| - | ACCIDENT DETAILS |
| Date: | January 10, 2000 |
| Time: | 1754 |
| Location: | Niederhasli, Switzerland |
| Operator: | Crossair |
| Flight #: | 498 |
| Route: | Zürich - Dresden |
| AC Type: | Saab 340B |
| Registration: | HB-AKK |
| cn / ln: | 213 |
| Aboard: | 10 (passengers:7 crew:3) |
| Fatalities: | 10 (passengers:7 crew:3) |
| Ground: | 0 |
| Summary: | The aircraft crashed shortly after taking off, 8 km from the airport in light rain. After departing, the captain turned the aircraft to the right instead of to the left. The first officer advised the captain he should be turning left and ATC also asked about the direction taken. ATC then cleared the aircraft for a right turn. Soon after, the pitch decreased rapidly accompanied by a marked speed increase and plane entered a high speed, high-rate, spiral descent and crashed into an open field. The flight crew reacted inappropriately to the change in departure clearance SID ZUE 1Y by ATC. The first officer made an entry in the FMS, without being instructed to do so by the commander, which related to the change to the SID ZUE 1 standard instrument departure. In doing so, he omitted to select a turn direction. The captain dispensed with use of the autopilot under instrument flight conditions and during the work-intensive climb phase of the flight. The captain took the aircraft into a spiral dive to the right because, with a probability bordering on certainty, he had lost spatial orientation. The first officer took only inadequate measures to prevent or recover from the spiral dive. The commander was not systematically acquainted by Crossair with the specific features of western systems and cockpit procedures. Specifically both pilots had trained in the Soviet Union, where the attitude indicator works differently. Theirs show an icon of the airplane changing position in front of a fixed horizon, mimicking what an observer outside the plane would see if there was daylight; but western type indicators show a fixed airplane icon and an artificial horizon changing position, mimicking what the pilot would see. Consequently the diagonal line on the display is angled the same way for a right turn on one type as for a left turn on the other type. |
Sources
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