Crossair Flight 498

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Crossair Flight LX498

HB-AKK, pictured a year before the aircraft crashed in Niederhasli, Switzerland.
Summary
Date	10 January 2000
Type	Pilot error
Site	Niederhasli, Switzerland
Fatalities	10
Injuries	0
Aircraft
Aircraft type	Saab 340
Operator	Crossair
Tail number	HB-AKK
Passengers	7
Crew	3
Survivors	0

Crossair Flight LX498 (known subsequently as Crossair Flight CRX498 by officials) was a commuter flight from Zurich, Switzerland to Dresden, Germany that crashed two minutes after takeoff on 10 January 2000. The seven passengers and three crewmembers aboard the two-engine turboprop aircraft all died on impact in the Swiss municipality of Niederhasli. Although this was the first plane crash for the Swiss regional airline Crossair in its 25-year history, this particular crash is notable in that an alternate theory of the crash was based on the use of passenger cellular mobile phones, which resulted in a number of countries outlawing use of cell phones on flights.

Contents 1 Background 1.1 The environment 1.2 The event 1.3 Those involved 2 Official explanation 2.1 Background 2.2 Causes 3 Alternative Theory 4 Trivia 5 References 6 See also 7 External links

[edit] Background

[edit] The environment

The 33-seat Saab-340B airplane used for Crossair Flight LX498 had been on loan to Crossair from Air Moldova since Oct. 1, 1999.^[1] The plane was scheduled to depart from Zurich Airport (Switzerland) on Monday, January 10, 2000 at around 6:00 p.m. and arrive in Dresden Airport (Germany] hours later.^[2][3][4] The cold, drizzly weather was normal for the area,^[5] there were no indications that anything was wrong with the aircraft, and, although this particular aircraft had 24,000 flying hours since its November 1990 delivery,^[5] the Saab-340 airplane type had a very good safety record.^[2] The pilot had 8,100 hours of flying time, with 1,900 in the Saab 340 type and the co-pilot had about 1,800 total hours and 1,100 hours in the Saab 340 type.^[1][3] The plane was carrying no special loads such as freight or mail and the plane was due for its next regular maintenance check in twenty-one days, on Jan. 31, 2000.^[1]

[edit] The event

After the seven passengers and three crewmembers boarded, the plane was cleared for takeoff on time at 5.55 p.m. (1655 GMT).^[2] The aircraft departed Runway 28 heading west.^[3] From takeoff, the plane climbed normally.^[1] But after 7.2 kilometers (4.5 miles) the plane suddenly started to lose altitude and turn to the right instead of following the approved flight path to the left.^[1] When air traffic controllers asked the pilot if he meant to turn right, they were answered with "Stand by," followed by a loss of radio contact.^[1]

At 6.05 p.m. (1705 GMT), one minute 56 seconds into the flight,^[1] the plane disappeared from radar screens.^[2] Witnesses reported a strange noise before the explosion and said they saw the twin-engine turboprop plane turn into a midair fireball and plummet into a field minutes after leaving Zurich's main airport.^[6][2] Officials later determined that the plane went into a diving right turn before vanishing from radar screens.^[1] Burning wreckage was scattered for 200-300 meters close to houses at Niederhasli, some 5km north-west of the runway at Zurich's Kloten airport.^[2] Both the flight data and voice recorders were recovered from the accident scene, but both were heavily damaged.^[3]

[edit] Those involved

Four of the passengers were Germans – Steffen Braun, 36, Klaus Friedrich, 48, Matthias Morche, 22, and Peter Schmidt, 31.^[1] The others were a 43-year-old Frenchman, Pascal Rol, a Swiss, Heinz Hoefler, 61, and a Spaniard who traveled to Zurich on a Swissair flight from Madrid.^[1] The three person crew included Moldovan pilot Pavel Gruzin, Slovakian copilot Rastislav Kolesar and a French flight attendant, Severine Jabrin.^[1] There were no survivors.^[2]

At that time, Crossair was a majority owned subsidiary of SAirGroup.^[6] The crash of Crossair Flight LX498 was the first time in Crossair's 25-year history that the regional airline had lost an aircraft.^[2] However, it was the worst accident to hit the SAirGroup since a Swissair MD11 flying from New York to Geneva crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off Canada in September 1998, killing all 229 people aboard.^[2]

