Windhoek - A new Namibian government report released this week reinforces initial findings that the pilot of LAM Mozambique Airlines Flight 470 deliberately crashed the aircraft in northern Namibia on November 29, 2013, killing himself, five other crew and 27 passengers.
The interim report released by the Namibian Directorate of Aircraft Accident Investigations (DAAI) supports the earlier evidence indicating that Captain Herminio dos Santos, 49, had locked his co-pilot out of the cockpit and over-rode the autopilot to crash the aircraft.
Dos Santos was alone in the cockpit of the Embraer ERJ-190 when it went down in the Bwabwata National Park, the report said. The cockpit voice recorder recovered from the wreckage picked up the sound of banging on the cockpit door minutes before the aircraft crashed, indicating that the first officer was demanding to be let back in.
The report also reinforces earlier findings by the DAAI that Dos Santos deliberately tampered with the autopilot settings of the plane with the clear intention of crashing it.
The interim report on progress in the investigation of the crash supports a preliminary report released by DAAI on December 18, 2013.
A timeline in the interim report reveals that the aircraft had performed a normal take-off in Maputo and a normal climb and cruise with no mechanical faults detected. But one hour and 39 minutes into the flight, things started going wrong.
Minutes before the plane went down, the 24-year-old first officer left the cockpit, leaving Dos Santos alone on the flight deck.
The report states that the altitude of the plane was then “manually selected” three times from 38 000 feet above ground level to 592 feet below ground level, that the throttle was “manually engaged” and the throttle level “automatically retarded” and set to idle.
The airspeed was manually selected several times, up to close to the maximum operating limit speed and the speed brake handle parameter was “commanded” to open the spoiler panels.
The pilot appeared to have chosen this combination of control settings to crash the plane.
“During all these actions, there were audible low and high chimes as well as repeated banging (on the cockpit door), an indication for a call to enter the cockpit,” the DAAI report said.
There were no distress calls made by the crew, nor was there any signal transmitted from the emergency locator transmitter after the crash.
The aircraft was equipped with two black boxes, each with a cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder. Though the serial numbers were not evident due to the heat and structural damage caused by the crash, the recordings could be downloaded.
The flight data and cockpit recordings were sent to the US National Transport Safety Board laboratories in Washington DC for analysis.
Flight simulator investigations were conducted at the Azul Flight Training Centre in Brazil in co-ordination with Cenipa, the accredited representative, and Embraer (the manufacturer), as well as accredited Mozambican representatives and advisors.
The last 12 minutes of the flight were replicated on the simulator.
As the investigation into the crash is ongoing, the DAAI cautioned that new information might alter final findings.
The DAAI co-investigator-in-charge, Hafeni Mweshixwa, said the investigation was continuing into wider areas which might not have caused or contributed to the crash, but could nevertheless be worth investigating.
- Foreign Service