23 plane crashes in year 2006

An Iranian military Antonov-74 plane heading towards the southern Iranian city of Shiraz on a military mission crashed at Tehran International Mehrabad Airport, Iran, immediately after take-off. The Russian-made airplane belonged to the Islamic Revolution's Guard Corps (IRGC) and was on an ordinary military mission. During take-off, one of its two engines caught fire. The airplane lost thrust and was not able to gain altitude. Then, the crash was unavoidable. The plane burst into flames when it impacted the ground. 30 revolutionary guards along with the plane's six crew were killed. Two of the plane's passengers, both revolutionary guards, survived. The root cause of the accident is probably a technical failure of the engine due to a bad maintenance. Revolutionary Guards Commander-in-Chief has denied that sabotage is likely to be a cause. Air safety experts say Iran has a poor record, with a string of crashes involving Russian-made aircraft having occurred in recent decades. Sanctions imposed by the United States and insufficient technical maintenance are a major headache for military and civil aviation in Iran and the main reasons for the frequent crashes in the country. Indeed, Iran is not allowed to buy modern American or European aircraft and, therefore, buy old Russian aircraft. Moreover, the country has a lot of difficulties to get the tools and parts necessary to maintain properly its aging fleet.

The Boeing 727 belonging to Aerosucre was on a cargo flight from Bogota, Colombia, to Leticia, Colombia. The plane crashed as it approached Leticia airport in Colombia's Amazon region, killing the three crew members and two passengers. The airplane was on a visual approach when it stroke a 150-foot television antenna about 2 miles (3 km) from the airport. Clouds and patches of fog prevailed at the time of the accident, and may have led to crew to drop down too low. The airplane was destroyed following subsequent impact with terrain.

The plane, a Boeing 737 operated by the private Nigerian airline ADC (Aviation Development Company), was on a passenger flight from Lagos (Nigeria) to Sokoto (north-west Nigeria), via Abuja. After a short stop in Abuja (at Nnamdi Azikiwe airport), the plane took off again, heading to Sokoto with 99 passengers and 6 crewmembers. But 30 seconds after take-off, the plane began to lose altitude, crashed and burst into flames. The wreckage was found 2 kilometres far from the airport. Only the plane's tail, an engine and part of a wing were still recognisable at the crash site, which was littered with smouldering fires, boxes and bags. 9 people survived the accident, and 96 were killed. A farmer working on the field was killed after being struck by debris from the crash. The pilot had ignored a bad weather warning from the air traffic control tower, and decided to take-off anyway. Following the accident, the Nigeria Authorities have grounded the entire fleet of the airline. The investigation shows that the aircraft encountered a windshear (sudden variation of the wind direction). This phenomenon is feared by the pilots, but is generally foreseeable. It results in a rapid loss of altitude, and requires a prompt and specific reaction of the crew to overcome the situation.

The Atlantic Airways Flight RC670 was chartered by the Norwegian industrial concern Aker Kværner to fly personnel from Stavanger to Molde via Stord (Norway). The flight was performed by a British Aerospace 146-200 jet and was carrying 12 passengers and 4 crewmembers. While landing at Stord Airport, the plane overran the 1200 m long runway, continued down a slope close to the sea and burst into flames. 4 people were killed in the accident. 12 people, including the pilot, survived the crash and escaped without major injuries. Weather conditions at the time of the accident were fine at the time of the accident. Witnesses reported hearing a large bang and seeing huge flames and smoke rise from the vicinity of the plane. The crash was caused by the wing spoilers, crucial for braking, that failed to deploy after landing. Without spoilers, lift from the wings combined with a damp runway caused steamy water under the main wheels, and the braking power needed was gone. The spoilers (or air brakes) are small panels located on the wings that help braking by increasing the drag of the wings and giving the aircraft's wheels better traction. The BAe 146-200 is a little different that other airplanes because it does not reverse its engines for braking, but is completely dependent on wheel brakes and air braking, or spoilers. The runway 33 (airport's western runway), where the plane landed, is built along and out into the waters of a fjord: overrunning the runway results in a catastrophic event.

