L1011 Hewa Bora Airways 9Q-CHA BRU July 2002

2011-06-28 12-54-36 South Africa - Bonaero Park 9Q-COZ

Hewa Bora Airways Sarl (operating as Hewa Bora Airways) was the

national airline A flag carrier is a transport company, such as an airline or shipping company, that, being locally registered in a given sovereign state, enjoys preferential rights or privileges accorded by the government for international operations. Hist ...

of the

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

based in

Barumbu Barumbu is a municipality (''commune'') in the Lukunga district of Kinshasa, the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is situated in the north of Kinshasa, south of Gombe and the Boulevard du 30 Juin. Barumbu is historically ...

, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. It was one of Congo's largest airlines and operated regional and domestic services. Its main base was

N'djili Airport N'djili Airport (french: Aéroport de N'djili ), also known as N'Djili International Airport and Kinshasa International Airport, serves the city of Kinshasa and is the largest of the four international airports in the Democratic Republic of th ...

. "''Hewa bora''" is Swahili for "fresh air". The company slogan was ''N°1 in Democratic Republic of the Congo.'' Hewa Bora Airways had 1,100 employees in March 2007. Operations were suspended after the 2011 crash of Hewa Bora Airways Flight 952, and the airline is now defunct. The remains of the business were taken over by a new airline, FlyCongo, which in turn merged with the

Compagnie Africaine d'Aviation Compagnie Africaine d'Aviation (CAA; African Aviation Company), renamed FlyCAA in 2013, is a regional airline from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, based at N'djili Airport in Kinshasa. It offers an extensive network of domestic scheduled pa ...

only six months after it was started up

History

The airline was established and started operations in 1998 with the joining together of Zaire Airlines, Zaire Express, and

Congo Airlines Congo Airlines was an airline based in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In 1998, it merged with Zaire Airlines and Zaire Express to form Hewa Bora Airways. Code data * IATA code: EO * ICAO code: ALX * Callsign: ALLCONGO See also * Tra ...

. On 1 November 2007, HBA (51%) and Brussels Airlines subsidiary

Pan African Airlines Pan African Airlines is an airline based in Nigeria and owned by the Bristow Group. They mainly provide helicopter and fixed-wing services to the oil industry. History Pan African Airlines was founded in Nigeria in 1961. The Nigerian governmen ...

(49%) announced a new domestic partnership to be called AirDC, to operate

BAe 146 The British Aerospace 146 (also BAe 146) is a short-haul and regional airliner that was manufactured in the United Kingdom by British Aerospace, later part of BAE Systems. Production ran from 1983 until 2001. Manufacture by Avro Internation ...

-200 and

Boeing 737 The Boeing 737 is a narrow-body aircraft produced by Boeing at its Boeing Renton Factory, Renton Factory in Washington (state), Washington. Developed to supplement the Boeing 727 on short and thin routes, the twinjet retains the Boeing 707, 7 ...

aircraft, principally to

Lubumbashi Lubumbashi (former names: ( French), (Dutch)) is the second-largest city in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, located in the country's southeasternmost part, along the border with Zambia. The capital and principal city of the Haut-Katang ...

Mbuji-Mayi Mbuji-Mayi or Mbujimayi (formerly Bakwanga) is a city and the capital of Kasai-Oriental Province in the south-central Democratic Republic of Congo. It is the second largest city in the country, following the capital Kinshasa but ahead of Lubumba ...

, Brazzaville, and

Douala Douala is the largest city in Cameroon and its economic capital. It is also the capital of Cameroon's Littoral Region. Home to Central Africa's largest port and its major international airport, Douala International Airport (DLA), it is the com ...

. This project was cancelled because of disagreements between Brussels Airlines and Hewa Bora. On 15 December 2009, Brussels Airlines announced they are working on a new airline in the Congo. The airline's name was Korongo; it was launched without Hewa Bora and started operations during 2012, suspending all operations during 2015. On the 24 June 2009, the new website of Hewa Bora Airways went online, after not having been updated since 2005. On 16 July 2011, the airline's

Air Operator's Certificate An air operator's certificate (AOC) is the approval granted by a civil aviation authority (CAA) to an aircraft operator to allow it to use aircraft for commercial purposes. This requires the operator to have personnel, assets, and system in plac ...

was suspended, following the accident that befell Flight 952 on 8 July 2011.