At the time, Crossair operated seventeen Saab-340 type planes, but eventually phased them out with Embraer ERJ-145.^[6] The crash came about in the midst of a bitter labor-management dispute between Crossair and its pilots over a possible pay raise and work rules changes.^[3] The pilots union had just canceled pay agreements with Crossair in December, 1999, with a termination effective in summer 2000. In addition, Crossair pilots told Swiss media that some foreign pilots employed by Crossair pose a safety risk because of an insufficient knowledge of English.^[3] Flight LX498's crew consisted of a captain from Moldova and a copilot from Slovakia.^[1] An investigation of the accident later revealed that Pilot Gruzin and Co-Pilot Kolesar were only able to communicate with each other in English, but Gruzin's ability to speak English was too limited to hold more than a basic conversation.^[7]

The two pilots who had talked to the media were fired by Crossair, but they then were elected to head the pilots union, "Crossair Cockpit Personnel (CCP)".^[3] Both Crossair and CCP said after the crash that the coincidence between the accident and the dispute was very unfortunate and that reports about pilot error being involved in the crash were speculation.^[3]

[edit] Official explanation

[edit] Background

The Saab-340 is widely used in the United States and elsewhere as a commuter plane.^[2] Prior to the hull loss of Crossair Flight LX498, there had been only four crashes worldwide of the 400 Saab-340 plane types since 1984 and only two of those were hull losses.^[2][5][6] The two hull losses were a 1994 KLM crash that killed three in the Netherlands and a 1998 Air Formosa crash that killed 13 in Taiwan.^[1] In both cases the planes crashed shortly after takeoff.^[1]

An examination of Pilot Pavel Gruzin's body revealed traces of the tranquilizer Phenazepam in his muscle tissue.^[7] Examiners also found an open packet of the Russian-made drug in a baggage belonging to Gruzin.^[7]

[edit] Causes

According to the Investigation Report of the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau,[1] the accident was attributable to the flight crew losing control of the aircraft for the following reasons:^[8]

• The flight crew reacted inappropriately when departure clearance was orderd by ATC.
• The co-pilot made an entry without being instructed to do so by the commander, which related to the change to the SID ZUE 1 standard instrument departure. In doing so, he omitted to select a turn direction.
• The commander dispensed with use of the autopilot under instrument flight conditions and during the work-intensive climb phase of the flight.
• The commander took the aircraft into a spiral dive to the right because, with a probability bordering on certainty, he had lost spatial orientation.
• The first officer took only inadequate measures to prevent or recover from the spiral dive.

According to this same Investigation Report, the following factors may have contributed to the accident:^[8]

• The commander remained unilaterally firm in perceptions which suggested a left turn direction to him.
• When interpreting the attitude display instruments under stress, the commander resorted to a reaction pattern (heuristics) which he had learned earlier.
• The commander’s capacity for analysis and critical assessment of the situation were possibly limited as a result of the effects of medication.
• After the change to standard instrument departure SID ZUE 1Y the crew set inappropriate priorities for their tasks and their concentration remained one-sided.
• The commander was not systematically acquainted by Crossair with the specific features of western systems and cockpit procedures.

[edit] Alternative Theory

The official crash report does not mention cell phone activity as a primary cause of the crash, and instead attributes it to pilot error.^[9] However, a separate investigation into the cause of the crash showed that the autopilot system malfunctioned at the same time that a passenger's cell phone on board the plane received an SMS message and another received a call. After this information was made public, a number of countries that had previously been reluctant to do so outlawed cell phones on flights (including Switzerland).^[10][11][12] Some passengers on any given flight are likely to forget to turn off their mobile devices^[13], therefore it is unlikely this explanation is a likely cause.

[edit] Trivia

• The flight is widely known as 'LX498' as this was the coding given to this particular flight on the day. 'LX' is the older IATA (International Air Transport Association) coding for the airline, whereas 'CRX' is the newer ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) coding, which is replacing the IATA coding and which is used in all the official reports of the incident. Specialists researching into the official reports may find the flight identified as CRX498.

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Mobile phones on aircraft
• Crossair Flight 3597

[edit] External links

• Accident details
• Investigation Report of the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau on the accident to the Saab 340B aircraft, registration HB-AKK of Crossair Flight CRX498 on 10 January 2000 near Nassenwil/ZH
• Mythbusters Cell Phones on Planes
• Photos of the crash site
• Photo of HB-AKK