Tarco Airlines AN24 at Zalingei on Nov 11th 2010, gear damage on landing, broke up and burst into flames

Last Update: May 20, 2013 / 22:33:41 GMT/Zulu time

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Incident Facts

Date of incident
Nov 11, 2010

Classification
Accident

Airline
Tarco Airlines

Aircraft Type
Antonov An-24

ICAO Type Designator
AN24

Sudan's Central Directorate of Air Accident Investigation (SAAICD) released their final report concluding the probable causes of the accident were:

The accident cause is a complex set of reasons

- The aircraft impacted the ground on three wheels at high forward speed Shearing off both engines and propellers and damaging the left main landing gear which put the aircraft in an uncontrollable condition

contributory factors

- Absence of crew coordination

- Absence of cabin procedure and check lists for different phases of flight

- Unsatisfactory Periodic and Annual job check being reflected on the inoperative Cockpit Voice and Flight Data Recorders

- Bad planning of the flight and long period taken to clear the recorded defects before departure is considered to be a contributory factor to this accident

The SAAICD reported the crew consisted of a captain (39, CPL, 4,400 hours total, 300 hours on type), a first officer (30, CPL, 900 hours total, 700 hours on type), a flight engineer (49, F/E License, 6,300 hours total, 1,100 hours on type) and a navigator (41, Nav License, 3,954 hours total, 350 hours on type).

The aircraft was planned to depart Khartoum at 04:00Z, however, due to lack of engine oil available the departure was postponed to 08:30Z. When the captain arrived at the airport at 09:00Z, he saw the left hand propeller rotating at low speed about to stop. The company engineer told the captain the left engine's oil cooler had been replaced, the engineer needed some more time and asked the captain to wait in the VIP lounge. About 35 minutes later the captain was informed that boarding had been completed, the captain went to the aircraft and completed the departure checks. The aircraft departed Khartoum at 10:27Z.

The weather at Zalingei was fine with CAVOK conditions, winds favoured runway 03. The aircraft positioned for approach to runway 03 and following a normal final approach touched down on runway 03 about 200 meters past the runway threshold. 30 meters past the touchdown point propeller impact marks began on the runway surface spanning a distance of 33 meters. The aircraft impacted ground 263 meters past the threshold leaving two holes in the runway coinciding with the base of the main landing gear and bounced. The aircraft impacted ground again 288 meters past the threshold leaving another two holes in the runway surface, both engines and propellers sheared off the aircraft, fire broke out at the left hand wing and the aircraft slid to a stop about 400 meters past the threshold. The crew vacated through the cabin upper hatch, the passengers evacuated through the main exits.

One passenger was burned to death, another passenger died in hospital, one crew member received minor injuries, the other occupants escaped without injuries. The aircraft was destroyed by fire.

The SAAICD stated that the accident was surviveable, the two fatalities were due to the late release of the seat belts and the late arrival of the fire tenders.

The SAAICD stated, that both black boxes were recovered and read out, it turned out however that the flight data recorder did not contain any data and the cockpit voice recorder contained 4 minutes of recording however none of the accident flight.

The SAAICD reported, that the captain had last flown the type in July 2010, his "competency Check Period" had long expired before the accident flight. The SAAICD stated: "The important point the
accident flight captain was not a Tarco Company employee. He was appointed for that flight by the Company manager."

According to crew testimonies there was no crew coordination, for example the flight engineer brought the thrust levers into beta range without instruction by the captain, the navigator was standing behind the captain during approach and landing and was reading airspeed and height to the captain while "the first officer was sitting on his seat doing nothing."

4 safety recommendations were released as result of the investigation.
Incident Facts

Date of incident
Nov 11, 2010

Classification
Accident

Airline
Tarco Airlines

Aircraft Type
Antonov An-24

ICAO Type Designator
AN24

This article is published under license from Avherald.com. © of text by Avherald.com.
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