Update
What: Spanair Flight JK5022, a 15-year-old MD-82 jet en route to Las Palmas in the Canary Islands.
Where: Madrid airport Terminal Four
When: Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2008 2:45pm
Who: Carrying 166 passengers and nine crew, at the time of this writing, the number of fatalities had mounted to 154 people.
Why: The jet swerved off the runway and caught fire during takeoff.
The final report of Spanair Flight JK5022 was released, it claims that the pilots failed to deploy the flaps for takeoff. The report blames the crash on “pilot error.” The automated voice warning to alert the crew did not sound.
Already more than one hour late, the flight experienced a technical issue with the plane (a sensor reporting excessive temperature in an air intake, and the temperature sensor was de-activated on the ground) that forced the first takeoff attempt to be aborted when there were failure signals taxiing away from the terminal. The aircraft was inspected and then tried to take-off for the second time, which ended in the crash.
The National Transportation Safety Board said that “that the probable cause of the accident was the flightcrew’s failure to use the taxi checklist to ensure the flaps and slats were extended for takeoff. Contributing to the accident was the absence of electrical power to the airplane takeoff warning system which thus did not warn the flightcrew that the airplane was not configured properly for takeoff. The reason for the absence of electrical power could not be determined.”
A similar disaster occurred in the Northwest Flight 255 in Detroit in 1987 when 154 people also died in an MD-82 due to incorrect flap settings.
As a consequence, Spanair and McDonnell Douglas now require a TOWS* system check prior to every flight.
The Interim Report is available here.
Final report (Spanish).PDF
*The Take Off Warning System is part of CAWS. TOWS provides alert warnings on the following components involved in the configuration of the aircraft for takeoff: Flaps, Slats, Brakes, Auto brake, Auto spoilers, Spoilers and Stabilizer Trim.
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