industry, there was a recommendation that was made to improve reliability of the aircraft. 

(For more information watch National Geographic Air Crash Investigations S10 titled “Who’s in control’ and read ‘Turkish Airlines 1951 accident report.’)

[ishmamrahimkareeb]

China Airlines Flight 006

On 19th February 1985, China Airlines Flight 006 was on their way to Los Angeles from Taiwan. 10 hours into the journey the crew noticed sudden loss of thrust in the Boeing 747’s 4th engine. According to Why Planes Crash Aviation Analyst John Cox, ‘The number one procedure if you lose an engine, you have to come down.’ The crew must descend to 30000 ft where the air is denser to restart the engine. Instead the captain asks the flight engineer to restart engine number 4 while still at 41000 ft. The restart attempt failed and the continued loss of thrust began to slow the airplane down.

China Airlines Flight 006. Photo: collected.

The airplane was rolling to the right, towards engine 4. According to Why Planes Crash Aviation Analyst John Cox, ‘If you have a failure of one engine, you now have asymmetrical or unbalanced power and the airplane will tilt towards the failed engine because there is more power being produced on the other wing.’ The crew was preoccupied restarting the engine and failed to disengage the autopilot and manually straighten out the plane. When they finally disengaged it the aircraft was in a dangerous position having rolled much more than the crew realized. The Boeing 747 began falling towards the ocean. In just thirty seconds the plane had fallen more than 10000 ft. ‘They were over speed a lot, this is a condition that you can physically pull an airplane apart’, John Cox adds. 

At the back of the airplane the tips of a horizontal stabilizer separate from the tail. The aircraft had fallen another 20000 ft in less than two minutes and there was only 11000 ft between the airplane and the ocean. The crew held up hard at the control panel and using the horizon tried to level out the airplane but they were still losing altitude.

China Airlines Flight 006 after landing in San Francisco. Photo: Collected.

Finally after falling for more than 30000 ft in less than two and a half minutes the nose of the aircraft began to pitch up and the plane finally levelled at 9500 ft. 

Aviation Expert Greg Feith says, ‘The captain used very artful flying to recover the aircraft from the bad situation unfortunately it was that same pilot who put the airplane into that bad situation.’ 

The crew realized because of the drag from landing gear they won’t have enough fuel to make it to Los Angeles instead they will try to make it to San Francisco. Finally at lower altitude and denser air the crew was able to restart the 4th engine. 

The plane touches down on the runway and the landing gear holds the massive weight of a Boeing 747. Due to the excessive G-forces the aircraft was significantly damaged. According to Why Planes Crash Aviation Analyst John Cox, ‘They were very fortunate that the aircraft was so well built, so well designed that even during this extreme maneuver the airplane stayed together.’ Aviation Expert Greg Feith, ‘The captain is fortunate that he had 30000+ ft to recover this high speed dive because if it happened in 20000 ft he may not have enough altitude.’ If the crew hadn’t recovered Flight 006 from it’s nose dive given their rate of descend they would have collided with the ocean in thirty seconds. 

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation determined that the captain's decision making ability could have been impaired by the effects of monotony, boredom and fatigue. Investigators believe despite the malfunction of engine 4 the cause of the accident was the pilot's preoccupation with the engine problem, his failure to monitor flight instruments and his over reliance on the autopilot. 

(For more information watch ‘Panic Over the Pacific’, ‘Why Plane Crash titled “Who’s flying’ and read ‘China Airlines Flight 006 Aviation Accident Report.’)

[ishmamrahimkareeb]

Air France Flight 447

On 31st May 2009 Air France Flight 447 took off at night from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Airbus A330 carrying 228 passengers and crew is scheduled to arrive in Paris, France next morning. Planes flying this route traverse an enormous distance across the Atlantic Ocean.

Air France Flight 447. Photo: collected.

The plane hits moderate turbulence as it passes through an area known as the intertropical convergence zone. About 30 minutes later the flight is expected to show up in Senegalian air space but the crew doesn’t check in with Senegal’s air traffic controllers. 

Air France Flight 447 is missing. In the morning, an aerial search team is deployed. They search miles around planes' last known location. But by early afternoon Air France and the French government presumed that the aircraft was lost at sea. If there is any doubt about the fate of flight 447, 5 days later grime discoveries confirm it. Bodies, boarding passes and small pieces of planes were found floating on the surface of the ocean. Next day a major piece of wreckage was found, a vertical stabilizer. The investigators need to locate the flight recorders (commonly known as blackbox). 

Small pieces of the plane found floating on the surface. Photo: collected.

After nearly a year searching underwater, the French investigators turned to World Leaders for Ocean Exploration for help, the Massachusetts based Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, for them this isn’t the first time they searched the bottom of the Atlantic.

According to Dave Gallo, director of special projects, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, ‘Finding the Air France 447 would be daunting; the plane is believed to be lost in most mysterious and hard to reach places.’ 

The team launches three autonomous underwater vehicles to search the ocean floor. 104 bodies were recovered along with the wreckage a few weeks later and nearly two years after the crash French investigators located what they were desperately hoping to find, the flight data and cockpit voice recorders.

Plane wreckage found underwater. Photo: collected.

After downloading the information on the flight data and cockpit voice recorders investigators begin to unravel just what happened onboard the Airbus A330. About three and a half hours into the flight the captain leaves the cockpit to take a break trading places with one of the two co-pilots. 

