NZ A320 crash

[David Ramsay]

Following was posted on pprune, originally in French, then translated into English.

It's from a guy who was listening on a scanner. Bits of it have been quoted by the media worldwide so I see no reason not to post it here.

I was listening on the Perpignan approach and tower frequencies all afternoon, and can assure you that living a crash "live", and living a few km from the location, gives me cold shivers.

The aircraft in question contacted approach about 1645. He was direct PPG descending through FL120. He was taken under radar control because the preceding traffic, a Ryanair, was on the STAR [approach, I presume]. Heading 90, I don't recall the level. Once the preceding traffic was established, the controller (our charming Perpignanaise controller) gave it a direct LANET, cleared LANET ILS 33, descend 4000 feet, qnh 1016. The pilot acknowledged and that was the last time he was heard from. No mayday, nothing. Then the pilot of a PA28 yelled "an aircraft crashed, an aircraft crashed" and everything went very fast. "Ulysse 34, confirm an aircraft crashed? Position?" "We are off Canet en Roussillon on 110 PPG, 10.5nm, Ulysse 34, we are beginning to orbit the crash site, 300 feet above sea level." Very quickly the Securité Civile helicopter took off from Perpignan. "Dragon66, authorized immediate takeoff from position, wind calm, left turn." As soon as the helicopter was on site, he announced "no visual on the aircraft, large white spot on the water, we can see debris over more than one km."

I will spare you the other details. The controllers kept their calm, made all the VFR traffic in the area land. EAS, who was to have met the A320, announced there were 7 people on board. As I write this, I am listening to the various aircraft at the crash site, and so far they are not finding anybody. I hope there will be survivors, but given the cold and the water temperature...
A Dauphin with specialized equipment is awaited in the next few minutes. An SNSM launch is also there.

I hope we'll quickly have explanations. I have a colleague who saw the aircraft 'fall' in the sea. It really dove as it had just begun its DME arc to establish. Really strange....

[Philip Argy]

The suddeness of the plunge and the lack of any distress call is certainly strange. Another eyewitness account put it this way:

"It's not really clear on what happened … the plane was flying for one hour and a half and suddenly fell down to the sea. There was no explosion, it was flying (at) 300m and suddenly fell down into the sea, but no explosion."

[David Ramsay]

it was flying (at) 300m and suddenly fell down into the sea

This is something I find really strange.

The last clearance they received was direct LANET, cleared LANET ILS 33, descend 4000 feet (source: the same as my earlier post).

Looking at the approach plate for the LANET ILS 33, they were on or near the 11DME arc. The plate shows establishing on the ILS at or above 2000ft. (There is a copy of the approach plate on the link that Radi posted.)

Based on those two pieces of information, they should have been nowhere near 1000ft (300m). Were they below the flightpath or did someone just imagine that they saw the a/c at 1000ft?

[Nigel C]

Originally Posted by Philip Argy

...and the lack of any distress call is certainly strange.

No, not at all. First priority is to aviate (i.e. fly the damn plane), second is navigate (somewhere out of harms way would be nice), and then communicate (tell someone it all went pear-shaped).

If they were at low altitude and there was a catastrophic failure, I doubt they would have had time for anything but dealing with the issues at hand.


Captain to First Officer: "Don't worry about the steep dive we're in from 2000'...we need to tell someone we have a control issue".
This generally ain't gonna happen.

[Mick.B]

There`distress call" will no doubt be on the CVR. Very chilling I think. Very sad indeed.

[Greg McDonald]

Just found this. Very interesting. I believe one of the Aircrash Investigations programs some time ago focused on a badly painted aircraft where this ended up being the case of the crash.

http://www.news.com.au/travel/story/...014090,00.html

[Alan Dent]

J was wondering if any more information has come to light on the disaster. We knew one of the engineers on board the plane.

[David Ramsay]

A preliminary report has been released by the BEA (French accident investigation body).

There has been some discontent expressed here (NZ) that it was released to the media before it was given to either Air NZ or to the families of the deceased.

[Philip Argy]

Preliminary though it may be, this is a disturbing report. It describes a flight that was not approved, in which manoeuvres and tests were performed on an ad hoc basis with no apparent pre-planning, and in which various protective mechanisms were inappropriately disabled.

The impression one gets from the transcript is that the PF thought his role was to be a puppet verbally controlled by the Air NZ representative in the jump seat - a bizarre situation that seems to have lead to the loss of control of the a/c at low altitude while testing alpha floor triggering. Having said that, there are also indications that the elevator was unresponsive or acting uncommanded and the final report will need some detailed technical analysis.

There seems to have been less than 2 minutes of elapsed time from when the a/c was in stable full configuration on a 'normal' ILS approach (but with proposed GA) to when it hit the sea at more than 14 degrees nose down pitch at around 208 kts. It's hard to see why it was being operated under direct law or alternate law at that late stage of the flight but it seems to have been the case, which could explain some of the a/c's unexpected behaviour.

All in all, the preliminary report raises many questions that may take some time to answer, if indeed they can ever be answered. Certainly there will have to be serious regulatory improvements to deal with acceptance flights of this kind and it is surprising that there haven't been many prior disasters given what the report reveals.

You have to feel for the relatives of those who perished in circumstances which should never have existed.