Questions raised after fatal flydubai flight kills 62

Saturday, Mar 19, 2016

Dubai: Flydubai flight 981 fatally crashed in Russia on Saturday killing all 62 passengers and crew on board. So far, few questions have been answered into what caused the disaster, including whether poor weather conditions played a role.

Just hours after reports of the fatal flight started emerging, Flydubai’s chief executive asked the public and media to avoid speculating on the reasons behind tragedy.

“What was the weather exactly? How did that affect this unfortunate accident? It’s too early to tell. We cannot speculate,” Gaith Al Gaith said at a press conference on Saturday.

The flight, operated by a five-year-old Boeing 737-800, crashed and exploded while trying to land at an airport in Rostov-on-Don in southwestern Russia in the early hours of Saturday morning. The aircraft had been serviced just two months earlier on January 21 at Joramco’s facilities in Jordan.

Reports quoting Russian officials said bad weather conditions were a contributing factor into the disaster. “The cause of the air crash was the strongly gusting wind, approaching a hurricane level,” the Governor of the Rostov region, Vasily Golubev, was quoted as saying.

But flydubai’s chief executive Gaith Al Gaith moved to downplay the comments, telling reporters it was too early to speculate on the cause of the disaster.

Flight 981 was initially reported to have crashed when attempting to land for a second time and after circling the airport for two hours. FlightRadar24 have said the plane crashed when pulling out of a failed attempt to land at the airport. Flydubai has not disputed the fact the aircraft circled for two hours prior to the crash.

Questions have been raised as to why the pilots chose to circle the airport for such a lengthy period of time and not divert to neighbouring airports. A number of flights are reported to have diverted airports after several attempts to land in Rostov-on-Don.

“We have not seen anything [that] would suggest an alternative [airport] was on the cards,” Al Gaith said.

However, Al Gaith appeared to downplay suggestions of pilot error, telling reporters “you cannot land without authority by ATC (air traffic control).”

“As far as we know the airport was open and we were good to operate,” he said.

Al Gaith did not comment on the airline’s policy of landing in poor weather conditions.

The two pilots on board the flight were from Cyprus and Spain and had a combined flying time of 11,734 hours. Al Gaith said the two were very experienced. Cypriot media said it was the Cypriot pilot’s first time landing at the airport.

There were 55 passengers and 7 crew members on board the fatal flight. Of the passengers 33 were women, 18 were men and four were children. They were 44 Russians, 8 Ukrainians, 2 Indians and 1 Uzbekistani. The crew members, including pilots, were 2 women and five men. Two were from Spain and 1 each from Cyprus, Kyrgyzstan, Seychelles, Russia and Colombia.

Flydubai, a relatively young airline, started operations in 2009 and operates a fleet of 50 Boeing 737-800’s to around 90 destinations. It has been involved in few notable incidents. In 2015, one of its aircraft was struck by a bullet when landing at Baghdad International Airport. Saturday’s incident in Russia is believed to be the worst aircraft disaster involving an airline from the UAE.

Al Gaith was unable to confirm reports the aircraft’s two black boxes had been recovered. Meanwhile, the UAE’s General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) had not received anything from the Russian authorities as of 2:30pm Saturday local Dubai time, according to its assistant director general for air accident investigation Esmail Al Hosani.

But Al Hosani did say he was confident the black boxes would be found.

Investigation

Russian authorities immediately opened a criminal investigation into the incident for “violation of air safety rules,” which is common practice in many country’s when such an incident occurs.

It is “too early to comment” on the Russian investigation and flydubai has not been notified about any criminal investigation, Al Gaith said. The GCAA says it is keeping an open mind. Nothing has been ruled out, Al Hosani told reporters after the press conference.

A four person GCAA team will be sent to Russia to assist authorities in the investigation. The team is flying to Moscow and will travel onwards to Rostov-on-Don, Al Hosani said. Flydubai is sending an emergency response team directly to the site.

Boeing will also be assisting in the investigation as will the US’ National Transport Safety Board (NTSB), Al Hosani said.

“Boeing stands ready to provide technical assistance upon the request of government agencies conducting the investigation,” the plane maker said in statement on its website.

Flydubai follows the “highest standard and security when it comes to the safety of our flights,” Al Gaith said.

A video emerged shortly after the incident claiming to be close circuit (CCTV) footage of the plane crash. The video shows what appears to be fire rapidly descending before hitting the ground and exploding. Al Gaith said the airline does not know whether the video is authentic.

Asked about compensation for passengers the airline chief said the airline is “fully insured”.

“What is important for us right now is we are doing everything we can to look after the people that are involved,” Al Gaith said.

By Alexander Cornwell Staff Reporter