Investigators found that the pitot tubes (device to measure air speed) can be susceptible to icing and as a result they are heated but the icing is overwhelming the heating capabilities and the pitot tubes froze. According to Aviation Expert Greg Feith, ‘In a highly automated airplane if you iced over that tube you no longer have that air pressure which all of these computers are dependent upon.’ With no valid airspeed to work with autopilot and other automated system disconnects. The co-pilot must manually fly the plane without the ability to monitor their airspeed. According to Why Planes Crash Aviation Analyst John Cox, ‘The big thing is not to make any major changes with the airplane. In all likelihood it’s going to recover shortly if you start making large inputs things can get worse.’

The co-pilot in the right seat, the youngest and least experienced of the crew attempts to level the plane that has been jostled by turbulence but he over corrects on the side stick controller pitching the aircraft up at a steep angle. ‘Those inputs were massive both in magnitude and duration’, John Cox added.

As the crew reacted incorrectly to the situation, caused the plane to aerodynamic stall and the plane didn’t recover from there. It’s still unclear whether the pilot didn’t recognize that the plane stalled despite the audible stall warning that at one point sounded for 54 seconds. Prior to the crash of flight 447 Airbus and Air France had recognized potential problems with pitot tubes freezing over and had begun modifications just two days prior to the accident.

The official French investigative report states that a phenomenon called the startle effect may have played a role. The official report maintains that improving pilot training and exercises dedicated to manual aircraft handling is the key lesson of flight 447. None of these pilots had ever been trained to fly the airplane manually at high altitude with these levels of sensitivity.

This accident of flight 447 is the deadliest in the history of Air France and also the deadliest involving Airbus A330.

(For more information watch ‘Air France 447: Vanished’ and read ‘A332, en-route, Atlantic Ocean, 2009’ and ‘Final Report On the accident on 1st June 2009 to the Airbus A330-203 registered F-GZCP operated by Air France flight AF 447 Rio de Janeiro - Paris'.)

[ishmamrahimkareeb]

US-Bangla Airlines Flight 211

On 12 March 2018, US-Bangla flight 211 crashed during landing in Tribhuvan International Airport, Kathmandu. Killing 51 of 71 people on board including Captain Abid Sultan and First Officer Prithula Rashid. The aircraft was a 76 seater Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 manufactured in Canada.

US-Bangla flight 211. Photo: collected.

The captain was extremely experienced and he flew in and out of Kathmandu repeatedly, he knew the route he knew the plane better than anyone on that airline. 

The Tribhuvan International Airport, Kathmandu is at the foothills of the Himalayas and on high and uneven ground according to Pilot/Aviation analyst Sylvia Wrigley, ‘Pilots consider it as one of the most challenging airports in the world’. The Airport had two landing strips: the planes that approach the airport from south land on runway 0-2 and the planes that approach from the north land on 2-0.

 Landing strips of the airport. Photo: collected.

The US-Bangla flight 211 was approaching to land on runway 0-2 but the aircraft wasn’t ready to land. The pilot didn’t see the runway and had overflown the entire runway. Upon seeing it the air traffic control of the airport redirects the aircraft to turn left and land on runway 2-0. But still the plane wasn’t lining up with the runway. The pilot couldn’t see the runway. When the first officer notices the runway the pilots make a last minute adjustment to try to line up with the runway. The plane flies recklessly off course towards the control tower of the airport flying it like a fighter jet. The captain tries and almost manages to line up with the runway. One wheel touches the runway and skids off the runway and bursts into flames 440 meters of the runway into a football field. 

US-Bangla flight 211. Photo: collected.

A multinational commission consisting of the delegates from Nepal, Bangladesh and Canada representing the plane's manufacturer was formed to investigate the incident. According to one of the investigators Sunil Pradhan, ‘The aircraft was broken into two pieces, the fuselage was broken and most of the parts were engulfed in fire, post-catch fire and cockpit was completely smashed.’ The team was lucky that the cockpit voice recorder and aircraft’s flight data recorder escaped the fire and was sent to Ottawa for analysis by the Canadian Transportation Safety Board.

Investigators after seeing the reports ruled out a mechanical failure according to Sunil Pradhan, ‘The flight data recorder didn’t indicate any malfunction in the aircraft. So, we definitely could rule out any flight control problem,’ The data showed the captain made some severe inputs to his control column near the end of the flight. The investigators listened to the cockpit voice recorder, they found the captain smoking, breaking the standard operating procedures. Dr. Rajeeb Deo, one of the investigators said, ‘Smoking is strictly prohibited in the cockpit, so it was a gross violation by the captain.’ 

The captain's vocal pitch indicated that he was extremely agitated and stressed. Captain was emotionally unstable. He was stressed as he was told by one of his colleagues that he wasn't a good instructor, he was desperate to salvage his reputation. Moreover the captain hasn’t slept the whole night and was sleep deprived. The Captain had a history of depression. He was a pilot for the Bangladesh Airforce but was given force retirement as he was declared unfit to fly.

Investigators finally have a clear picture of what happened on board. Distraction caused the captain to mismanage the approach, consumed by his need to prove to the first officer that he is a good pilot, the captain ignored warning signs that he was not ready for landing. The captain flies the plane in circles and tries to make an impossible landing because of his sheer desperation and wanting to land at any cost.

The investigators concluded that it was a human error that contributed to the cause of this US-Bangla Airlines Flight 211 accident. The captain totally mismanaged the flight. 

In the investigation report the investigators recommend that pilots who have been grounded for medical reasons be given thorough physical and physiological examinations before their license can be renewed. 

(For more information watch National Geographic’s Air Crash Investigations S21E06 ‘Meltdown over Kathmandu’ and read ‘Final Report on The Accident Investigation of US Bangla Airlines, Bombardier (UBG-211), DHC-8-402, S2-AGU, at Tribhuvan International Airport, Kathmandu, Nepal’).