Blacklist

The entire Hewa Bora Airways fleet was blacklisted in European airspace. The

Lockheed L-1011-500 The Lockheed L-1011 TriStar, also known as the L-1011 (pronounced "El-ten-eleven") and TriStar, is an American medium-to-long-range, wide-body trijet airliner built by the Lockheed Corporation. It was the third wide-body airliner to enter comme ...

and the

Boeing 767-200ER The Boeing 767 is an American wide-body aircraft developed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. The aircraft was launched as the 7X7 program on July 14, 1978, the prototype first flew on September 26, 1981, and it was certified o ...

were the last planes accepted in Europe before new noise regulations and storage of the 767 definitively banned the airline. Hewa Bora Airways was the last airline allowed to operate from the Democratic Republic of the Congo into Europe.

FlyCongo

In March 2012, FlyCongo launched operations with the remains of Hewa Bora. It uses the airline's previous Boeing 767 and

McDonnell Douglas MD-82 The McDonnell Douglas MD-80 is a series of five-abreast single-aisle airliners developed by McDonnell Douglas. It was produced by the developer company until August 1997 and then by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. The MD-80 was the second gene ...

aircraft. It also announced it would be destroying six aircraft left behind by Hewa Bora to reduce safety concerns.

Destinations

Codeshare agreements

After a dispute with Brussels Airlines, Hewa Bora Airways decided to rescind the codeshare agreement between the two airlines and start their own flights to

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

. However, as Hewa Bora was banned from the European Union, they had to wet-lease a

RAK Airways RAK Airways was an airline based in Ras Al Khaimah, one of the seven states in the United Arab Emirates.Boeing 757-200 to operate the flights. For a short time, the airline flew twice weekly Kinshasa-Brussels-Paris-Brussels-Kinshasa. Such flights were discontinued due to the EU's total ban of Hewa Bora operations. It then became impossible for Hewa Bora to fly to the EU.

Fleet

Hewa Bora Airways Boeing 767-200ER S9-TOP BRU 2009-10-25

The Hewa Bora Airways fleet included the following aircraft when it suspended operations:

Retired fleet

Hewa Bora 9Q-CHK at Kinshasa International Airport

Hewa Bora Airways also operated these aircraft prior to ceasing operations:

Incidents and accidents

*On 15 April 2008, Hewa Bora Airways Flight 122 crashed into a residential and market area of

Goma Goma is the capital of North Kivu province in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is located on the northern shore of Lake Kivu, next to the Rwandan city of Gisenyi. The lake and the two cities are in the Albertine Rift, the ...

of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Forty people were killed, among them three passengers; 111 people were injured, including 40 passengers. *On 21 June 2010, Hewa Bora Airways Flight 601, operating a

9Q-COQ, burst a tyre on take-off from

. Hydraulic systems and the port engine were damaged and the nose gear failed to lower when the aircraft returned to N'djili. All 110 people on board escaped uninjured. The airline blamed the state of the runway for the accident, but investigators found no fault with the runway. *On 8 July 2011, Hewa Bora Airways Flight 952, a Boeing 727-100, crashed on landing at Kisangani Airport; 74 people were killed, whilst others survived the accident with severe burns.

References

External links

Hewa Bora Airways

Hewa Bora Airways

Hewa Bora Airways Fleet

Hewa Bora Airways
at the

Aviation Safety Network The Flight Safety Foundation (FSF) is an independent, nonprofit, international organization concerning research, education, advocacy, and communications in the field of aviation safety. FSF brings together aviation professionals from all sectors ...

Database {{Airlines of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Defunct airlines of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Airlines established in 1994 Airlines disestablished in 2011 1994 establishments in Zaire