Officials Conclude Mozambique Crash Deliberate
Joe Cortez April 22, 2016
2013 incident killed 33 passengers, credited to deliberate actions of captain.
Officials investigating the 2013 crash of a LAM Mozambique Airlines Embraer 190 now believe deliberate action taken by the pilot caused the incident, killing 33 passengers aboard the aircraft. Star Africa reports the Nambian Works and Transportation Minister signed off on the report accusing captain Heriminio dos Santos Fernandes of bringing the aircraft down.
The incident took place in November 2013, as Mozambique Airlines Flight 470 was operating between Maputo, Mozambique and Luanda, Angola. After three years of investigation, investigators concluded the pilot deliberately caused the aircraft to come down, ending in a national park in the northeast corner of Namibia.
From analyzing cockpit voice recorder and flight data, the investigators believe the co-pilot left the cockpit to use the restroom two hours into the flight. Fernandes was the only one left in the cockpit and engaged the door lock. The captain then disengaged the autopilot, resetting the altitude setting three times. As a result, the aircraft began a slow, controlled descent before colliding with the ground.
“[The actions] indicate explicit knowledge of the aircraft’s systems and specifically the automatic flight control system,” the report concluded, as reported by Star Africa. “As the entire descent was conducted with the autopilot engaged and no force applied to the control columns.”
The incident is nearly a mirror of the Germanwings Flight 9525 incident, taking place two years after the LAM Mozambique incident. In the 4U9525 crash, the co-pilot was accused of manually locking the door after the pilot left the cockpit before crashing the Airbus A320 into the French Alps. All 150 souls aboard were killed in the incident.
While the report puts responsibility on the pilot for the incident, the report falls short of making recommendations to medical and psychological screenings for pilots. FlightGlobal reports the safety recommendations, include working with ICAO to “threat management emanating from both [sides] of the cockpit door,” and avoiding locking crew members out of the cockpit. A similar rule to avoid cockpit lock-outs is under evaluation by the European Aviation Safety Agency.
[Photo: AP]
