On 6 July 2010, the Dutch Safety Board, chaired by Professor Pieter van Vollenhoven, has presented its final conclusions of the investigation into the emergency assistance after the accident of Turkish Airlines’ Boeing which took place on 25 February 2009. This accident took the lives of five passengers and four crew members, 117 passengers and three crew members sustained injuries. The Boards’ report on the cause of the crash was published on 6 May 2010.
Mavi Boncuk |
The Dutch Safety Board released its final report regarding their investigation into the fatal accident involving a Turkish Airlines Boeing 737-800 near Amsterdam-Schiphol Airport.
The Dutch Safety Board has reached the following main conclusion:
During the accident flight, while executing the approach by means of the instrument landing system with the right autopilot engaged, the left radio altimeter system showed an incorrect height of -8 feet on the left primary flight display. This incorrect value of -8 feet resulted in activation of the ‘retard flare’ mode of the autothrottle, whereby the thrust of both engines was reduced to a minimal value (approach idle) in preparation for the last phase of the landing. Due to the approach heading and altitude provided to the crew by air traffic control, the localizer signal was intercepted at 5.5 NM from the runway threshold with the result that the glide slope had to be intercepted from above. This obscured the fact that the autothrottle had entered the retard flare mode. In addition, it increased the crew’s workload. When the aircraft passed 1000 feet height, the approach was not stabilised so the crew should have initiated a go around. The right autopilot (using data from the right radio altimeter) followed the glide slope signal. As the airspeed continued to drop, the aircraft’s pitch attitude kept increasing. The crew failed to recognise the airspeed decay and the pitch increase until the moment the stick shaker was activated. Subsequently the approach to stall recovery procedure was not executed properly, causing the aircraft to stall and crash.