A “succession of errors” which have “never been caught up”: at the Paris trial of the Yemenia Airways crash, aeronautical experts described on Tuesday the “incoherent” maneuvers of the crew in the last minutes of the flight , the cause of the disaster.
On the night of June 29 to 30, 2009, flight IY626 crashed a few kilometers off Moroni, capital of the Comoros, taking the lives of 152 people and leaving only one survivor, a 12-year-old girl.
The piloting of the aircraft in question
An accident due to the “loss of control of the plane, after the poor execution” of the airport approach maneuver and “the inability to carry out emergency maneuvers”, concluded the various judicial expertise . “For us, the accident is due to the piloting of the plane”, summarizes at the helm Michel Beyris, co-author, with Eric Brodbeck, of one of the reports.
There was a “succession of handling errors” which are “never caught up”, he summarizes. “It’s something that shocks us somewhere, it’s hard to understand how it could have happened.” That evening, the A310 must land on a moonless night, with a wind of 30 knots (60 km / h), which requires the pilots to change runway and make an “imposed visual maneuver” , more delicate.
A reconstruction video of the last fifteen minutes was made from the flight recorders, which were in the black boxes recovered a few weeks after the crash. On the screen of the courtroom, a 3D plane appears: it traces the movements of the device, next to a map which traces its position, a virtual cockpit and exchanges between the pilots .
“Totally confusing”
The minutes go by, the expert gives explanations, in the silent courtroom. The airplane descended to 3,000 feet, progressing first into the wind, before making a first turn. “Until then, the procedure was normal,” notes the president. Five minutes before the accident, the plane descends to 1,500 feet, the landing gear is extended, this is the “required configuration”, underlines the expert. But “there something is happening”: “” an altitude was selected, but it starts at zero, it starts at 3,000, one wonders if they did not get the wrong button”, he says.
The aircraft then makes a “trajectory error”: the next turn is made “15 seconds too late”. Then, “something improbable happens, it goes into descent mode”, underlines Michel Beyris: “600 feet, 500 feet, and in addition at 1,800 feet/minute, it descends very, very quick “. At 400 feet, an alarm sounds: “too low” – “too low” – and “pull up” or “go around again”.
The plane descends to 200 feet (60 meters) before climbing back up, the landing gear is retracted, but “the throttles” are not restarted: “as a result, it goes up, but timidly”. And at that moment, the ailerons are set “to zero”, which is “incomprehensible”: “the plane can only do one thing, which is to stall”, laments the witness, who speaks of “Totally confusing”.
“Many weaknesses”
The video of the reconstruction is interrupted a few seconds before the impact in the water. “We are going to make a suspension, so that everyone can come to their senses”, declares the president Sylvie Daunis for the benefit of the civil parties in particular. In the room, about thirty relatives of the victims are present. Some, very moved, are accompanied outside by volunteers from the association Paris helps victims.
Yemenia Airways, which employed two Yemeni pilots, is appearing for manslaughter and involuntary injury. It is suspected of having knowingly maintained night flights, while some lights at Moroni airport were not working and of having “insufficiently” trained its pilots.
For the experts, the captain was “experienced” and had a “normal and well-marked progression”, but the training of his co-pilot “left room for many weaknesses”. No specific training at Moroni airport, whose weather and relief are difficult, appears in their curriculum, while the regulations required it, they also noted. The trial is due to end on June 2.