Case Study Of Crossair Flight 3579 Crash

Introduction

This assignment is going to be a research regarding the crash of Crossair flight 3597 at Zurich Airport on 24 November 2001, the objective of this assignment is to reflect, list and justify 3 contributing factors involved in the accident within the flight operations context. Another objective of this assignment is to show how we can learn from this accident, and at the same time prevent any future accidents that might be similar to this accident.

Facts about Crossair Flight 3579 Crash

There were several causes of the accident, such as approach type, weather, hazardous attitudes, and violation of minimum descent altitude.

There was a sudden change of runway used for landing, due to the new law that closes runway 14, causing the runway to change to runway 28. Resulting to the pilot having to fly the very high frequency (VHF) Omni-directional Radio-Range (VOR) or Distance-measuring Equipment (DME) approach, as runway 28 did not have instrument landing system (ILS). The VOR/DME approach is more difficult as compared to the precision approach, and pilot has previously shown repeated major deficiencies in his ability to safely operate an aircraft, in particular the ability to fly complicated approach and use modern instrument. Hence, the approach type is one of the causes that led to the accident.

The weather during the accident time was poor, with low visibility and cloud base. The visual range measured by the airport is above the minimum; however, it was not accurate. The airport calculation of the weather minimums used data from a station distant from runway 28, causing the weather minimums not reflecting the actual conditions on runway 28. Another aircraft that landed had advised of the poor weather condition at the run...

... middle of paper ...

...me. Another weather minimum update was given by one of the flight that have landed on runway 28, the pilot of that flight says that the weather minimum was only borderline, and runway was only spotted 1.3 miles out. The weather is one of the contributing factors is because if the weather minimum were to accurately calculated, it would have avoided the crash as the pilot would have been forced to cancel the approach.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I think that all the factors are important and interconnected, as according to the “Swiss Cheese” model, one factor alone is not capable of causing the disaster, the disaster will only happens when all the factors coincide. Hence, all the factors are responsible for the crash of Crossair flight 3597, and are to be reviewed throughly, so as to learn from the past mistakes, and to prevent any future accidents that are similar.