GOL Flight 1907 departed the principal Amazon city of Manaus (Brazil) at 15:35 on a scheduled flight to the capital Brasilia and Rio de Janeiro. It was expected to arrive at Brasilia at 18:12. At 16:48, while at a cruise altitude of FL370 (37,000 ft – 11,300 m), radar contact was lost. The Boeing 737-800 operated by Brazilian low-cost carrier Gol probably plunged into the ground nose first after it clipped a smaller executive jet. The wreckage was found near a cattle ranch, in remote Amazon jungle, 1090 miles (1750 km) northwest of Sao Paulo in the heavily forested Brazilian state of Para. All 149 passengers and 6 crew members were killed. Five air force planes searched for several hours without success over the area immediately after the flight went missing in Para state airspace. The day after, a total of eight planes and five helicopters took part in the search and rescue efforts along with emergency services and medical teams, and finally found the wreckage. The small executive jet, an Embraer 135 Legacy 600, declared an emergency and safely landed in Cachimbo without injuries to the 7 occupants. Its pilot reported seeing, "out of nowhere, a large shadow" passing his plane, clipping his wing, and forcing an emergency landing. The small executive jet was flying at the wrong altitude when it crossed paths with the Boeing 737. The planes were both flying at 37,000 feet. But the small jet, flying north toward Manaus, should have been at even-numbered altitudes, like 36 [thousand] or 38,000 feet. Authorities also believe the two pilots of the small executive jet may have shut off the plane's transponder, an illegal move that would have rendered its anti-collision system useless. Indeed, the transponder is a device that transmits the plane’s location to other planes and to the Air Traffic Controller. It also transmits other plane’s location to the aircraft TCAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance System). If the transponder is switched off, the TCAS is unable to detect threatening planes and to provide appropriate anti-collision orders to the crew. But the pilots have denied they turned off the transponder, and said they believed it was working just before the collision. The device could have experienced an internal failure.

The flight by Iran Airtour, which is affiliated with Iran's national air carrier, was arriving from Bandar Abbas on Iran's southern coast when the accident occurred. It skidded off the runway as it was landing to Mashad Airport (MHD/OIMM), Iran, and raked its wing along the ground, sparking a fire that killed 29 of the 148 people on board. Survivors said the plane was shaking after landing. A survivor also said that he heard a huge sound from underneath the plane. Then they feel the plane lurching to the left and sliding on the ground. Finally a fire started from the front of the plane, and all the passengers rushed to the emergency exit. The root cause of the accident could be one or several tyres burst, resulting in a decrease of the braking efficiency, and a lost of the landing trajectory control. Pictures showed a broken-up plane with parts of its fuselage charred. The cockpit appeared largely unaffected by the fire, as did much of the rear portion of the aircraft.

Delta Flight 5191 was en route from Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, Kentucky, to Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. The plane crashed a mile from the airport shortly after take-off. The aircraft was largely intact afterward, but there was a fire following the impact. The flight was operated by a CRJ-100 regional jet belonging to Delta's commuter carrier, Comair. There were 46 passengers, three crew members and one off-duty crew member on board. Only the first officer survived. The plane took off from the wrong runway. The main runway at Lexington's airport is 7,000 feet long, while a daytime-only, general aviation runway is about 3,500 feet. The plane would have needed 5000 ft to take off. Aerial images of the crash site showed trees damaged at the end of the short runway and the nose of the plane almost parallel to the small strip. Moreover, ground scars mark the end runway, suggesting that the pilot would have pull up quickly to get airborne before the end of the runway. Aviation experts said that it appeared that the jet had enough speed to get airborne but was heavily damaged by the impact with the trees. The CRJ-100 jet appears to have been within 20 to 30 feet of clearing the trees and flying to safety. The 3-foot-long tip of the left wing, along with other pieces of the jet, were visible in the trees. There have been some indications that some of the taxiways were closed. The taxi route for commercial jets at Blue Grass Airport was altered a week before the accident. So perhaps, when the crew was taxiing out, it was dark and it was raining, perhaps they got a bit confused. The plane was doomed at the beginning of the take-off course. The crew could have rejected the take-off, but before they realized they were probably in trouble, they had probably eaten up 90 per cent of the runway. Moreover, the runway was wet: they would have needed even more distance to stop. In the tower, only one traffic controller was on duty, a violation of Federal Aviation Administration policy. He had cleared the jet for takeoff but then turned away to perform "administrative duties" as the plane went down the wrong runway.

The cargo plane took off from Algiers, Algeria, and was en route to Frankfurt, Germany, when it crashed in the vicinity of Milan, Italy. The aircraft was in contact with Milan Air Traffic Control but lost contact as it descended through 13 500 ft (4100 m) for an unknown reason. A few minutes before the accident, the pilot would have warned air traffic controllers in Milan that there had been a loss of engine power. The impact of the crash was devastating, creating a crater at the point of impact and scattering pieces of the aircraft over several kilometres. Witnesses’ reports are contradictory: some witnesses have reported seeing the aircraft engines in flames before it crashed; others said the plane exploded in flight. However all of them reported a "loud noise" and an aircraft flying at a "low altitude". All 3 crew members perished in the accident. The crash did not injure anyone on the ground. The analysis of the flight data and cockpit voice recorders are necessary to understand what happened.

