Flash Airlines flight 604
Encyclopedia
Flash Airlines Flight 604 was a charter flight operated by Egypt
ian charter company Flash Airlines
. On 3 January 2004, the Boeing 737-300
crashed into the Red Sea
shortly after takeoff from Sharm el-Sheikh International Airport
, killing all 142 passengers, many of them French
tourists, and all six crew members. The findings of the crash investigation are controversial, with accident investigators from the different countries involved not agreeing on the cause.
Flight 604's death toll is the highest of any aviation accident in Egypt. It is also the highest of any accident involving a Boeing 737-300.
, Egypt-based Mediterranean Airlines, and the prior corporate identity of Flash Airlines, Heliopolis Airlines.
The flight took off at 04:42 local time (Eastern European Time
) (0242 GMT) from runway 22R at the Egyptian resort en route to Paris
via Cairo
. The captain was one of Egypt's most experienced pilots, with over 7,000 hours flying experience that included a highly decorated career in the Egyptian Air Force
.
After taking off, the aircraft should have climbed and initiated a left turn to follow the air corridor
to Cairo designated by the Sharm el-Sheikh VOR
station. The captain appeared surprised when the autopilot was engaged, which he immediately switched off again. The copilot warned the captain that the bank angle was increasing. At a bank angle of 40 degrees to the right, the captain said "OK, come out". The ailerons were briefly returned to a neutral before being commanded to increase the bank to the right. The aircraft reached an altitude of 5460 foot with a 50 degrees bank when the copilot exclaimed "Overbank!" repeatedly when the bank angle kept increasing. The bank angle was 111 degrees right, while the pitch attitude was 43 degrees nose down at an altitude of 3470 foot. The observer on the flight deck, also a pilot, but a trainee on this type of aircraft, shouted "Retard power, retard power, retard power!". Both throttles were moved to idle; the captain appeared to regain control of the airplane from the nose-down, right bank attitude. However the speed increased, causing an overspeed warning. At 04:45, the aircraft impacted the water about 9.4 statute miles (15.2 km; 8.2 nmi) south of the airport. The impact occurred while the aircraft was in a 24 degree right bank, 24 degree nose-down attitude, travelling at 416 knots (815.3 km/h)(478 mi/h) and pulling 3.9g
(38 m/s²).
All passengers and crew were killed on impact.
Charles de Gaulle Airport initially indicated the Flash Airlines flight as delayed; authorities began notifying relatives and friends of the deaths of the passengers two hours after the scheduled arrival time. Authorities took relatives and friends to a hotel, where they received a list of passengers confirmed to be on the flight. Marc Chernet, president of the victims' families association of Flight 604, described the disaster as the "biggest air disaster involving French nationals" in civil aviation.
Khadr Abdullah (referred to as Mohammed Khedr in a Times Online article) was the captain. Amr Shaafei served as the first officer. Ashraf Abdelhamid, who also held Canadian
and U.S. citizenship, was training as a first officer and had experience flying corporate jets; he sat in the cockpit with the pilot and copilot.
Most of the passengers were French tourists who originated from the Paris
area. A provisional passenger list dated 5 January 2004 stated that twelve entire French families had boarded the flight. Members of seventeen families appeared at Charles de Gaulle Airport to take passengers on the flight; this fact gave the airport staff indication that entire families died on Flight 604.
Initially, it was thought that terrorists
might have been involved, as fear of aviation terrorism was high (with several major airlines in previous days canceling flights on short notice). The British Prime Minister
at the time, Tony Blair
, was also holidaying in the Sharm el-Sheikh
area. A group in Yemen
said that it destroyed the aircraft as a protest against a new law in France banning headscarves in schools
. Accident investigators dismissed terrorism when they discovered that the wreckage was in a tight debris field, indicating that the aircraft crashed in one piece; a bombed aircraft would disintegrate and leave a large debris field.
The wreckage sank to a depth of 1000 m (3,280.8 ft), making recovery of the flight data recorder
and cockpit voice recorder
difficult. However two weeks after the accident, both devices were located by a French salvage vessel and recovered by a ROV. The accident investigators examined the recorders while in Cairo. The maintenance records of the aircraft had not been duplicated; they were destroyed in the crash and no backup copies existed.
