Fokker 100 – PH-KXL – Air Crash Data

Incident Overview

Date: Friday 5 March 1993

Aircraft Type: Fokker 100

Owner/operator: Palair Macedonian Airlines

Registration Number: PH-KXL

Location: Skopje Airport (SKP) – ÿ North Macedonia

Phase of Flight: Initial climb

Status: Destroyed, written off

Casualties: Fatalities: 83 / Occupants: 97

Component Affected: UnknownUnknown

Investigating Agency: RvdLRvdL

Category: Accident

On January 19, 1993, Palair Macedonian Airlines flight 301 crashed shortly after takeoff from Skopje Airport, resulting in the loss of 83 lives and the survival of 14. The aircraft, a Fokker 100 jet, was leased to Palair by Aircraft Financing and Trading (AFT) of the Netherlands since January 1993. The flight was scheduled for a 35-minute delay and experienced challenging weather conditions, including light snow, a temperature of 0ø Celsius, and a dewpoint of -1ø Celsius. The pilot-in-command, the Flight Operations Director, was flying and was also providing route-instruction. The aircraft arrived at its scheduled destination, Frankfurt, with a 1-hour 35-minute delay. Upon takeoff, the new crew initiated the flight, and the aircraft immediately moved to the designated holding point runway 34. A Yak-42D from Vardar Air, a nearby aircraft, de-iced the aircraft’s right wing, the first instance of de-icing activity of the day, shortly after the arrival of the aircraft. The snowfall increased to moderate, and the visibility dropped to 900 meters. The pilots reported no discussion about the weather conditions during the initial flight phase. At 11:11, the aircraft was cleared for takeoff, with a wind of 010ø and 3 knots. The tower controller confirmed visibility of 900m and heavy snowfall. The aircraft rotated normally and the PF called ‘positive’, followed by the PF’s call ‘gear up’. Two seconds after lift-off, the aircraft experienced heavy vibrations, followed by a right bank to approximately 10ø, then a left bank to approximately 10ø within 2 seconds, resulting in a sequence of rolls. The PNF called ‘deselect’ and sounded auto-pilot cavalry charge and GPWS alerts. The aircraft experienced a right wingtip impact, resulting in significant damage, with the right wing disintegrating and the fuselage breaking into three parts. The right engine separated and impacted the aft fuselage, followed by the stabilizer and upper tail plane. Witnesses reported explosions and fires following the impact. The probable cause was a loss of roll controllability due to ice contamination, stemming from an omission to carry out spraying of the aircraft with deicing or anti-icing fluid, due to a lack of awareness of icing conditions and a failure in the Flying Station Engineer’s duties.On January 19, 1993, Palair Macedonian Airlines flight 301 crashed shortly after takeoff from Skopje Airport, resulting in the loss of 83 lives and the survival of 14. The aircraft, a Fokker 100 jet, was leased to Palair by Aircraft Financing and Trading (AFT) of the Netherlands since January 1993. The flight was scheduled for a 35-minute delay and experienced challenging weather conditions, including light snow, a temperature of 0ø Celsius, and a dewpoint of -1ø Celsius. The pilot-in-command, the Flight Operations Director, was flying and was also providing route-instruction. The aircraft arrived at its scheduled destination, Frankfurt, with a 1-hour 35-minute delay. Upon takeoff, the new crew initiated the flight, and the aircraft immediately moved to the designated holding point runway 34. A Yak-42D from Vardar Air, a nearby aircraft, de-iced the aircraft’s right wing, the first instance of de-icing activity of the day, shortly after the arrival of the aircraft. The snowfall increased to moderate, and the visibility dropped to 900 meters. The pilots reported no discussion about the weather conditions during the initial flight phase. At 11:11, the aircraft was cleared for takeoff, with a wind of 010ø and 3 knots. The tower controller confirmed visibility of 900m and heavy snowfall. The aircraft rotated normally and the PF called ‘positive’, followed by the PF’s call ‘gear up’. Two seconds after lift-off, the aircraft experienced heavy vibrations, followed by a right bank to approximately 10ø, then a left bank to approximately 10ø within 2 seconds, resulting in a sequence of rolls. The PNF called ‘deselect’ and sounded auto-pilot cavalry charge and GPWS alerts. The aircraft experienced a right wingtip impact, resulting in significant damage, with the right wing disintegrating and the fuselage breaking into three parts. The right engine separated and impacted the aft fuselage, followed by the stabilizer and upper tail plane. Witnesses reported explosions and fires following the impact. The probable cause was a loss of roll controllability due to ice contamination, stemming from an omission to carry out spraying of the aircraft with deicing or anti-icing fluid, due to a lack of awareness of icing conditions and a failure in the Flying Station Engineer’s duties.