The Antonov 28 belonging to the local private airline Air Traset was on a flight from the mining town of Lugushwa (130 km south of Bukavu) and carried mining products but also 14 passengers. The plane went down on approach to its destination airport in Bukavu (Congo). The Antonov descended in low clouds and struck a mountainside. It crashed in a forest and caught fire. All 17 people onboard were killed.

The Fokker 27, belonging to Pakistan International Airlines - PIA, was on a passenger flight from Multan (Pakistan) to Lahore with 41 passengers and 4 crew members. It crashed shortly after takeoff killing all 45 people onboard. The plane developed engine problems on the right side just after take-off. The plane began to come down abruptly, hit an electric power line before crashing into a wheat field and erupting in flames.

The Sibir (S7) airline Airbus A-310 was on a passenger flight from Moscow to Irkutsk (Siberia, regional capital close to Lake Baikal) with 203 people on board. While landing, the aircraft overshot the runway, smashed through a concrete fence, struck garages and caught fire. 74 people escaped from the wreckage through the rear of the jet, many of them seriously injured. At least 129 people were killed. The front of the fuselage was completely destroyed by the blaze, which took fire-fighters three hours to extinguish. It is established that the aircraft veered off the runway in rain. Black boxes need to be analysed to understand the cause of the accident. Crew errors are not excluded. Braking systems malfunctions may also have contributed to the accident. S7 Airlines was known until recently as Sibir, or Siberia Airlines. It is the second largest Russian airline, after the state-controlled Aeroflot, with 100 flights a day out of its hubs in Moscow, Irkutsk and Novosibirsk in Siberia.

The A320 operating Armavia flight RNV 967 from Erevan (Armenia), to Sochi (Russia) disappeared from radar screens while it was performing its second approach. The crew had first decided to abort the landing because of the weather conditions, and to come back to the departure airport. A few minutes later, the crew finally decided to land at Sochi airport. During this second approach, the plane plummeted into the black sea 6 km off shore. The crew did not send any distress call. All 105 passengers and 8 crew members were killed. At the time of the accident, the weather conditions were poor: horizontal visibility reduced at 1,500 m and vertical visibility reduced at 500 ft, presence of thunder clouds, light wind and light rain showers. The black boxes and parts of the plane have been rapidly localised at a depth of 1500 ft (450 meters). The black boxes have been recovered and analysed. It was reported that the technical side was not to blame, and the whole blame is put on the “human factor”. But it is not reported whether it was the pilot or the air traffic controller. Questions are raised to understand why the crew decided to land at Sochi airport under poor weather conditions after having initially decided to come back to their departure airport. The crash could be due to a speed loss, leading to a stall. The aircraft altitude was not enough make a recovery maneuver. An unaddressed but widely embraced speculation circulated that human error was to blame for the deaths. Specifically, as it is popularly known, the first few days of May are traditionally days of heavy drinking in Russia. Some believe that control tower personnel were incapacitated by vodka and were incapable of performing their duties. The rumour was fuelled especially after Sochi authorities were said to have secluded the air traffic controller on duty the night of May 3. Another version of the cause of the disaster is that a brawl broke out by powerful persons on board who demanded that the pilot lands the plane, regardless of safety concerns. The A320, registered under the number EK-32009, began operating for Armavia in February 2004. The aircraft had accumulated over 28,200 flight hours in close to 14,400 flights.

The Antonov AN-74 had taken off from Sabaha in Libya and had been due to land three hours later at N'Djamena's international airport (Chad). The aircraft had been chartered to a foreign company to transport humanitarian aid. Just before landing, air traffic control in N'Djamena noted that the aircraft was going into its approach at a high altitude. The plane aborted the landing and made a go-around. One can suppose there was a technical problem. But the crew did not mention any failure to the air traffic controllers. Pilots told the air control tower they were going to circle before attempting the landing again. A witness said the cargo plane's left wing appeared to be on fire as it passed overhead. The cargo plane came down a few minutes later a few kilometres south of N'Djamena, in a marshy area of Kousseri (North Cameroon). The plane burst into flames on impact but nobody on the ground was hurt. It had come down in a dried-up riverbed in a deserted part of town. All 6 crew members were killed. The main elements of the plane's cargo were found strewn around the wreckage: dozens of tins of meat and tomatoes, packets of tea and bottles of cooking oil.

The aircraft left Riberalta-General Buech Airport (Bolivia) for a passenger flight to Guayaramerin (Bolivia). The crew was informed about heavy rain falls on Guayaramerin. On landing, the Fokker F-27 skidded off the runway, lost its landing gear and both wings and came to rest. A passenger died a few hours after the accident.

