Hapag-Lloyd Flight 3378 (HF-3378) was a passenger service operated by Hapag-Lloyd Flug from Chania, on the island of Crete, Greece, to Hannover, Germany. On 12 July 2000, the aircraft flying the route, an Airbus A310-304, had 143 passengers and 8 crew on board, set off for Hannover leaving the landing gear fully extended, as a precaution, since a malfunction had prevented its proper retraction after take-off. The plane eventually ran out of fuel while attempting a diversion to Vienna, crash-landing just short of runway 34. No fatalities resulted, although the aircraft was written off.

Aircraft

The aircraft involved was an Airbus A310-304 with the registration D-AHLB. It was equipped with two General Electric CF6-80C2A2 engines and was 10 years old, having its maiden flight on 25 October 1989. It was delivered new to Hapag-Lloyd Flug on 10 January 1990, and had logged 41307 flight hours and 13789 cycles before the accident.

Accident

Captain Wolfgang Arminger (56) was the pilot in command; and First Officer Thorsten Rökrath (25) was the pilot monitoring. The flight departed at 11:59 local time (Eastern European Summer Time, EEST), 8:59UTC, shortly after which it was found to be impossible to fully retract the landing gear, as indicated by both the red "gear unsafe" lamp and the yellow "gear door open" lamp. After a total of four retraction attempts, the gear was left in the fully extended condition where all lights indicated a valid condition with the doors trimmed for cruise airspeed. The flight continued towards Germany, as fuel would anyway need to be burned (or dumped) before landing because of the maximum landing-weight limit. The crew had to cope with a heavier cockpit workload that was aggravated by the unavailability of the airline HF radio station for technical consultation, forcing the first officer to spend almost an hour establishing alternative communications with the airline through ACARS and Stockholm Radio. Using the Flight Management System (FMS), the crew estimated the aircraft's fuel consumption, and the captain in consultation with dispatch decided to shorten the flight and divert to Munich Airport, where another A310 would be ready to take the passengers to their final destination. However, the captain ignored the fact that the FMS was not designed to take into account the extra drag produced by the extended landing gear. In fact, Munich was not within range, as eventually became clear from the unexpectedly rapid fall in fuel reserves. At about 12:00 Central European Summer Time (CEST), 10:00UTC, this led the captain to decide to divert to Vienna-Schwechat Airport.

At 11:57CEST, the first officer noted and reported to the captain that they had already consumed half of their initial fuel load, although they had progressed to only their last waypoint still inside Greece, YNN, about a third of the total distance to Vienna. At 12:34CEST, the FMS prediction for fuel remaining upon arrival at Vienna fell to . Under such conditions, the airline rules require immediate diversion to the nearest suitable airport, which would have been Zagreb, ten minutes away. The investigation report states "there was no evidence of immediate crew response to this situation." While contact with Zagreb ATC was made nine minutes later, the crew pressed on towards Vienna, requesting the most direct access to a runway. At 12:53, the crew notified Vienna ATC that if direct runway access were not available, they would prefer to divert to closer Graz. This prompted Vienna ATC to inquire and finally learn that the flight was short of fuel, but the pilots declared no emergency, still anticipating a normal landing. When the fuel gauges fell through 1.9 t remaining, the first officer twice urged the captain to declare an emergency, but the captain postponed such action. At 13:01, the "LT-Fuel low level" warning indicated remaining fuel of 1340 kg, which automatically generates an ACARS message. At this time, the aircraft was northeast of Zagreb, south-east from Graz, and from the destination Vienna. At 13:07, the crew finally declared an emergency due to lack of fuel, while still stating that they expected to reach Vienna.

Investigation

The final report on the investigation of the accident was published (only in German) on 21 March 2006 by the Air Accident Investigation Board (Flugunfalluntersuchungsstelle) of the Austrian Federal Office for Transport (Bundesanstalt für Verkehr, BAV). The conviction was criticized by German court reporter Gisela Friedrichsen who thought the two court sessions of the main trial were not enough to present and evaluate all evidence.

A report published in 2012 by the American Bar Association argues that airline safety is undermined by such prosecutions because its threat would impede the investigative processes.

See also

  • List of airline flights that required gliding

References

  • "Holiday flight crash lands." BBC. Wednesday 12 July 2000.
  • Hapag-Lloyd Flight 3378 Official Final Report (German) (Archive)
  • Kaminski-Morrow, David. "Airbus says flight management system not to blame in Hapag crash." Flight International. 10 August 2007. – This source summarizes portions of the final report