US team starts investigations into UPS crash

A team from the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), led by investigator Bill English, has reportedly arrived in Dubai to look into Friday’s UPS cargo plane crash that took the lives of its two pilots.

While a spokesperson for the General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) declined to comment to Emirates24|7, sources close to the incident have confirmed that English, along with his team of NTSB specialists in areas of fire, human performance, operations and systems have arrived to assist in the matter.

The team will also include technical advisors from the FAA, Boeing, UPS, GE and the Independent Pilots Association.

Meanwhile, UPS has also sent an independent team of its own to investigate the aviation accident, which saw the Boeing 747-400 take off from Dubai International Airport on Friday 6.53pm, charted for Koln-Bonn (Cologne), Germany, only to crash in a deserted area off the Emirates Road highway 50 minutes later.

The GCAA located one of the black boxes six hours after the crash, but the Digital Flight Data Recorder had yet to be located.

Crash scenario

GCAA also refrained from commenting if a pilot error had been completely ruled out, however, sources claim that the crash resulted from a technical snag in systems, which caused a fire to break out in the cockpit.

The source added that the growing smoke reduced the visibility of the pilots, who requested Bahrain Air Traffic Control to land the plane. However, due to the pain’s high altitude, Bahrain requested the plane to turn around to Dubai for easier landing.

The UAE Air Traffic Control (ATC) centre issued a clearance when the aircraft was approximately 40km from touchdown.

However, because the UPS plane was high on approach – at 8,500ft and 24km from touchdown – it overshot the airfield and was forced to make a sharp right turn.

New position reports were passed to the tower, as well as advice that all runways were available for the aircraft to land on.

The aircraft tracked southwest and rapidly lost altitude.

By 7.42pm , radar contact was lost.

The two UPS pilots, identified as Captain Doug Lampe and first officer Matthew Bell, have a combined 19 years worth of flight experience between them, according to UPS.

A UPS statement also confirmed that the aircraft, tail number N571UP, was just three years old, entering UPS service off the Boeing production line in September 2007. The airframe had flown 9977 hours, completing 1764 takeoffs and landings. It was up to date on all maintenance, having just completed a major inspection in June 2010.

Memorial services for the two pilots were held in the US yesterday, and it has been learned that Lampe’s wife has departed for Dubai to claim the remains.
 

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