Afriqiyah Airways Flight 771
Afriqiyah Airways Flight 771 was a scheduled international Afriqiyah Airways passenger flight that crashed on 12 May 2010 at about 06:01 local time on approach to Tripoli International Airport. Of the 104 passengers and crew on board, the sole survivor was a 9-year-old Dutch boy. The crash of Flight 771 was the third hull-loss of an Airbus A330 involving fatalities, occurring eleven months after the crash of Air France Flight 447.
Aircraft and crew
The aircraft was an Airbus A330-200, registration 5A-ONG, manufactured in 2009, manufacturer's serial number 1024. It was delivered in September 2009 and at the time of the accident it had approximately 1,600 hours total flying time and about 420 take-off and landing cycles. The aircraft was powered by two General Electric CF6-80E1 engines. It was configured for a capacity of 253 passengers. This particular flight carried 93 passengers and 11 crew. Most of the passengers were Dutch citizens returning from holiday in South Africa. An airport official stated that 13 Libyans, both passengers and crew, as well 70 Dutch nationals had lost their lives in the crash.The flight crew consisted of the following:
- The Captain was 57-year-old Yousef Bashir Al-Saadi . He was hired by Afriqiyah Airways in 2007 and had 17,016 flight hours, including 516 hours on the Airbus A330.
- The first officer was 42-year-old Tareq Mousa Abu Al-Chaouachi . He had 4,216 flying hours, including 516 hours on the Airbus A330.
- The relief first officer was 37-year-old Nazim Al-Mabruk Al-Tarhuni . He had 1,866 flight hours, including 516 hours on the Airbus A330.
Flight
The accident is the second deadliest involving an Airbus A330, and the second deadliest accident to have occurred in Libya. It also was the first fatal accident for Afriqiyah Airways.
Investigation
The Libyan Civil Aviation Authority opened an investigation into the accident. Airbus stated that it would provide full technical assistance to the authorities investigating the crash, and would do so via the French Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la Sécurité de l'Aviation Civile. The South African Civil Aviation Authority sent a team to assist with the investigation. The BEA assisted in the investigation with an initial team of two investigators, accompanied by five advisors from Airbus. The Dutch Safety Board sent an observer. The flight recorders were recovered and sent to Paris for analysis soon after the incident.Authorities reviewed the recordings made by the Flight Data Recorder. In August 2010, it was reported that preliminary investigations were complete. There was no evidence of any technical problems nor was there any fuel shortage. No technical or medical problems had been reported by the crew and they had not requested any assistance.
On 28 February 2013, the Libyan Civil Aviation Authority announced that they had determined that the cause of the crash was pilot error. Crew resource management lacked/was insufficient, sensory illusions, and the first officer's inputs to the aircraft side stick were a contributing factor in the crash. Fatigue was also named as a possible contributing factor in the accident.
The final report stated that the accident resulted from the pilots' lack of a common action plan during the approach, the final approach being continued below the Minimum Decision Altitude without ground visual reference being acquired, the inappropriate application of flight control inputs during the go-around and after the activation of the Terrain Awareness and Warning System, and the flight crew's lack of monitoring and controlling of the flight path.
Accident description
The flight crew did not acquire any visual ground references before initiating their approach to land. The aircraft began its final descent for landing too early. The aircraft had descended to above ground when the terrain awareness and warning system sounded a "too low terrain" alarm in the cockpit. The captain ordered a go-around and the autopilot was turned off. The first officer put the nose of the aircraft up for 4 seconds and the thrust levers were set to go-around power. The aircraft pitched up to 12.3° nose up and the flight crew raised the landing gear and flaps. Shortly thereafter the co-pilot started making nose down inputs which caused the aircraft to pitch-attitude to reduce to 3.5° nose down. The go-around pitch attitude was not maintained and the instructions from the flight director were not followed. The captain and the first officer were making inputs to the aircraft's side stick at the same time. This action appears to be intended to provide assistance by the captain to fly the aircraft. This action led to confusion on who was flying the aircraft. The ground proximity warning system sounded "too low terrain," "sink rate," and "pull up" alarms as the aircraft lost more height and the co-pilot responded with a sharp nose-down input. Then the captain took control of the aircraft without warning, via the side stick priority button and maintained the nose-down input, while the first officer was simultaneously pulling back on his own side stick. Two seconds before impact with the ground the aircraft was at. The captain was also pulling his side stick fully back, suggesting both pilots were aware of the aircraft's impending collision with the ground. Two seconds later, the aircraft crashed into the ground at a speed and exploded.Reactions
Afriqiyah Airways issued a statement saying that relatives of the victims who wished to visit Libya would be transported and accommodated at Afriqiyah's expense. The Libyan authorities relaxed certain passport restrictions and guaranteed the granting of visas. By 15 May 2010 the airline opened the Family Assistance Centre in a hotel in Tripoli to care for family members and relatives of crash victims who were visiting Libya. The executive team of Afriqiyah, including the CEO and the chairperson of the board, met family members at the hotel. Some family members wanted to visit the crash site; they traveled to the site and placed flowers there. The airline permanently retired the flight number 771 and it has been re-designated to 788 for Tripoli to Johannesburg and 789 for the return flight.Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands expressed her shock at hearing the news. The President of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, also offered his condolences.
The 2020 novel Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano, which tells the story of a 12-year-old boy who is the sole survivor of a plane crash that kills all of the other 191 passengers, was inspired in part by the Afriqiyah Airways Flight 771 crash.
Passengers
The passengers aboard Flight 771 were of various nationalities. All of the eleven crew members were Libyans. One passenger held dual citizenship. The following list reflects the airline's passenger nationality count of the victims. The airline released the manifest on the morning of 15 May 2010; the airline sent the list to several related embassies.- one South African passport holder, Bree O'Mara, had dual South African and Irish citizenships.
Of the passengers, 42 were to continue to Düsseldorf, 32 to Brussels, seven to London, and one to Paris. Eleven of the passengers had Libya as their final destination. Of the 71 passengers identified as Dutch by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 38 were travelling with the Stip travel agency, 24 were travelling with the Kras travel agency, and 9, including the survivor, had their tickets booked independently. One of the Dutch victims was Joëlle van Noppen, singer in the former Dutch girl group WOW!.
On the evening of 12 May 2010, the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed that one of its passport holders was on the plane, novelist Bree O'Mara.