The Ministry of Civil Aviation
(MCA) investigated the accident, with assistance from the American National Transportation Safety Board
(NTSB) and the French Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la Sécurité de l'Aviation Civile
(BEA).
The MCA released its final report into the accident on March 25, 2006. The report did not conclude with a probable cause, listing instead four "possible causes".
The NTSB and the BEA concluded that the pilot suffered spatial disorientation
, and the copilot was unwilling to challenge his more experienced superior. Furthermore, according to the NTSB and BEA, both officers were insufficiently trained. The NTSB stated that the cockpit voice recorder
showed that 24 seconds passed after the airliner banked before the pilot began correcting maneuvers. Egyptian authorities disagreed with this assessment, attributing the cause to mechanical issues. Shaker Kelada, the lead Egyptian investigator, said that if Hamid, who had more experience than the copilot, detected any problems with the flight, he would have raised objections. Some media reports suggest that the plane crashed due to technical problems, possibly a result of the apparently questionable safety record of the airline. This attitude was shown in a press briefing given by the BEA chief, who was berated by the first officer's mother during a press conference, and demanded that the crew be absolved of fault prior to the completion of the investigation. Two months after the crash Flash Airlines went bankrupt.
U.S. Summary Comments on Draft Final Report of Aircraft Accident Flash Airlines flight 604, Boeing 737-300, SU-ZCF January 3, 2004, Red Sea near Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.
Quote from page 5 of 7:
Problems associated with the complexity of autopilot systems were documented in the June 2008 issue of Aero Safety World. Before the completion of the investigation, Avionics writer David Evans suggested that differences in instrumentation between the MiG-21
(with which the captain had experience) and the Boeing 737 may have contributed to the crash.
show Mayday
(known as Air Emergency in the US and Air Crash Investigation in the rest of world). The episode is entitled "Vertigo".
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
ian charter company Flash Airlines
Flash Airlines
Flash Airlines was a private charter airline operating out of Cairo, Egypt that was part of the Flash Group tourism company. The airline operated two Boeing 737-3Q8 aircraft manufactured in 1993 on non-scheduled commercial passenger flights on both international and domestic routes.-History:The...
. On 3 January 2004, the Boeing 737-300
Boeing 737 Classic
The Boeing 737 Classic is the name given to the -300/-400/-500 series of the Boeing 737 following the introduction of the -600/-700/-800/-900 series. They are short- to medium- range, narrow-body jet airliners produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. The Classic series was introduced as the 'new...
crashed into the Red Sea
Red Sea
The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. In the north, there is the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez...
shortly after takeoff from Sharm el-Sheikh International Airport
Sharm el-Sheikh International Airport
Sharm el-Sheikh International Airport , formerly known as Ophira International Airport, is an international airport located in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt...
, killing all 142 passengers, many of them French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
tourists, and all six crew members. The findings of the crash investigation are controversial, with accident investigators from the different countries involved not agreeing on the cause.
Flight 604's death toll is the highest of any aviation accident in Egypt. It is also the highest of any accident involving a Boeing 737-300.
History of the flight
The aircraft, a Boeing 737-3Q8 had originally been delivered to TACA Airlines in 1992. Other operators included Color AirColor Air
Color Air AS was the first Norwegian low-cost airline. It operated from Oslo Airport, Gardermoen in 1998 and 1999 with a fleet of three Boeing 737-300 aircraft. Color Air was a brand extension of Color Line, which shared a common owner in the Olav Nils Sunde-controlled Color Group...
, Egypt-based Mediterranean Airlines, and the prior corporate identity of Flash Airlines, Heliopolis Airlines.
The flight took off at 04:42 local time (Eastern European Time
Eastern European Time
Eastern European Time is one of the names of UTC+02:00 time zone, 2 hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time. It is used in some European countries that also use Eastern European Summer Time as a summer daylight saving time.- Usage :...
