DAVID LEARMOUNT / LONDON
Last year was on course to be the safest by far, but Benin 727 loss reduced margin
Shortly before Flight International closed for press on 30 December, the year's worst fatal airline accident occurred in Benin, western Africa. At least 140 people were killed when a Boeing 727 crashed on 25 December. The aircraft, a Union des Transports Africains de Guinea (UTAG) 727-200 Adv, came down after taking off from Cotonou.
Including the UTAG crash, all three of the 2003 airline accidents that killed over 100 people occurred in African states. The other two both involved 737-200s; one on 6 March operated by Air Algerie, the other on 8 July flown by Sudan Airways, causing 102 and 116 fatalities respectively. The year, based on accident rates and fatalities, was shaping up to be the safest ever, but now the margins have been eroded.
The 727 (3X-GDM), with 161 people on board, was a 26-year-old ex-American Airlines' aircraft that had been hushkitted and was leased by UTAG in March. The aircraft struggled to get airborne from Cotonou's 2,400m (7,870ft)-long runway 24 and hardly gained height, hitting the roof of a building with its undercarriage and smashing through the airfield boundary fence.
Cotonou was an intermediate stop en route from Conakry, Guinea to Beirut, Lebanon. Visibility was good, wind 170° at 6kt (11km/h), and temperature 32°C (90°F). The airfield is at sea level, but the aircraft was full.
US aviation specialists are participating in the investigation, with a senior representative of the US National Transportation Safety Board heading a team that includes experts from Boeing, the Federal Aviation Administration and Pratt & Whitney.
Frozen pitot and static ports robbing the aircraft of airspeed and altitude information has been determined by Turkish investigators as a primary cause of a THY Turkish Airlines crash on a flight from Adana, Turkey on 7 April 1999. The investigation says the pilots failed to switch on their pitot/static heating systems and the Boeing 737-400 entered icing conditions not long after leaving on a flight to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. There were only two pilots and four cabin crew on board the aircraft because it was being positioned to pick up Hadj pilgrims. The report cites inattention by the crew, who were talking to two of the cabin crew on the flightdeck at the time the flight entered icing conditions.Flight International's airline safety census will be published on 20-26 January
Source: Flight International
