This Day in History: Flash Airlines flight 604 crashes, deadliest in Egypt’s history
The deadliest plane crash in Egypt’s history was ten years ago as Flash Airlines flight 604 crashed into the Red Sea killing 148, 133 were French tourists. It was the highest death toll of any Boeing 737-300.
Paul-Louis Arslanian, chief of the French civil aviation ministry’s bureau of investigation, blamed pilot “spatial disorientation” for the Boeing’s plunge into the sea.
“Taking into account the complexity of the accident, differences of interpretation remain over the causes,” Arslanian told journalists who had just heard Kelada’s presentation of the Egyptian report.
“The plane remained pilotable at all times, and we consider that pilot spatial disorientation led the plane to go right” instead of left, he said.
A few seconds before the captain called for the autopilot to be engaged, the airplane’s pitch began increasing and airspeed began decreasing. These deviations continued during and after the autopilot engagement/disengagement sequence. During this time, the captain also allowed the airplane to enter a gradually steepening right bank, which was inconsistent with the flight crew’s departure clearance to perform a climbing left turn. These pitch, airspeed and bank angle deviations indicated that the captain directed his attention away from monitoring the attitude indications during and after the autopilot disengagement process.
The final report didn’t give a specific cause of the crash, but terrorist and sabotage were both ruled out.
Check out full flight recorder data HERE
Two years after the crash, the airline went bankrupt.
[…] This Day in History: Flash Airlines flight 604 crashes, deadliest in Egypt's … The deadliest plane crash in Egypt's history was ten years ago as Flash Airlines flight 604 crashed into the Red Sea killing 148, 133 were French tourists. It was the highest death toll of any Boeing 737-300. Flash Airlines 604 dramatization photo Paul … Read more on The Global Dispatch […]