Luxair Flight 9642 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Berlin Tempelhof Airport, Germany, to Luxembourg Findel Airport, Luxembourg, operated by Luxembourg's national airline Luxair. On 6 November 2002, the Fokker 50 operating the flight lost control and crashed onto a field during an attempted landing at the airport. Out of 22 passengers and crew members on board, only two people survived. The crash is the deadliest aviation disaster to occur in Luxembourg and the only fatal accident in Luxair's history.

Luxembourg's Administration for Technical Investigations (AET) concluded that the crash was caused by pilot error. The crew accepted the approach clearance given by ATC even though they were not fully prepared for landing. The crew then improvised in order to override a safety feature preventing the propellers from entering the reverse pitch in flight, leading to a loss of control.

The result of the investigation highlighted the possible safety risk regarding the protection system against an accidental deployment of reverse pitch in turboprops during mid-flight, prompting Fokker to issue a mandatory modification on the safety feature.

Accident

Flight 9642 was a regularly scheduled international passenger flight from Berlin-Tempelhof Airport to Luxembourg Findel Airport. On 6 November, the aircraft was piloted by Captain Claude Poeckes and his co-pilot First Officer John Arendt. It took off from Berlin at around 07:40 local time with 19 passengers and 3 crew members on board.

Immediate aftermath

Flight 9642 suddenly ceased all contact with Findel Airport. Its blip had disappeared from the radar screen, prompting the controller to call the crew multiple times to confirm their condition. As there was no response, the airport emergency services were alerted to a possible crash. A telephone call from a witness eventually confirmed that the aircraft had crashed near the airport. Meanwhile, at the crash site, taxi driver Guillaume Wainachter was the first to arrive. He attempted to save the passengers in the fuselage as survivors could be heard screaming loudly inside the wreckage. While trying to save the survivors, he heard a noise from the aircraft, and it immediately went up in flames in a matter of seconds.

It was immediately found that the aircraft had crashed in a field to the north of runway centreline.

Due to the crash, Findel Airport was closed for more than three hours. Several flights had to be diverted to Germany and Belgium.

Victims

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!rowspan=2|Nationality|| colspan="2" |Passengers||colspan=2|Crew||colspan=2|Total

|-style="background:#ccccff;"

!Total||Killed||Total||Killed||Total||Killed

|-valign=top

|France||2||1||0||0||2||1

|-valign=top

|Germany||15||15||0||0||15||15

|-valign=top

|Luxembourg||2||2||3||2||5||4

|-valign=top

!Total||19||18||3||2||22||20

|}

thumb|100px|Seating chart of the aircraft

Most of the passengers were business officials from Germany. Seventeen were found dead at the crash site with five survivors, three of whom died in the hospital. By nightfall, 18 bodies out of the 20 dead were found, while the other two remained missing. The bodies were thought to be buried under the smoldering fuselage. Rescue workers were using a crane to disentangle the charred remains.

Response

Following the crash, a hospital in Belgium was put on alert. A total of 300 police officers were dispatched to the crash site. Government of Luxembourg requested additional help from the Belgian government, which deployed three helicopters to the crash site and a military hospital was put on standby.

Relatives of the victims were ushered to a special morgue to see the victims. Psychological counseling would be provided by the state for affected family members. State flags were ordered to be lowered at half-mast across the country until 10 November. A ceremonial service was held on 7 November, followed by another service which was held on 10 November on the capital's Notre-Dame cathedral.

Investigation

Officials noted that the flight's destination airport was covered by autumnal fog. Nearby residents of Niederanven stated that the fog at the time of the accident was very thick, so much that nearby residents could not realize that a crash had just occurred, even though Niederanven was in close proximity to the crash site.

Lack of preparation

At 07:53 local time, the crew of the flight established their first contact with the approach controller. While approaching the airport, the crew sought information about the visibility at the airport, to which the controller replied with the available data on the RVR. The crew were worried with the discovery as it was under the minimum amount for Fokker F50 and decided to wait within the holding pattern until the weather began to improve. This crucial information regarding the minimum visibility was not relayed to the controller and caused the controller to consider the crew of being capable to conduct an approach regardless of the RVR value. Meanwhile, the crew thought that it was going to be awhile before they managed to get a landing clearance and therefore no landing preparation was conducted. In January 2014, the families of four of the victims received 21,000 to 130,000 euros in compensation. In February the same year, the attorneys of the convicted appealed the court's verdict. In May 2015, a court paid 310,000 euros in compensation to the families of three German victims.

The accident is featured in season 25, episode 4 of the Canadian documentary series Mayday, titled "Second Thoughts".

See also

  • Air Caraïbes Flight 1501, a similar crash in Guadeloupe in which the pilots accidentally changed the aircraft's propeller switch into reverse pitch while still in mid-air
  • Airlines PNG Flight 1600, a similar crash in Papua New Guinea involving a Dash 8 in which the pilots accidentally changed the aircraft's propeller switch into reverse pitch while still in mid-air
  • Kish Air Flight 7170, a similar crash in United Arab Emirates in which the pilots accidentally changed the aircraft's propeller switch into reverse pitch while still in mid-air
  • Merpati Nusantara Airlines Flight 6517, a similar crash in Indonesia involving a Xian MA60 in which the pilots accidentally changed the aircraft's propeller switch into reverse pitch while still in mid-air
  • List of accidents and incidents involving commercial aircraft

References

Further reading

  • "Jugement dans l'affaire dite Luxair" [Judgment in the so-called Luxair case] (Archive). Government of Luxembourg. 27 March 2012.
  • Administration for Technical Investigations
  • Final Report (Archive) – Translation of French report
  • Final Report." (Archive) – Original report
  • Preliminary Report (Archive, Alternate) – Translation of French Report
  • Preliminary Report (Archive, Alternate) – Original report
  • "AIRCRAFT ACCIDENT LG9642/LH2420" (Archive). Luxair.
  • Government of Luxembourg
  • Accident aérien au Luxembourg (6 novembre 2002) (Archive)
  • Communiqué Déroulement de l'accident d'un avion Luxair." (Archive) – 6 Nov 2002
  • Communiqué du parquet du Luxembourg (2003) (Archive)
  • Cockpit Voice Recorder transcript and accident summary
  • Pictures of the crash