Aero Caribbean Flight 883
The involved in the accident airplane in October at the Aeropuerto Playa Baracoa
Aerocaribbean Flight 883 was an international scheduled twice weekly guided flight from Port -au -Prince, Haiti, to Havana, Cuba with a stopover in Santiago de Cuba. On 4 November 2010 an ATR 72-212 of the Cuban airline Aerocaribbean crashed near the town of Sancti Spiritus Guasimal in the municipality in central Cuba. On board were 61 passengers and seven crew members, all were killed.
Circumstances of the accident and studies on the cause
The machine was on the evening of November 4 on a domestic flight from Santiago de Cuba to Havana coming. The ATR launched in Santiago at 16:30 local time clock. Against 17:46 clock the ground control pilot reported problems due to icing and asked for permission to change to a lower altitude. Immediately thereafter he lost control of the aircraft and reported the emergency even by radio. Shortly thereafter, the plane crashed near Guasimal in mountainous terrain near the Sierra del Escambray. According to eyewitnesses, the aircraft should be flown quite deep and restless before his crash. Also, you have seen smoke and fire come out of the machine. The following day, the flight recorders of misfortune machine were recovered.
Whether there is a connection with the at the time of start of the disaster machine in Santiago de Cuba approaching Hurricane Tomas, which caused in eastern Cuba for strong winds and heavy rainfall, is unclear. Aerocaribbean Flight 883 was certainly one of the last aircraft that left Santiago de Cuba. After that, the airspace was closed because of the approaching tropical storm.
The Cuban authorities announced their intention to investigate the accident without foreign aid. You have it all necessary requirements. External support such as a group of experts of the manufacturer of the crashed plane, Avions de Transport Régional, rejected the Cuban authorities.
On 15 December 2010 the Cuban Civil Aviation Authority informed them that the cause of the crash was a mixture of icing of the aircraft due to extreme weather conditions, and failure of the crew in handling this situation. Consequently, the flight was initially normal to the plane hit at a height of 20,000 feet ( 6,000 meters) to extreme weather conditions.
Victim
In addition to the seven crew members, 33 other Cubans, as well as 28 foreign tourists were on board the accident aircraft, including two German, two Australian, an Italian, nine Argentines, a Spaniard, three Dutch, one French, one Japanese, one Venezuelan and seven Mexicans.
The accident aircraft
The aircraft with the serial number 459 and the air vehicle registration CU- T1549 had completed a total of 25,000 flight hours and more than 34,500 takeoffs and landings to crash. The aircraft was equipped with two engines Pratt & Whitney Canada PW127. Completed in November 1995, the aircraft was operated in October 2006 by Aerocaribbean. The accident was the third- worst total in the history of Cuban aviation. In addition, it was the eleventh loss of an ATR 72 and the previously worst accident with this type of aircraft.