) (0242 GMT) from runway 22R at the Egyptian resort en route to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
via Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
. The captain was one of Egypt's most experienced pilots, with over 7,000 hours flying experience that included a highly decorated career in the Egyptian Air Force
Egyptian Air Force
The Egyptian Air Force, or EAF , is the aviation branch of the Egyptian Armed Forces. The EAF is headed by an Air Marshal . Currently, the commander of the Egyptian Air Force is Air Marshal Reda Mahmoud Hafez Mohamed...
.
After taking off, the aircraft should have climbed and initiated a left turn to follow the air corridor
Air corridor
An air corridor is a designated region of airspace that an aircraft must remain in during its transit through a given region. Air corridors are typically imposed by military or diplomatic requirements...
to Cairo designated by the Sharm el-Sheikh VOR
VHF omnidirectional range
VOR, short for VHF omnidirectional radio range, is a type of radio navigation system for aircraft. A VOR ground station broadcasts a VHF radio composite signal including the station's identifier, voice , and navigation signal. The identifier is typically a two- or three-letter string in Morse code...
station. The captain appeared surprised when the autopilot was engaged, which he immediately switched off again. The copilot warned the captain that the bank angle was increasing. At a bank angle of 40 degrees to the right, the captain said "OK, come out". The ailerons were briefly returned to a neutral before being commanded to increase the bank to the right. The aircraft reached an altitude of 5460 foot with a 50 degrees bank when the copilot exclaimed "Overbank!" repeatedly when the bank angle kept increasing. The bank angle was 111 degrees right, while the pitch attitude was 43 degrees nose down at an altitude of 3470 foot. The observer on the flight deck, also a pilot, but a trainee on this type of aircraft, shouted "Retard power, retard power, retard power!". Both throttles were moved to idle; the captain appeared to regain control of the airplane from the nose-down, right bank attitude. However the speed increased, causing an overspeed warning. At 04:45, the aircraft impacted the water about 9.4 statute miles (15.2 km; 8.2 nmi) south of the airport. The impact occurred while the aircraft was in a 24 degree right bank, 24 degree nose-down attitude, travelling at 416 knots (815.3 km/h)(478 mi/h) and pulling 3.9g
G-force
The g-force associated with an object is its acceleration relative to free-fall. This acceleration experienced by an object is due to the vector sum of non-gravitational forces acting on an object free to move. The accelerations that are not produced by gravity are termed proper accelerations, and...
(38 m/s²).
All passengers and crew were killed on impact.
Charles de Gaulle Airport initially indicated the Flash Airlines flight as delayed; authorities began notifying relatives and friends of the deaths of the passengers two hours after the scheduled arrival time. Authorities took relatives and friends to a hotel, where they received a list of passengers confirmed to be on the flight. Marc Chernet, president of the victims' families association of Flight 604, described the disaster as the "biggest air disaster involving French nationals" in civil aviation.
Passengers and crew
| Passenger and crew nationalities | Nationality | Passengers | Crew | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 1 | 1 | align=left | |0 | 5 | 5 | align=left | |139 | 0 | 139 | align=left | |1 | 0 | 1 | align=left | |2 | 0 | 2 |
| Total | 142 | 6 | 148 |
Khadr Abdullah (referred to as Mohammed Khedr in a Times Online article) was the captain. Amr Shaafei served as the first officer. Ashraf Abdelhamid, who also held Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and U.S. citizenship, was training as a first officer and had experience flying corporate jets; he sat in the cockpit with the pilot and copilot.
Most of the passengers were French tourists who originated from the Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
area. A provisional passenger list dated 5 January 2004 stated that twelve entire French families had boarded the flight. Members of seventeen families appeared at Charles de Gaulle Airport to take passengers on the flight; this fact gave the airport staff indication that entire families died on Flight 604.
Investigation
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
might have been involved, as fear of aviation terrorism was high (with several major airlines in previous days canceling flights on short notice). The British Prime Minister
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...
at the time, Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
, was also holidaying in the Sharm el-Sheikh
Sharm el-Sheikh
Sharm el-Sheikh is a city situated on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula, in South Sinai Governorate, Egypt, on the coastal strip along the Red Sea. Its population is approximately 35,000...
area. A group in Yemen
Yemen
The Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....
said that it destroyed the aircraft as a protest against a new law in France banning headscarves in schools
French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools
The French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools bans wearing conspicuous religious symbols in French public primary and secondary schools...
