Incident Overview

Description
The Antonov 12 transport plane operated on several round trips between Juba and El Obeid since May 9, 2004. Each time 9018 kgs of fuel was uplifted in El Obeid while the average fuel consumption for a round trip was 10000 kgs. On the second round trip on May 11, on the leg back to El Obeid, 4201 kgs of fuel remained. The flight departed at 11:40 UTC and climbed to the cruising altitude of FL240. En route all four engines flamed out as a result of a lack of fuel. The propellers were feathered and the aircraft was prepared for a forced landing. The aircraft hit the ground with its nose first and bounced for 15 meters until it collided with trees. Due to high impact force and high rate of descent the wings were twisted. The cockpit section was compressed within the central cargo compartment and a small fire erupted, likely due to electrical shortage within the electrical equipment. There were no survivors. The crew was composed of an Armenian captain and ground engineer, a Sudanese first officer, a Sudanese navigator, a Sudanese radio operator, an Iraqi navigator and an Iraqi flight engineer. The investigation showed that the Sudanese navigator license was expired since July 2001. The Iraqi crew members did not have any valid licenses and their experience on the An-12 dated back from 1994. The aircraft’s Certificate of Release to Service and Certificate of Maintenance Review both expired on April 30, 2004. Cause of Accident a) Fuel starvation due to Company fuel planning policy. b) The exhaustion of the Captain as he was handling all flights during the three days preceding the accident flight in addition to the weather on day of accident. c) Some of the crew members had limited experience on the type and three of them even did not fly on AN-12 for a long time which might aggravate the situation before the crash.
Primary Cause
Fuel starvation due to Company fuel planning policy.Fuel starvation due to Company fuel planning policy.Share on: