B752, vicinity Puerto Plata Dominican Republic, 1996

B752, vicinity Puerto Plata Dominican Republic, 1996

Summary

On 6 February 1996, a Boeing 757-200 took off from Puerto Plata at night despite awareness at the 80 knot check that the Captains altimeter was not working. Thereafter, the crew became confused as to their actual airspeed and lost control before the aircraft hit the sea surface less than five minutes after takeoff. The Investigation found that the Captain’s pitot probe was blocked and that the three pilots on the flight deck had become confused about which airspeed indications were reliable and had then not recovered from an aerodynamic stall which followed the wholly avoidable mismanagement of the aircraft flight path.

Description

On 6 February 1996, a Boeing 757-200 (TC-GEN) being operated by Turkish airline Birgenair was on a scheduled international passenger flight from Puerto Plata to Frankfurt for wholly owned subsidiary Alas Nacionales (National Wings) as ALW311 with an augmented crew with the immediate destination a technical stop at Gander en-route first to Berlin Schönefeld. Contact with ATC was lost shortly after an apparently normal night VMC takeoff and it was subsequently found to have crashed into the sea at speed less than five minutes later 14nm northeast of the airport, resulting in the destruction of the aircraft and fatal injuries to all 189 occupants.

The full content of this page is available to registered users only.
Please Log in or Register

SKYbrary Partners:

Safety knowledge contributed by: