LAM Mozambique Airlines Flight 470: Murder-suicide by pilot on 29 November 2013 at Bwabwata National Park, Namibia.

A THREAD:

Aircraft: Embraer 190-100IGW Reg: C9-EMC

Pictured below at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport

Embraer 190 is a very common regional jet for low volume routes. Chances are you have been one if you fly KQ as they currently have 15 on their fleet. This particular plane is just a year old.

In command is 49 y/o Captain Herminio dos Santos Fernandes. He has over 9000 flight hours, of which about 2500 hours are on the aircraft type. Assisting him is 24 y/o First Officer Grácio Chimuquile with over 1100 flight hours of which 100 hours are on the aircraft type.

In the cabin, there are 27 passengers and 4 cabin crew, all of whom are headed to Luanda. The flight is rather empty for the route between the two cities with Portuguese heritage.

The controller at the Gaborone Area Control Centre (ACC) cleared the flight to maintain 38,000ft and to report when at waypoint AGRAM. The crew responded that they would arrive at waypoint AGRAM in about an hour.

50 minutes later, at Gaborone ACC, the controller was swamped by his workload. He was handling conflicting traffic in his sector. He was so engrossed to the point where he did not notice something peculiar…

An hour after the previous transmission, the controller transmitted to the aircraft, “Mozambique 470, you can continue with Luanda 8888, 5565 good day.” There was no response. The controller called the aircraft again on frequency but silence was the only reply.

Confused and alarmed by the unexpected silence, he called Luanda ACC, inquiring if they have heard from the crew of LAM Mozambique Flight 470. It is unknown what the controllers in the Luanda ACC reply.

Air accident investigators from Botswana, Namibia and Angola checked their radar to look for signs of LAM Mozambique Flight 470. The Namibians spot the aircraft on their radar.

The aircraft initially flew at FL380 as assigned but had started to descend abruptly at a vertical speed of about 10,000ft/min. The aircraft vanished from the Namibian radar at an altitude of about 6000ft.

Hours after LAM Mozambique Flight 470 vanished, the Namibian authorities received information of a low-flying aircraft and rising smoke in the Bwabwata National Park (surrounded by 5 countries)

At 9 am the following morning, the inevitable reality had been proven true. The plane had slammed into the ground in the Bwabwata National Park on the Caprivi Strip, a panhandle of Namibia, near Divundu, Namibia. All 33 people on board are killed by the crash.

A panhandle is a geographic term for an elongated protrusion of a geopolitical entity. The Florida Panhandle anyone?

Investigators notice that the aircraft had slammed into the ground and slid across the ground for 400 metres, disintegrating in the process. A post-crash fire had ensued.

The investigators begin to rule out possible causes of the crash based on the wreckage and available information.

Could the plane have been attempting to make an emergency landing? The lack of puncture and roll marks on the landing gears suggests that an attempt at an emergency landing was extremely unlikely.

Could the engines have failed? Based on the marks left on the turbines of the engines, the engines were rotating in a high energy state on impact.

Could the aircraft have suffered a mechanical failure? Investigators discover that the aircraft had been inspected the day before the crash. Hence, a mechanical failure was unlikely to have caused the crash.

Investigators listen to the CVR and simultaneously look at the FDR data. What they discover is shocking. The first one hour and fifty minutes of the flight was uneventful, with the pilots talking about politics for most of this part of the flight.

One hour and fifty minutes into the flight, Captain Fernandez asks First Officer Graćio if he needed to go to the lavatory. He added that he had control of the aircraft if needed.

First Officer Graćio responded, “No problem.” He closes the door behind him as he goes to the lavatory, leaving Captain Fernandez alone in the cockpit. This violated LAM Mozambique company procedures, which dictate that two people must be in the cockpit at all times.

With First Officer Graćio out of the cockpit, Captain Fernandez is free to do as he wills.

He turns the altitude preselect knob in three increments, bringing down the selected altitude for the aircraft to fly at down from 38,000ft down to 4288ft, and then to 1288ft, and finally down further to 592ft, below ground level in the area.

Then he starts fighting with the autopilot. What follows is expert manoeuvring which could only be done by an expert pilot with in depth knowledge of the aircraft of this type

At this point, someone is heard knocking on the door. First Officer Graćio is back from his bathroom break but he is left locked out of the cockpit as Captain Fernandez had disabled the code to open the door.

The speed brakes were manually commanded to open the spoiler panels. It would stay in this position until the crash. Besides adding drag to an aircraft, the speed brakes also reduce the lift of an aircraft. As a result, the vertical speed of the aircraft increased dramatically.

25 seconds before the crash, the Ground Proximity Warning System (GPWS) sounded a cautionary alarm in the cockpit. The warning is designed to warn pilots of an impending danger of impact with terrain.

13 seconds later, the GPWS sounded a warning in the cockpit. This sounded when the aircraft is in an impending danger of collision with terrain that is more critical. The GPWS then sounds an alarm asking Captain Fernandez to pull up of the lethal descent. He never does.

2 seconds later, the plane slams into the ground in the Bwabwata National Park in Namibia. After the initial impact, the wreckage slid for more than 400 metres before coming to rest. All 33 people on board the plane are killed instantly.

Having ruled out almost all other possibilities, the investigators are left with one very disturbing option: pilot suicide. However, to prove that Captain Fernandez had deliberately crashed the aircraft, the investigators need to find a motive.

From the interviews, they discover that Captain Fernandez had experienced some life events in his life that was of interest to the investigators. For instance, he had separated from his wife 10 years before and the divorce proceedings were still taking place.

His son had died almost exactly a year (to the day) before the crash in a car accident that was a suicide. He did not attend his son’s funeral.

His youngest daughter had just undergone heart surgery in a South African hospital not long before the crash. These life events caused Captain Fernandez to be depressed.

Finally, investigators had a complete picture of the events that led to the crash. Captain Fernandez and First Officer Graćio were flying in the skies above Namibia when Captain Fernandez asks First Officer Graćio if he wanted to go to the toilet.

He agrees and leaves Captain Fernandez in the cockpit alone, in violation of procedures. Fernandez put the aircraft in a lethal descent, ignoring FO Graćio’s futile attempts to enter the cockpit. The controller on duty did not notice abrupt descent as a result of preoccupation.

Ultimately, the effects of these factors are clear. The aircraft slammed into Bwabwata National Park, killing all 33 onboard the aircraft.

But that was not the end of the story.
This was in Africa, so...
The crash of LAM Mozambique Flight 470 was soon forgotten by the aviation community as the crash was obscure.

Until...

A year later when Germanwings Flight 9525 crashed into the French Alps more than 54 nautical miles from Nice, France. All 150 people on board are killed instantly.

The investigation by the BEA France discovered that the first officer had locked the captain out of the cockpit and put the plane into a lethal descent into the French Alps.

After the Germanwings crash, the aviation industry finally took action to prevent a similar disaster from happening. The lessons that should have been learned from the tale of LAM Mozambique Flight 470 could have prevented the crash of Germanwings Flight 9525.

More reading here:

LAM Mozambique Flight 470: The Forgotten Tragedy by RA BH https://link.medium.com/awdvXhK2Vdb 

The accident is featured in the ninth episode of Season 20 of Mayday, also known as Air Crash Investigation. The episode is titled "Cockpit Killer". #Mayday
Images courtesy!