Description

On 10 January 2000, two minutes and 17 seconds after departure from Zurich airport, at night in instrument meteorological conditions (IMC), a SAAB 340 operated by Crossair, entered into right-hand dive and crashed.

Synopsis

The following is extracted from the official accident Report published by The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), Switzerland:

Take-off clearance was given at 16:54:00 UTC […] The aircraft began its take-off roll at 16:54:10 UTC in darkness. The landing lights were on and the flaps were fully retracted.

The initial flight path, at a heading of 276 degrees, followed the centre line of the runway. The radar recording then showed a deviation in the flight path by 5 degrees to the south. However, this slight deviation was reduced before waypoint DME 2.1 KLO was reached by initiating a right turn.

At 16:55:15 UTC [the aircraft] was cleared to climb to flight level 110. At 16:55:39 UTC, Zurich departure issued the instruction to turn to VOR ZUE [Callsign], turn left to Zurich East". At 16:55:45 the bank angle to the left reached a maximum of 16.9 degrees on a compass heading of 270 degrees.

After the aircraft had remained briefly at a 16 degrees bank angle to the left, it began to roll to the right. From 16:55:47 UTC the bank angle rate amounted to 3 degrees per second to the right.

[Note that from this point until the time of impact was 40 seconds]