Description

Palair Macedonian Airlines flight 301, a Fokker 100, crashed following a loss of control on takeoff from Skopje Airport, North Macedonia, killing 83 occupants; 14 survived the accident. The aircraft, a Fokker 100 jet, was leased to Palair by Aircraft Financing and Trading (AFT) of the Netherlands since January 1993. AFT provided route training captains, while Palair provided the first officer or candidate Palair captain and the cabin crew . The aircraft arrived on a scheduled flight from Frankfurt to Skopje at 09:40 hours local time with a 35 minute delay. The new crew arrived at Skopje Airport at approximately 10:30 and they went straight to the aircraft. It was snowing lightly. The temperature was 0ø Celsius, dewpoint -1ø Celsius. The AFT Director Flight Operations was the pilot-in-command and was sitting in the right seat. He performed the first officer duties and was the pilot not flying (PNF). He was also giving route-instruction. A captain-under-training was sitting in the left seat. He was acting captain and was pilot flying (PF), receiving route-training. The dispatch officer checked both wing leading edges and saw they were not contaminated with ice or snow, but were only wet of melted snow. The Flying Station Engineer subsequently performed the walk around and was accompanied by three Palair ground handling crewmembers. The ground handling crewmembers stated that they had a brief discussion with the FSE about the weather and asked if the aircraft needed de-icing since there was some snow on the right wing inner flap. The FSE replied that de-icing was not necessary and that any deposit would blow off the wing during take off. The total time the aircraft remained on the ground at Skopje Airport was about 1 hour 35 minutes. At 11:05 hours start-up was approved and clearance was given to taxi to holding point runway 34. During taxying, a Yak-42D from Vardar Air, which was standing on the apron, was de-iced. This was the first aircraft that day being de-iced. In the meantime the snowfall had increased to moderate. According to the Cockpit Voice Recorder, no discussion about the weather conditions took place by the pilots. At 11:11 Palair 301 was cleared for take off, the wind was given as 010ø with 3 knots. The tower controller stated that the visibility was 900 meters and it was snowing. The aircraft rotated normally and the PNF then called “positive”, followed by the call “gear up” from the PF, which was confirmed by the PNF. Two seconds after lift off the aircraft experienced heavy vibrations followed by a sudden right bank to approximately 10ø, immediately followed by approximately 50ø left bank and 55ø right bank in sequence within 2 seconds. The roll movements were counteracted by aileron and rudder input. Approximately 10 seconds before impact the PNF called “deselect” followed by sounds which were determined to be the auto pilot cavalry charge (twice) followed by the GPWS aural alert, “sink rate” (twice). The aircraft right wingtip hit the ground 382 meters beyond the end of the runway with approximately 90ø bank, the fuselage was more or less in a horizontal position. The right wing disintegrated towards the wing-fuselage attachment, followed by major impact of the fuselage, which broke up into three major parts, and the impact of the right engine and stabilizer. The right engine separated and subsequently impacted and penetrated the aft fuselage. The stabilizer and the upper part of the vertical tail plane also separated. Witnesses stated that explosions followed shortly after impact and several residual fires broke out on the debris. PROBABLE CAUSE: “The Board determined that impact with the ground in a steep right bank shortly after lift off was caused by loss of roll controllability due to contamination of the wings with ice. This situation resulted from an omission to carry out spraying of the aircraft with deicing or anti-icing fluid in meteorological conditions conducive to icing, due to a lack of ice-awareness of the flight crew and the Flying Station Engineer . Contributing factors were a lack of common background and procedures in a difficult multi-sources operational environment.”