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| Date: | Thursday 5 September 1996 |
| Time: | 00:22 UTC |
| Type: |  Boeing 747-428 |
| Owner/operator: | Air France |
| Registration: | F-GITF |
| MSN: | 25602/909 |
| Year of manufacture: | 1992 |
| Fatalities: | Fatalities: 1 / Occupants: 224 |
| Aircraft damage: | Substantial |
| Category: | Accident |
| Location: | At around 30 miles from Ouagadougou at FL350 -
 Burkina Faso
|
| Phase: | En route |
| Nature: | Passenger - Scheduled |
| Departure airport: | Johannesburg-Jan Smuts Airport |
| Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport | |
| Investigating agency: | BEA |
| Confidence Rating: |  Accident investigation report completed and information captured |
The Boeing 747-428 was operating the regular service flight Cape Town-Johannesburg-Paris (flight AFR 437).
On 4th September 1996 at 15h55 UTC, the jet landed at Johannesburg. It departed at 18h29 UTC. There were 206 passengers and 18 crew members onboard.
While flying over Burkina Faso, at FL350, on 5th september at 00h22 UTC, the aircraft encountered severe turbulence. 30 people were injured in the incident. 1 of the injured people died on September 22.
9 other occupants were heavily injured but survived, while the other 20 received only minor injuries. The plane landed safely at Marseille airport. The aircraft was substantially damaged in this accident.
PROBABLE CAUSE:
The accident was due to crossing an area where the aircraft experienced a strong storm with extreme turbulence.
The following factors are the cause of this situation:
- Despite repetitive intermittent faults, the weather radar had not been repaired;
- The flight was undertaken on the basis of insufficient and misinterpreted meteorological information;
- The crew did not consider the non-operation of airborne radar and continued the flight while weather conditions were noticeably deteriorating.
An aggravating factor for the consequences of the accident is that many passengers had detached or loosened their belt despite the set on. Another contributing factor appears to be the fall of a video monitor. This last factor is related to the overall qualification on the aircraft cabin design, without prior dynamic tests.
Accident investigation:
 |
|
Sources:
Official BEA accident report disponible on the BEA official site.
See this link: http://www.bea.aero/docspa/1996/f-tf960905/pdf/f-tf960905.pdf
Revision history:
| Date/time | Contributor | Updates |
|---|---|---|
| 09-Mar-2012 11:19 | Ulysse B. | Added |
| 09-Mar-2012 11:25 | harro | Updated [Registration, Cn, Narrative] |
| 30-Jan-2019 15:06 | DS | Updated [Nature, Narrative] |
| 12-Feb-2024 13:17 | ASN | Updated [[Nature, Narrative]] |
| 12-Feb-2024 13:20 | ASN | Updated [[[Nature, Narrative]]] |
Corrections or additions? ... Edit this accident description
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