Kam Air Flight 904
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Destination | Kabul International Airport | ||||
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Passengers | 97 | ||||
Crew | 8 | ||||
Fatalities | 105 | ||||
Survivors | 0 |
Kam Air Flight 904 was a scheduled passenger domestic flight from
. On 3 February 2005 the aircraft crashed in mountainous terrain killing all 97 passengers and 8 crew on board.The incident took place shortly after 4:00 p.m. local time (UTC+4:30) when the
The crash is the deadliest air disaster in the history of Afghanistan.[2]
Accident
The aircraft lost communication during the worst winter snowstorm for 5 years. The cause of the loss of communication and the subsequent crash is unknown. Taliban leader Mullah Dadullah stated that his guerrilla fighters had not shot down the plane and expressed sadness at the crash. Air traffic control for the Kabul area was provided by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
At the time of the accident, there was no established intra-governmental agency plan in Afghanistan to deal with a major aircraft crash. Initially, it was proposed that the Ministry of Transportation be responsible for not only the investigation but also human remains identification and recovery and wreckage recovery. When the logic of this concept fell apart because of the small size of the MOT and its almost total lack of resources, these duties were divided among the Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Health (human remains), the Ministry of the Interior (wreckage recovery), and the MOT (the actual accident investigation).
Recovery operation and investigation
A rescue operation was launched under atrocious weather conditions by the ISAF and
The ISAF made numerous unsuccessful rescue attempts by helicopters. When those attempts failed the
The crash site was at an altitude of 11,000 feet (3,400 m) on the peak of the Chaperi Mountain, 20 miles (17 nmi; 32 km) east of the Afghan capital of Kabul.[3]
The helicopter crew confirmed the wreckage site with the aircraft sensors and reported back their find. The crash site was on a high mountain ridge called Cheri Ghar at some 3,000 metres (9,800 ft). The ridge was a daunting place; sheer on one side, steeply sloping on the other with deep snowfields, and swept by high winds or covered in freezing fog. The snow hid any local tracks or paths and the approach roads from nearby villages were impassable to vehicles, despite several attempts by ISAF and ANA patrols to find a way to the summit. The winter weather did not give another opportunity until 7 February when a window of clear weather allowed an ISAF Spanish Cougar helicopter to set down a 5-man team of Slovenian mountain rescue troops onto the ridge summit. Pushing on through the waist-deep snow and conscious of the possible mine threat, the team reached the site. Although the team found no human remains, the badly broken up debris scattered along the ridgeline and the extreme conditions made it very unlikely that anyone had survived the crash.
It was discovered that all 105 passengers and crew on board were killed, and the plane was completely destroyed. The
The accident site itself was compact horizontally, but not vertically. The aircraft struck a ridge line on an easterly heading near the crest of the mountain about 50 feet (15 m) down from the top. The final flight path probably had some amount of upward vector to it, because the fuselage forward of the wing box was propelled, in fragments, over the crest and fell over the cliff side into the valley below. The actual wreckage documentation during five site visits was difficult because most of the parts were either buried under several feet of snow and inaccessible, outside the mine-free cordon and inaccessible, or down the cliff side and, therefore, also inaccessible to all without mountain climbing training. The most prominent and recognizable piece of wreckage present was the vertical stabilizer and a small portion of the rear fuselage. Most of the visible wreckage was located between two stacked stone, roofless structures that were observation posts used by Mujahadeen fighters to monitor Soviet troop movements in the Kabul valley during the 1980s. Within a 200-foot (67 yd; 61 m) circle, after a lot of arduous snow removal, investigators identified portions of both engines, both wings, the left main landing gear assembly, many aft galley components, the horizontal stabilizer, human remains and personal effects, and much miscellaneous debris. Some material, such as an escape slide and some right engine components, were located outside the landmine-free area. These items were documented with binoculars and digital camera zoom features.
The investigative team faced very challenging weather conditions, difficult terrain, and potential landmine hazards. The evidence recovered from the site was insufficient to determine a definite cause for the crash, but the location suggested that the crew had descended below the minimum descent altitude for the phase of the approach that they were in. Without the cockpit voice recorder, survivors, witnesses, or a valid flight data recording, the investigation stalled. In 2006, the Civil Aviation Operation of the Ministry of Transport of Afghanistan released their final report concluding that the plane flew into terrain below the ideal approach path, most likely as a result of pilot error.[4]
Casualties
Of the 105 people on board, 97 were passengers and eight were crew. At least 25 were foreign nationals: 9
Kam Air
Kam Air is a private airline established in 2003 operating a fleet of leased
See also
- Controlled Flight into terrain (CFIT)
- Pamir Airways Flight 112 where the aircraft was lost in very poor weather conditions on approach to Kabul International Airport, killing all 44 on board.
- 1998 Ariana Afghan Airlines Boeing 727 crash the aircraft flew into a mountain in poor weather conditions killing all 45 on board
References
- ^ https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20050203-1
- ^ "ASN Aircraft accident Boeing 737-242 EX-037 Kabul". Aviation Safety Network. Flight Safety Foundation. Retrieved 1 June 2015.
- ^ Davis, Mack (2005-02-14). "Afghan National Army Assists in Plane Crash Aftermath". defenselink.mil. U.S. Department of Defense. Archived from the original on 2007-04-13. Retrieved 2021-09-08.
- ^ "CONTROLLED FLIGHT INTO TERRAIN, KAM AIR B-737-200 AIRCRAFT EX-037, NEAR KABUL INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, 03 FEBRUARY, 2005" (PDF). Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation. Retrieved 2023-02-03.
External links
- Univ of Denver Grad on Flight 904 (Archive)
- CBS report
- Reuters Reports (Archive)
- Black Box given to US NTSB Archived 2020-04-19 at the Wayback Machine
- Owners of Afghan crash plane blame weather
- Report of Robert Benzon NSTB investigator
- CHERI GHAR CRASH SITE- ISAF Mirror April 2005 Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine