SATA Air Açores Flight 530M
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SATA Air Açores Flight 530M was a Portuguese regional commuter flight operated by
SATA Air Açores SATA Air Açores is a Portuguese airline based in São Sebastião, Ponta Delgada in the Azores, Portugal. It operates scheduled passenger, cargo and mail services around the Azores. It provides its own maintenance and handling services and mana ...
that connected Ponta Delgada-João Paulo II Airport and
Flores Airport Flores Airport () is a regional airport on the island of Flores in the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores. It is located along the eastern coast, bisecting the regional capital of Santa Cruz das Flores into two-halves: from the Porto of Sã ...
, with an intermediary stop at
Horta Horta may refer to: People * Horta (surname), a list of people Places * Horta, Africa, an ancient city and former bishopric in Africa Proconsularis, now in Tunisia and a Latin Catholic titular see * Horta, Azores, Portugal, a municipality a ...
, on 11 December 1999. At 10:20 a.m., the
British Aerospace British Aerospace plc (BAe) was a British aircraft manufacturer, aircraft, munitions and defence-systems manufacturer that was formed in 1977. Its head office was at Warwick House in the Farnborough Aerospace Centre in Farnborough, Hampshire. ...
BAe ATP The British Aerospace ATP (Advanced Turbo-Prop) is an airliner designed and produced by British Aerospace. It was an evolution of the Hawker Siddeley HS 748, a fairly successful feederliner of the 1960s. The ATP was developed during the 1980s ...
, named ''Graciosa'', while en route to Horta, collided with Pico da Esperança, on the central mountains of the island of São Jorge, resulting in the deaths of all 35 people on board. It is the deadliest aviation accident involving the
British Aerospace ATP The British Aerospace ATP (Advanced Turbo-Prop) is an airliner designed and produced by British Aerospace. It was an evolution of the Hawker Siddeley HS 748, a fairly successful feederliner of the 1960s. The ATP was developed during the 1980s ...
.


Flight

On 11 December 1999, the
British Aerospace ATP The British Aerospace ATP (Advanced Turbo-Prop) is an airliner designed and produced by British Aerospace. It was an evolution of the Hawker Siddeley HS 748, a fairly successful feederliner of the 1960s. The ATP was developed during the 1980s ...
(CS-TGM) with 35 people aboard began flight SP530M from Ponta Delgada (on the island of São Miguel) to
Horta Horta may refer to: People * Horta (surname), a list of people Places * Horta, Africa, an ancient city and former bishopric in Africa Proconsularis, now in Tunisia and a Latin Catholic titular see * Horta, Azores, Portugal, a municipality a ...
(on the island of Faial, as part of the first leg of the wider Ponta Delgada to Flores flight). The flight departed at 9:37 a.m. from Ponta Delgada, with a planned flight level of and cruising speed of 260 knots, with an estimated 51 minutes flight time. The flight crew consisted of captain Arnaldo Mesquita (55) and first officer António Magalhães (46). The meteorological information (submitted by the Meteorology Institute ()) forecast between the hours of midnight and 6:00 a.m. in the islands of the Azores indicated a superficial cold front, with heavy clouds, moderate southwesterly winds changing to strong northerly winds, but generally weak in the central and western groups of the Azores. Wind strength for the itinerary ranged from .


Accident

During the course, the crew decided to alter their flight plan, opting for a route that included approach descent over the channel between the islands of Pico and São Jorge, to intercept the 250 degree VOR/VFL Horta radial. Horta tower initially cleared the flight to FL100 (), but the crew then requested (and were cleared) to descend to with instructions to maintain visual contact with the island of Pico. At 10:03 a.m., the co-pilot had contacted the Santa Maria control tower to communicate that the flight was passing the LIMA-MIKE waypoint. The flight was planned for a route direct to Horta, but when the crew reported their position as LIMA-MIKE, the ATP had already drifted 14 nautical miles from its course; the crew did not indicate their awareness of the diversion. Approximately 43 nautical miles from Horta, the crew was authorized by the Horta tower to descend to and indicated their visual contact with Pico. During the descent, heavy rain and turbulence were encountered. The flight continued on its course as it descended, crossing the north coast of the island of São Jorge. But the crew had lost situational awareness and could not distinguish their barometric altitudes from the radio altimeter indicators. The crew only realized that they were overflying the island from the verbal indication by the co-pilot and the final audible sound of the GPWS. Five seconds after the first alarm by the GPWS, the co-pilot reacted by pulling back on the throttles, and eight seconds following the alarm, the motors reacted. The plane began to recover its altitude and turned to the left. Seven minutes (10:17 a.m.) after initiating the descent, the left wing of the ATP impacted the northern hillside and eastern flank of Pico da Esperança and separated from the fuselage, at approximately altitude on the island of São Jorge. The plane had continued its crash trajectory, rolling along a longitudinal path and inverting towards the sea before crashing. The GPWS alerted the crew 17 seconds before impact. No emergency call was received from the aircraft before it went down. There was no fire.


Aftermath

Rescue teams reached the wreckage more than four hours after the ATP crashed on São Jorge, where it scattered debris and victims across a dense ravine. The search was called off after dark, and only resumed on Sunday, when the investigation team was sent to the isolated crash site from the mainland. Seven bodies were recovered as rescuers using ropes and carrying stretchers, who scrambled over the steep mountainside before nightfall. Similarly, a thick mist shrouded the area, which was inaccessible to vehicles, making the search operation difficult. Although the Portuguese Air Force helicopters were on standby to winch out any survivors, the time spent meant that the searchers were only there to "collect the bodies and examine the causes of the accident", since there was "no hope of finding survivors", from the comments of Internal Affairs Minister Fernando Gomes. All SATA flights were canceled after the crash. Portuguese Prime Minister
António Guterres António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres (born 30 April 1949) is a Portuguese politician and diplomat who is serving as the ninth and current secretary-general of the United Nations since 2017. A member of the Socialist Party (Portugal), ...
, who was in Helsinki, Finland, for a European Union summit, cancelled a planned visit to Kosovo and headed straight for the Azores. SATA arranged flights to the islands for international relatives of crash victims.


Report

The final report by the commission of inquiry by the National Institute of Civil Aviation () concluded that the flight had made a slight deviation from its route to Horta that was not perceptible by the flight crew. This deviation crossed the northern coast of the island of São Jorge, where it crashed into Pico de Esperança. The crew "was completely convinced" that the plane was over the São Jorge Channel, and they were concentrated on meteorological conditions at the time of the collision. After hearing their impact warning, three seconds before the first impact, the copilot alerted the crew that they were "losing altitude and over São Jorge". But, even as the pilots increased engine output, the maneuver was "insufficient to overcome the obstacle". The conclusion of the report indicated that there was a lack of rigour in maintaining the prescribed safe altitude, inaccurate dead reckoning, lack of cross-checking the information of the radio altimeter and barometric altimeter, and improper use of airborne weather radar as an additional ease of navigation, all of which contributed to the disaster. The bad meteorological conditions on the day (which included clouds, moderate to heavy winds, with turbulence) and the lack of autonomous navigational aids aboard the aircraft (such as GPS), that could have determined their position, were also factors that contributed to the accident. In regards to the aircraft, the report determined that the ATP was operating within the navigational conditions correspondent to the regulations and approved procedures outlined by aeronautical authorities. José Estima, member of the directorate of the Portuguese Airline Pilots Association () stated that the factor that contributed to the accident of the SATA commuter was "a quality and quantity of infrastructures to support aerial navigation". Referring to the credibility of the plane's pilot, APPLA indicated that the "pilot had flown for more than 20 years in the archipelago" and recorded that SATA pilots "are at the forefront, since they work in these adverse ocalconditions".


See also

*
Aviation in the Azores Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' include fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air aircraft such as hot ai ...


References


External links


Final Report-PDF File
- GPIAA
Archive


in Plane Crash Info {{DEFAULTSORT:SATA Air Acores Flight SP530M Transport in the Azores 1999 in Portugal São Jorge Island Aviation accidents and incidents in 1999 Aviation accidents and incidents in Portugal Accidents and incidents involving the British Aerospace ATP Airliner accidents and incidents involving controlled flight into terrain Airliner accidents and incidents caused by pilot error Airliner accidents and incidents caused by weather 1999 disasters in Portugal