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Aircraft hits fire truck during takeoff at LIM


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https://www.ifalpa.org/news/global-pilots-on-latam-airlines-flight-2213/
 

MONTREAL - IFALPA is closely monitoring the situation unfolding in Lima, Peru after Friday’s runway collision involving a departing LATAM Airlines A320 and a firetruck crossing the runway. Our condolences go out to the families and friends of the firefighters who lost their lives in this tragedy, and our thoughts are with the injured.

IFALPA stresses the need to avoid speculation as to the contributing factors of this accident. Only an extensive, complete accident investigation conducted in accordance with ICAO Annex 13 will provide the recommendations required to advance aviation safety and prevent reoccurrence. The Federation will offer the expertise of its local Accredited Accident Investigators to the relevant Investigation Authorities to help gather facts and pertinent safety and security information.

The flight crew of LATAM 2213 were also placed under arrest and held in custody in Lima up until last night. The Federation considers this situation unacceptable. Holding individuals in custody who are already under intense psychological pressure due to an accident is extremely detrimental to flight safety and can only hinder the investigation. Further, it shows a complete disregard for the Positive Safety Culture principles laid out by Annexes 13 (Aircraft Accident and Incident Investigation) and 19 (Safety Management) to the Convention on International Civil Aviation. It may also lead the public to conclude that the accident resulted from the flight crew’s intentional acts, rather than technical issues or a string of errors originating from multiple factors.

In any similar circumstances, the flight crew should be provided immediate medical care and evaluation. In no circumstances is it appropriate to question them in the immediate aftermath of any accident or incident until they have been professionally evaluated by qualified medical personnel who can determine their mental and physical fitness to contribute accurate information to investigators.

IFALPA therefore urges the Republic of Peru to adhere to and fully implement ICAO's positive safety culture principles, especially in the wake of such a tragic accident.

 

 

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2 hours ago, Tango Foxtrot said:

Perhaps it should be an unwritten rule that if a crew is arrested,  no crew will fly into that airport until they are released.  Why would you take a chance 🤔

Unwritten?  I say; write it down, publicize it and stick to it.  Arrest the crew and the next day the airport is a ghost town.

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3 hours ago, Seeker said:

Unwritten?  I say; write it down, publicize it and stick to it.  Arrest the crew and the next day the airport is a ghost town.

The Dominican Republic would have been a good place to start.

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On 11/21/2022 at 10:56 AM, Kip Powick said:

Flew into an airport in Europe and my entire crew was arrested...scary time 😱

 I suggest we open up a poll to see if we want Kip will tell us more about this 🤔 

 Or perhaps Kip will save us the time (we all know what the results will be) and just let us know what happened 👍

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dubrovnik.jpg

 

In 1973 I was stationed at 412 (T) Squadron in YOW flying the Cosmo, (CV580),.  About every 3 months a full crew would fly ,( Mil  Service Air on B707),  to Lahr Germany and spend 2 or 3 weeks flying out of Lahr to many points in Europe. I happened to be over there to do a pre-Captain course  check ride on a fellow pilot when I was asked if I could get General Fred Sharpe, Chief of Defense Staff, (CDS), into Dubrovnik Yugoslavia as he was supposed to attend some important meeting there and did not want to fly to Italy and then take a helo to Dubrovnik.

There were no instrument charts available for any approach into Dubrovnik back then so the only option was to fly IFR until we were nearly  encroaching on Yugoslavia’s airspace and, weather permitting, we would do the final part VFR. We looked at a lot of topographic charts of the area and I discussed the plan with the Aide to the CDS and he got back to me and said the CDS wanted to give it a go and if weather precluded a direct flight to Dubrovnik we were to take him to Rome and there would be a helo ready to take him over to Yugoslavia.

Itineraries got fouled up and our time of departure from Lahr meant a night arrival at Dubrovnik but the weather looked like it would be good VFR. I put the “Captain- to- be” in the left seat and I took the right seat as I kinda felt that  language problems  and night VFR flight in a mountainous area could be rather stressful for the other fellow. In all honesty, I felt I could read a topo map better than he could😉 . Things went pretty well and we cancelled IFR with Italian ATC  and called Dubrovnik tower for landing information, then things stated to go south, all the while we are heading for the airport and the tower controller’s English was as good as my Croatian. The tower did give us the wind and the runway in use but kept asking us for authorization info and that was supposed to have been handled by Foreign Affairs etc.  Between trying to give calm and clear answers, and map reading and maintaining  situational awareness,  it was a busy night. As you can see on Google Earth the runway is close to the water but also has  mountains to the NE and East. The city is located to the south east of the airport so there aren’t many ground feature lights to help the approach. I got the young fellow to do a tight left base and a steep final and we landed to the NW.  As soon as we slowed down the tower told us to” take the next taxi way on the left, shut down the engines when clear of the runway, remain on the aircraft and you are all under arrest”.