The Boeing 737-200 belonging to General Kikunda (a senior aviation figure in the Democratic Republic of Congo) crashed during a test flight, killing all seven people on board (Kikunda, was not on board at the time of the accident). The accident occurred at the capital Kinshasa's airport (Congo). A test flight was carried out, because the General Kikunda had decided to put the aircraft back into use after 9 years of standing idle. It had been left on the airport's parking apron since 1997. Airport sources said the plane was making a landing when its left main landing gear failed, causing the crash. Reports said the flightcrew, which included a number of aero-engineers, had battled in vain to safely land the stricken aircraft.

The Harbin Y-12 was on a military flight from Nairobi to Marsabit with 17 passengers (most of them were Kenyan politicians) and crew members on board. They lost direction of the airstrip because of foggy weather and heavy rain and then crashed on a hill about three kilometres from Marsabit town, and burst into flames. The plane has been split into pieces with only its tail left intact. 3 passengers sited in the aft part of the plane survived. "People were putting away their newspapers and preparing for the landing," recalled one of the three survivors. "I did not hear the pilot say anything about a problem. It was just a normal landing. I just saw the hill then heard a bang. My foot was trapped between the seats. I could not pull it out. I could feel that my arm was broken." Another survivor helped him to get out of the wreckage. He added: "When l was still on the ground, l could hear some bangs and then l faded out."

After takeoff from Dover Air Force Base, the huge military cargo aircraft had indications of engine problems, and declared an in-flight emergency for a No. 2 engine flameout. It turned back to perform an emergency landing on the Dover Air Force Base. But it fell short of the runway, and crashed in a field. The C-5 Galaxy the broke in two just behind the cockpit. The cockpit came to rest pointing toward the runway with the fuselage settling perpendicular to the runway. The tail assembly ended up several hundred yards from the plane, and one of the engines was thrown forward by the impact. There was no evidence of fire. All 17 crew members aboard survived, but some suffered minor injuries. They survived because the plane hit the ground wings level. Had they hit the wing tip first, they would all be dead. Passengers aboard the plane said they sensed a power failure in the aircraft's engines. One of them reported that the engines sounded like at cruising altitude, which just does not happen in five minutes. Characteristics of the C-5 Galaxy The C-5 Galaxy, made by Lockheed, is one of the largest military aircraft in the world. It was first delivered to the military in 1970. Even with a payload of 263,200 pounds, the latest version can fly non-stop for 2,500 miles at jet speeds. This C-5 was assigned to the 436th Air Wing at Dover AFB, and was being operated by an Air National Guard unit.

A small LET-410 twin-engine plane belonging to the local Team Airline crashed in the mountains of Rio de Janeiro state (Brazil), killing all 17 passengers and 2 crew members aboard. The plane left Macae, the base for offshore oil operations in Rio de Janeiro state, for a 40-minute flight to Rio de Janeiro city about 110 miles to the southwest. It had gone down 20 minutes after take-off in a mountainous region between Saquarema and Rio Bonito. There were no reports of severe weather where the Czech-made plane disappeared. The aircraft, which had a capacity to carry 19 passengers and two crew members, was at least five years old and had recently gone through a two-month routine maintenance. It also had been inspected by the Aviation Authority. Local media said rural workers in the mountainous region between Macae and Rio de Janeiro heard an explosion after the plane flew very low overhead.

The Armenian AN-12 belonging to Phoenix Avia departed Payam Airport, Iran, for a cargo flight to Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. A few seconds after take-off, the aircraft collided in a flock of birds. It led three out of four engines to fail. The crew reported technical problems on three engines and decided to return to the airport. Eventually, an emergency landing was carried out 5 kilometers of the airport. The plane was gutted by flames after all 12 people on board and the cargo were safely evacuated. 4 crewmembers suffered minor injuries.

The aircraft was on a military flight. It was landing at Aweil when a front tire burst causing the plane to veer and crash into a building. The Antonov then caught fire, but it is unclear whether the plane exploded. All 13 soldiers and 7 crew members onboard were killed in the crash.

The aircraft, a 32-year-old Antonov AN24, owned by Slovak Air Force (Letectva a Protivzdu Obrany-snej Slovenskej), crashed and burst into flames in a wooded area, near the eastern Hungarian village of Telkibanya, some 20 km from its destination, Kosice air base. Among the 43 occupants, only one passenger survived. All occupants were young Slovak soldiers coming back to Kosice after a peace mission for KAFOR (UNO) in Kosovo. The DFDR analysis showed that the root cause of the accident is a crew error. No technical problem has been recorded. During the approach phase on the Kosice airport, the crew descended 2 miles too early. He was supposed to fly 1000 feet above a hill surrounding the airport, but he was too low and collided with it.