Goma Express L410 near Goma on Nov 3rd 2022, contact lost enroute, ELT received

Last Update: March 18, 2024 / 13:05:35 GMT/Zulu time

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Incident Facts

Date of incident
Nov 3, 2022

Classification
Crash

Airline
Goma Express

Departure
Kasese, Democratic Republic of Congo

Destination
Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo

Aircraft Registration
9S-GPK

Aircraft Type
Let L-410 Turbolet

ICAO Type Designator
L410

A Goma Express Let-410, registration 9S-GPK performing a freight flight from Kasese to Goma (DR Congo) with 3 crew, departed Kasese at about 15:00L (13:00Z), however, contact was lost with the aircraft. The aircraft did not arrive in Goma or any other airport in reach. Rescuers reached the crash site on Nov 6th 2022 and found no survivors.

Goma Airport reported 9S-GPK has been declared missing after no contact and sign of life has been received from the aircraft for more than 3 hours past estimated arrival.

On Nov 4th 2022 an ELT signal was received from the aircraft at position S2.0267 E28.06 about 75nm westsouthwest of Goma.

On Nov 4th 2022 a local pilot operating his aircraft in the vicinity of 9S-GPK reported: "Weather at the time in Gomas TMA was extremely poor in hard IMC with low cloud and rain. ... ".

On Nov 5th 2022 a first photo from the crash site surfaced showing the wreckage in correct colours in the midst of trees (consistent with the sat photos around the ELT position).

Late Nov 6th 2022 rescue teams reached the crash site and found no survivors.

Kasese's Airfield in Maniema district is located at coordinates S1.6380 E27.0853 located about 130nm west of Goma.

DR Congo's Bureau Permanent d’Enquêtes d’Accidents et Incidents d’Aviation (BPEA) released their final report in French only (editorial note: to serve the purpose of global prevention of the repeat of causes leading to an occurrence an additional timely release of all occurrence reports in the only world spanning aviation language English would be necessary, a French only release does not achieve this purpose as set by ICAO annex 13 and just forces many aviators to waste much more time and effort each in trying to understand the circumstances leading to the occurrence. Aviators operating internationally are required to read/speak English besides their local language, investigators need to be able to read/write/speak English to communicate with their counterparts all around the globe).

The report concludes:

The information collected and analyzed did not enable us to determine the cause of the accident.

The accident was probably due to insufficient consideration of weather conditions during flight preparation or a system or component failure, or human error (error of judgment and decision-making).

The BPEA summarized the sequence of events:

After departing Kasese the crew consisting of two pilots and one courier noticed the deteriorating weather conditions in Goma and decided to divert to Bukavu. A few minutes later the aircraft impacted trees, crashed in the forest, caught fire and was destroyed. The ELT subsequently activated at position S2.0267 E28.0600.

The captain (64, ATPL, 15,750 hours total, on type unknown) was assisted by a first officer (34, further details not provided).

In the analysis of the report the BPEA only mentions that the crew had already carried 3 more flights that day and raised the question whether they had received updated weather information, answering "probably not". The BPEA further annotated that the lack of Air Traffic Services can lead crews to carry out flights as they see fit and, above all, with a notorious lack of knowledge of en-route meteorology.