Accident and Incidents here (STICKY Cont.)

[alemaro]

Donde encuentro más información sobre el vuelo accidentado Avro RJ85?

[(EGHI) Dylan]

this has been released today:

The flight crew of the Bolivian British Aerospace Avro RJ85 that crashed in Colombia had declared a fuel emergency while waiting to land at Medellin airport in Rionegro, according to an air traffic control recording.

Operated by charter carrier LAMIA Bolivia, the aircraft was awaiting clearance for final approach to the airport, which had been temporarily closed due to an unscheduled arrival of a VivaColombia flight.

The pilot of the Avro RJ85 initially mentioned an "issue with fuel" while communicating with Medellin airport's ATC, according to the recording reviewed by FlightGlobal.

The air traffic controller responded and said the runway at Medellin would re-open within about 7min, and indicated that LAMIA Bolivia will be given priority to land over other flights operated by Avianca and LATAM Airlines Group.

The LAMIA Bolivia flight was assigned FL210 but declared a fuel emergency 2min later, which prompted ATC to assign the aircraft an approach path while warning the crew of other aircraft below and ahead of it. However, the LAMIA Bolivia crew said they were already below the other aircraft, which were holding at FL180.

About 4.5min after declaring a fuel emergency, the LAMIA Bolivia crew alerted ATC to a "total electrical and fuel failure" and repeatedly shouted: "Give me vectors".

The air traffic controller attempted to guide the pilot to the Rionegro VOR but said she could not ascertain the aircraft's altitude. The pilot confirmed that the aircraft was at an altitude of 9,000ft and again requested for vectors.

ATC told the crew that they were 8.2miles from the runway, which has an elevation of 7,000ft.

ATC subsequently lost contact with the aircraft, 6min after it declared an emergency.

Medellin airport had temporarily closed its runway following the diversion of a VivaColombia Airbus A320 to the airport after its flight crew reported a cabin alert. VivaColombia says the flight crew had diverted as a precautionary measure and did not declare an emergency. The VivaColombia aircraft was operating from Bogota to San Andres.

The crash of the Avro RJ85, which broke into pieces after coming down in a mountainous area, killed 71 people while six survived. Colombian authorities initially reported that 81 people had been on board, but subsequently revised the passenger numbers.

There were no signs of fire at the crash site of the aircraft, indicating that the jet could have run out of fuel. A source at Argentina's transport ministry tells FlightGlobal that LAMIA Bolivia, which had operated a flight to Argentina earlier this month from Brazil, had arrived in Buenos Aires with only 15min of fuel reserves on board.

Questions have also been raised over LAMIA Bolivia's operation of the Avro RJ85, which has an operational range that is just slightly above the distance of the flight between Medellin and Santa Cruz in Bolivia, where the aircraft took off from.

[(EGHI) Dylan]

morning cambridge,
apparently the captain got told he could refuel at the first stop-over however he declined. of course, nothing is "true" until it's officially released.

kind regards
Dylan

[fungus]

Man charged over hoax calls to pilots

The Australian Federal Police have charged a man over a series of hoax calls to pilots and air traffic control staff at Melbourne airports;

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-22/man-accused-of-making-hoax-calls-to-melbourne-airport-arrested/8047598

Regards,
Gregg

[fungus]

Gregg, I agree with everything you say. There's some pretty scathing comment today on the ANZ forum of PPRuNe about the ATC interference and some posters allude to apps like FR24 being used to aid and abet these anti-social losers. Like all forums, there are fools on PPRuNe too but there are also a lot of intelligent people who fly commercial aircraft for a living. Unfortunately spotting planes using ADS-B is probably a bit like drones - enjoy them while you can because the idiots are eventually going to make it an offence to own or use such equipment. Cheers John

Thanks John and thank you for also reminding me about PPRuNe, I'd forgotten about that site and have now added it to my bookmarks. I've also added a link to some comments from an ATC spokesman in relation to the initial issue in my post above.

[airnrail]

Gregg, I agree with everything you say. There's some pretty scathing comment today on the ANZ forum of PPRuNe about the ATC interference and some posters allude to apps like FR24 being used to aid and abet these anti-social losers. Like all forums, there are fools on PPRuNe too but there are also a lot of intelligent people who fly commercial aircraft for a living. Unfortunately spotting planes using ADS-B is probably a bit like drones - enjoy them while you can because the idiots are eventually going to make it an offence to own or use such equipment. Cheers John

[fungus]

Moron of the month award

I don't throw the word moron (aka dickhead) around too lightly but for this bloke I'll make an exception;

This bloke, the subject of the linked articles below, should surely receive the 'Moron of the month' award. Apparently he isn't just cutting in on ATC communications between controllers and aircraft, pretending to be a controller but also on another occasion pretending to be piloting an aircraft in distress. Not only is he endangering life and property but he's also possibly setting us on a path to destroying our great hobby of monitoring/tracking aircraft around the world. Don't think so? Well if much more of this goes on it wouldn't take a great deal to convince authorities to encrypt ATC communications and shut down sites such as FR24 no matter the cost. They've already done so here with police, and I did hear some years ago it was being considered for ATC.

