A320, vicinity Sochi Russia, 2006

A320, vicinity Sochi Russia, 2006

Summary

On 3 May 2006, an Airbus 320 crew failed to correctly fly a night IMC go around at Sochi and the aircraft crashed into the sea and was destroyed. The Investigation found that the crew failed to reconfigure the aircraft for the go around and, after having difficulties with the performance of an auto go-around, had disconnected the autopilot. Inappropriate control inputs, including simultaneous (summed) sidestick inputs by both pilots were followed by an EGPWS PULL UP Warning. There was no recovery and about a minute into the go around, a steep descent into the sea at 285 knots occurred.

Description

On 3 May 2006, an Airbus A320 (EK-32009) being operated by Armavia on a scheduled international passenger flight from Yerevan, Armenia to Sochi, Russia as RNV967 was instructed to discontinue its ILS approach at destination in night IMC due to a deterioration in reported cloud ceiling but it failed to complete the prescribed go around and was subsequently found to have crashed into the sea. The aircraft was destroyed and all 113 occupants were killed.

Investigation

An Investigation was carried out by the Interstate Aviation Committee (MAK). The FDR and CVR were recovered from the aircraft and their data were successfully downloaded. ATC recorded radar data was also available.

It was a found that the Captain, born in 1966, had begun his flying career as an An-2 First Officer, and then, in 1990 as a Yak-40 First Officer, on which type he gained his command in 1997. In 2004, he had joined Armavia and been trained as an A320 First Officer at the SAS Flight Academy in Stockholm and been promoted to A320 Captain with Armavia a year later. He had 5,458 total flying hours which included 1,436 total hours on the A320 of which 566 had been in command on the type.

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