Naturally we thought this was a joke  but reality set in when a military vehicle rushed over and parked in front of the nosewheel, four armed guards jumped out  and a not so very polite man demanded the air stairs be dropped and the Captain report to him. In the meantime, General Sharpe was standing by the airstairs activation lever wondering why the stairs were not down. I gave him a brief explanation of what we thought was going on and put the stairs down but suggested he stay on the aircraft until things were sorted out.

Long story short…A heated discussion with someone, who apparently was in charge,  about why we were there and why no  “papers? In the meantime, a black staff car pulled up and General Sharpe was allowed to leave. We were told to start engines and follow the military vehicle and were parked a long distance away from the terminal. We were escorted off the plane by one armed guard, had to put our luggage on the tarmac for a cursory search, and then marched into the old terminal and told to produce our Passports, which they kept.  It took close to an hour to go through all these procedures and once again we were advised that we were all under arrest and to get into a black panel van, with no windows and were driven to a hotel , escorted in with two armed guards, one of which spoke a little bit of English We were taken to a hotel floor, shown our rooms and advised that if we wanted to eat we all had to eat in the restaurant at the same time with the two guards present. We had a bit of a fun filled, but stressful  dinner, nervous laughter dominated,  and we all had to leave the restaurant at the same time and were escorted to our rooms once again.

Next morning our doors were banged on to alert us that we had to meet in the hallway  to go down for breakfast , back up in the room for our gear, back in the windowless van and to the airport. Escorted into a small room, given our Passports back, and escorted to the aircraft where our armed guards left us but stayed in their vehicle as we did a pre-flight. Just on speculation I called tower and asked if they had a flight plan for us and they stated they did have one and they were sending out some papers containing weather information.

There was only one other problem. The surface wind was a stiff  onshore wind , almost 90 degrees to the runway at 35 kts with  gusts up to 40 kts. General Sharpe arrived and asked me if we could get off with the wind and I advised him we could  but it would be rough until we got out of the surface wind.

This was the only time in my life that I did a takeoff using differential power on the Cosmo. I had full power on the into wind engine and just over, about 60 % on the downwind engine….lots of rudder and aileron and stayed on the runway until about 15 knots past normal takeoff speed and when she lifted off,  most flight controls and engine power went to “normal’  and the aircraft weather cocked into the wind as we climbed away…It was not that turbulent as we gained altitude. Normal flight back to Lahr.

I believe it was as late as 1996 that a USAF modified B737 crashed at Dubrovnik when the crew strayed off course doing the ADF procedure into Dubrovnik. Their charts had the wrong MDA and the aircraft only had one ADF receiver, which they kept switching back and forth.( see red arrows on chart for Beacon locations at time of crash). They ended up North of the required track, too low and hit a mountain top. All perished in the accident.

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Thanks for the tip re Mayday. When I was stationed in USA I had a  close friendship  with two USAF pilots , one ended up on the C-5 and the other C130 and we kept in touch, (still are in touch and they too are retired), and I was advised about the B737-200 incident in Dubrovnik by the C130 driver as he was aware that I was on the B737 with CP.

He had pretty bare details about the accident but did say that the initial cause was attributed to poor navigation  between  two ADF beacons that took them into a mountain.. Later he advised that there was also a wrong MDA on the charts they were using. 

I watched the Mayday tonight and I wish they had defined the exact details of the instrument panel. I do know that back bearings from an ADF are not as reliable as the front bearings so I am of the opinion that they might have made it had they kept the ADF on the Beacon at the airport  rather than switching between the two beacons. We all know how critical it is  to be ON TRACK when tracking to a beacon and based on the topography I would be happier to be SW of the track rather than  NE. I was not aware that they had INS ......never have seen that in a 737. Was not aware of VIPs on board. The "Brass Hats" certainly took a hit after the investigation.

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