Anyone in Melbourne (Australia) or Victoria (Australia) in general who might know or suspect they might recognise this guy's voice would do well to contact the Victoria Police Crime Stoppers number (1800 333 000) and report him before he does cause an accident. So far they've been fortunate in that regard. I've included a link to the ABC article on the incidents so you can listen to his voice. Hopefully somebody might know him. Anyone who might have friends or be involved themselves in the aviation industry (in particular flying schools and the like) can perhaps be of assistance. He has obviously got his hands on the gear required (a radio transmitter/transceiver isn't hard to aquire) and he seems to be familiar with the lingo of ATC.

Only two nights ago here in Sydney we had yet another incident of an idiot shining a laser at aircraft in the Lugarno area while they were on approach to SYD. Hopefully that stupidity too can be prevented in the near future.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-07/afp-investigating-hoax-calls-made-to-passenger-plane/7995502

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/lonewolf-radio-hoaxer-hacks-melbourne-air-traffic-control-afp-20161107-gsk12o.html

Regards,
Gregg

There are other articles related to this incident but as they are somewhat repetitive I've limited the links to just two.

Additional link re comments from ATC;

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/travel/travel-news/air-traffic-controllers-seek-action-over-dangerous-hoax-calls/news-story/2d61f3085d01cca0192220bcda315d15

[SoCalBrian]

United States VP Candidate Mike Pence's plane N278EA skids off runway at LaGuardia Airport in United States.

http://abc7ny.com/politics/vp-candidate-mike-pences-plane-skids-off-runway-at-laguardia-airport/1576417/

[electricguy]

I been tying to find the flight history if any one this crash last night A 1974 Cessna Citation 500 C-GTNG which left CYLW enroute CYBW last night ~9:40 local time crashed into heavily forested terrain about 18 miles NE of the airport shortly after takeoff. All four pax and crew aboard were found deceased at the site. Weather was poor at the time with ceiling near 2000 ft in rain

[Jarod]

DLH430 - Squawk 7700 - 2016-08-21

2016-08-21 10:00 UTC.

https://www.flightradar24.com/DLH430/abe47ad

Any information on that?

Returned high speed and remaining FL230.

Update:
Weird flight path. Another airport? Testing flight controls? Worse?

Update:
2016-08-21 11:05 UTC landed.

http://x264.nl/dump/dlh430-2016-08-21-1105utc-squawk7700-landed.jpg

[SoCalBrian]

Emirates aircraft, EK521, flying from Thiruvananthapuram, India, to Dubai made an emergency landing at Dubai International Airport on Wednesday.

http://gulfnews.com/news/uae/emergencies/flight-ek521-landing-gear-issues-not-confirmed-1.1872893

Emirates Flight 521

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emirates_Flight_521

[kylekyle03]

Icelandair 763 gear fault over Keflavik, would not retract

An Icelandair Boeing 767-300, registration TF-ISN performing flight FI-631 from Keflavik (Iceland) to Boston,MA (USA), was climbing out of Keflavik's runway 29 when the crew stopped the climb at 5000 feet and entered a hold for about one hour. The aircraft subsequently positioned for a safe landing on runway 02 about 90 minutes after departure.

A passenger reported the crew announced they had a maintenance issue and were returning to Keflavik. However, during the climb he could not hear any gear sounds, and there were no gear sounds while preparing for landing. After landing maintenance folks inspected the landing gear, opened access panels and the main landing gear doors.

A replacement Boeing 757-200, registration TF-FIV, departed 3 hours after landing back and was estimated to reach Boston with a delay of 4.5 hours.

(Just to note, the same aircraft suffered gear problems on a flight from Boston to Keflavik on the 16th May. Unsure if these are related).

[cretanrunner]

Any idea what the last 2 mean?

[SoCalBrian]

ACARS Data available

On May 20th 2016 The Aviation Herald received information from three independent channels, that ACARS (Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System) messages with following content were received from the aircraft:

ACARS messages indicate fire on board

00:26Z 3044 ANTI ICE R WINDOW
00:26Z 561200 R SLIDING WINDOW SENSOR
00:26Z 2600 SMOKE LAVATORY SMOKE
00:27Z 2600 AVIONICS SMOKE
00:28Z 561100 R FIXED WINDOW SENSOR
00:29Z 2200 AUTO FLT FCU 2 FAULT
00:29Z 2700 F/CTL SEC 3 FAULT
no further ACARS messages were received

http://avherald.com/h?article=4987fb09

[cretanrunner]

This is probably nothing (as I'm certainly no expert on the matter), but flight MS804 appears to have increased speed up to 615mph (534knots) toward the end of its flight and not long before starting descent. Isn't this close to the maximum speed of the A320-232? Looking at previous flights of MS804, they all appear to cruise between 530-570mph at or around FL360.

It will be interesting to see what really happened to this one. Not sure if a speed increase of 5 or 6 knots has any significance does it? Maybe just an increase in tailwind? The speed had been building up slowly throughout the flight.

Without wanting to seem pedantic, I don't think the plane ever started it's descent, as in losing height in order to land. The last ADSB contact shows it at 36975 feet, same as the previous two contacts. Is there some other data I've missed?

The question that no-one in the media has asked yet, is why the ADSB data just stops with the aircraft apparently still flying normally? Presumably, it was either switched off, or there was a major event that resulted in it losing it's power supply or it's ability to transmit. Either a major technical failure or a bomb?

And how does the claimed Greek radar data stack up? Were the alleged manoeuvres under control, or was this just the remains of the plane falling out of the sky? As usual, no analysis at all. Be nice to see the radar pix.

Where is everyone anyway? I thought there would be more interest in this one. Has the thread been shunted off somewhere else?