Flight ET302’s six minutes of terror

The impact shredded the plane and its occupants, leaving almost no body parts for the rescue crew to retrieve. [Courtesy]

Pilots flying last month’s ill-fated Boeing 737 struggled to control the plane as soon as it took off, fresh reports indicate.

Preliminary findings of the accident that killed all 157 people on board reveal that the six-minute flight was hell for the crew and passengers.

Thirty-six of the victims were Kenyans.

Like riding a 72-tonne bucking bull at the rodeo, the pilots had to contend with wild swings to either side and jerky climbs and falls before the Ethiopian Airlines flight ploughed nose-first into the ground.

The impact shredded the plane and its occupants, leaving almost no body parts for the rescue crew to retrieve.

“The aircraft impacted in a farm field and created a crater approximately 10 metres deep, with a hole of about 28 metres width and 40 metres length,” the preliminary report reads.

Data from flight recorders recovered at the crash site tell of the last moments of Flight ET302, including the commands issued by the 29-year-old Kenyan-born captain to his First Officer, four years his junior. The instructions did little to help control the plane, which investigators believe had multiple engineering flaws.

Captain Yared Mulugeta, who was coming to his mother in Mombasa, is described as having been extremely fit for the flight. He had not flown in the preceding 72 hours, thus eliminating any fatigue issue.

Instead, investigators indicated that the sensors mounted on either side of the plane gave contradicting information relating to the aircraft’s angle of flight.

Specifically, while the jet took off in what appeared as normal lift at 8.37am, an error message was noted within 70 seconds to mark the start of the wild roller-coaster ride.

“At 8.38am, shortly after liftoff, the left and right recorded angle of attack values deviated. Also, the airspeed, altitude and flight director pitch bar values from the left side noted deviating from the corresponding right side values,” the investigators reported.

All the while, it appears from the report, the plane would have been flying on its side as the pilots fought to level its flight.

“The left side values were lower than the right side values until near the end of the recording,” the report reads.

Just about this time, the captain, who was clearly distressed, sought to engage the autopilot by shouting “Command!” to his assistant, hoping that the computerised system would find a remedy for the fault.

It was a rough one minute, where the captain also directed the First Officer to contact the air traffic controllers at Bole International Airport seeking clearance to return.

“Six seconds after the autopilot engagement, there were small amplitude roll oscillations accompanied by lateral acceleration, rudder oscillations and slight heading changes. These oscillations continued also after the autopilot was disengaged,” the report said, describing the first two minutes of the flight.

Clearance for return to Bole Airport was granted, but the aircraft could not make it back. It ploughed into a recently cleared farm field some 60km from the airport. The last words from the pilots as the plane started to nosedive, after desperate attempts to point it back up, were “left alpha vane”.

It would appear that the vane, a small appendage that measures the angle of attack of the plane, was totally dysfunctional and could not be rescued. Before the crash, the plane had only done 1,330 hours of flying, indicating it was among the newest aircraft in service.

“Most of the wreckage was found buried in the ground; small fragments of the aircraft were found scattered around the site in an area about 200m wide by 300m long. The damages to the aircraft are consistent with a high energy impact,” the report reads.

Ethiopia’s Transport ministry last Thursday said the pilots did everything right and by the rule book, leaving the manufacturer to blame for the accident.