. Accident investigators dismissed terrorism when they discovered that the wreckage was in a tight debris field, indicating that the aircraft crashed in one piece; a bombed aircraft would disintegrate and leave a large debris field.
The wreckage sank to a depth of 1000 m (3,280.8 ft), making recovery of the flight data recorder
Flight data recorder
A flight data recorder is an electronic device employed to record any instructions sent to any electronic systems on an aircraft. It is a device used to record specific aircraft performance parameters...
and cockpit voice recorder
Cockpit voice recorder
A cockpit voice recorder , often referred to as a "black box", is a flight recorder used to record the audio environment in the flight deck of an aircraft for the purpose of investigation of accidents and incidents...
difficult. However two weeks after the accident, both devices were located by a French salvage vessel and recovered by a ROV. The accident investigators examined the recorders while in Cairo. The maintenance records of the aircraft had not been duplicated; they were destroyed in the crash and no backup copies existed.
The Ministry of Civil Aviation
Ministry of Civil Aviation (Egypt)
The Ministry of Civil Aviation of Egypt is the ministry in charge of civil aviation in Egypt. Its headquarters are in Cairo.-Ministers of civil aviation:The current minister of the Egyptian civil aviation is Air Marshal Lotfi Mustafa Kamal....
(MCA) investigated the accident, with assistance from the American National Transportation Safety Board
National Transportation Safety Board
The National Transportation Safety Board is an independent U.S. government investigative agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. In this role, the NTSB investigates and reports on aviation accidents and incidents, certain types of highway crashes, ship and marine...
(NTSB) and the French Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la Sécurité de l'Aviation Civile
Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la sécurité de l'Aviation Civile
The Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la Sécurité de l'Aviation Civile is an agency of the French government, responsible for investigating aviation accidents and making safety recommendations based on what is learned from those investigations. It is headquartered in Building 153 on the grounds...
(BEA).
The MCA released its final report into the accident on March 25, 2006. The report did not conclude with a probable cause, listing instead four "possible causes".
The NTSB and the BEA concluded that the pilot suffered spatial disorientation
Spatial disorientation
Spatial disorientation is the inability to correctly interpret aircraft attitude, altitude or airspeed, in relation to the Earth or point of reference. Spatial disorientation is a condition in which an aircraft pilot's perception of direction does not agree with reality...
, and the copilot was unwilling to challenge his more experienced superior. Furthermore, according to the NTSB and BEA, both officers were insufficiently trained. The NTSB stated that the cockpit voice recorder
Cockpit voice recorder
A cockpit voice recorder , often referred to as a "black box", is a flight recorder used to record the audio environment in the flight deck of an aircraft for the purpose of investigation of accidents and incidents...
showed that 24 seconds passed after the airliner banked before the pilot began correcting maneuvers. Egyptian authorities disagreed with this assessment, attributing the cause to mechanical issues. Shaker Kelada, the lead Egyptian investigator, said that if Hamid, who had more experience than the copilot, detected any problems with the flight, he would have raised objections. Some media reports suggest that the plane crashed due to technical problems, possibly a result of the apparently questionable safety record of the airline. This attitude was shown in a press briefing given by the BEA chief, who was berated by the first officer's mother during a press conference, and demanded that the crew be absolved of fault prior to the completion of the investigation. Two months after the crash Flash Airlines went bankrupt.
U.S. Summary Comments on Draft Final Report of Aircraft Accident Flash Airlines flight 604, Boeing 737-300, SU-ZCF January 3, 2004, Red Sea near Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.
Quote from page 5 of 7:
"Distraction. A few seconds before the captain called for the autopilot to be engaged, the airplane’s pitch began increasing and airspeed began decreasing. These deviations continued during and after the autopilot engagement/disengagement sequence. The captain ultimately allowed the airspeed to decrease to 35 knots below his commanded target airspeed of 220 knots and the climb pitch to reach 22°, which is 10° more than the standard climb pitch of about 12°. During this time, the captain also allowed the airplane to enter a gradually steepening right bank, which was inconsistent with the flight crew’s departure clearance to perform a climbing left turn. These pitch, airspeed and bank angle deviations indicated that the captain directed his attention away from monitoring the attitude indications during and after the autopilot disengagement process.
Changes in the autoflight system’s mode status offer the best explanation for the captain’s distraction. The following changes occurred in the autoflight system’s mode status shortly before the initiation of the right roll: (1) manual engagement of the autopilot, (2) automatic transition of roll guidance from heading select to control wheel steering-roll (CWS-R), (3) manual disengagement of the autopilot, and (4) manual reengagement of heading select for roll guidance. The transition to the CWS-R mode occurred in accordance with nominal system operation because the captain was not closely following the flight director guidance at the time of the autopilot engagement. The captain might not have expected the transition, and he might not have understood why it occurred. The captain was probably referring to the mode change from command mode to CWS-R when he stated, “see what the aircraft did?,” shortly after it occurred. The available evidence indicates that the unexpected mode change and the flight crew’s subsequent focus of attention on reestablishing roll guidance for the autoflight system were the most likely reasons for the captain’s distraction from monitoring the attitude".
Problems associated with the complexity of autopilot systems were documented in the June 2008 issue of Aero Safety World. Before the completion of the investigation, Avionics writer David Evans suggested that differences in instrumentation between the MiG-21
Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21
The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 is a supersonic jet fighter aircraft, designed by the Mikoyan-Gurevich Design Bureau in the Soviet Union. It was popularly nicknamed "balalaika", from the aircraft's planform-view resemblance to the Russian stringed musical instrument or ołówek by Polish pilots due to...
(with which the captain had experience) and the Boeing 737 may have contributed to the crash.
Dramatization
The story of the disaster was featured on the fourth season of Canadian National Geographic ChannelNational Geographic Channel
National Geographic Channel, also commercially abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo, is a subscription television channel that airs non-fiction television programs produced by the National Geographic Society. Like History and the Discovery Channel, the channel features documentaries with factual...
show Mayday
Mayday (TV series)
Mayday, also known as Air Crash Investigation in the United Kingdom, Australia and Asia and Air Emergency and Air Disasters in the United States, is a Canadian documentary television programme produced by Cineflix investigating air crashes, near-crashes and other disasters...
(known as Air Emergency in the US and Air Crash Investigation in the rest of world). The episode is entitled "Vertigo".
See also
- Gulf Air Flight 072Gulf Air Flight 072On 23 August 2000, Gulf Air Flight 072 crashed into the Persian Gulf on approach to Bahrain International Airport from Cairo.-Flight and investigation:...
- Pan Am Flight 816Pan Am Flight 816Pan Am flight 816 was an international flight from Auckland, New Zealand, to Los Angeles, United States, via Tahiti, French Polynesia....
- Air India Flight 855Air India Flight 855Air India Flight 855 was a scheduled passenger flight that crashed during the evening of 1 January 1978 about off the coast of Bandra, Bombay , India. All 213 lives on board were lost...
- Viasa Flight 897Viasa Flight 897Viasa Flight 897 refers to an international scheduled Rome–Madrid–Lisbon–Santa Maria–Caracas passenger service that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Portugal on , shortly after take-off from Portela Airport...
- Kenya Airways Flight 507Kenya Airways Flight 507Kenya Airways Flight 507 was a scheduled Abidjan–Douala–Nairobi passenger service, operated with a Boeing 737-8AL, that crashed in the initial stage of its second leg on , immediately after takeoff from Douala International Airport...
External links
- Egyptian Civil Aviation Authority: Flash Accident Final Report
- Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la Sécurité de l'Aviation CivileBureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la sécurité de l'Aviation CivileThe Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la Sécurité de l'Aviation Civile is an agency of the French government, responsible for investigating aviation accidents and making safety recommendations based on what is learned from those investigations. It is headquartered in Building 153 on the grounds...
- BBC News Online coverage
- CNN article
- Crews find Egyptian plane crash 'black box'
- Image of Flash Airlines Flight 604
