Balkan Bulgarian Airlines flight 1119

Balkan Bulgarian Airlines flight 1119 wasan International flight from Sofia International airport To Zurich Airport, Carrying 137 Passengers

The captain being Ivan Dimitrov with 13,043 flight hours, he is from Bulgaria.

The First officer was Petar Nikolov with 9,639 flight hours, He was Born in Bulgaria but raised in Greece.

The aircraft was an Airbus A320-211, A new addition to the airlines fleet which was added in 1991, “LZ-ABB” (Aircraft ICAO Code) Begins it’s taxi to runway 09, As it is taxiing to runway 09, enters the runway, and takes off, uneventfully. he aircraft climbs to 28,000 feet and continues to Zurich. 34 minutes after departure from Sofia, The aircraft has an overspeed alert, which causes the concern of the First officer
Cockpit voice recording
F/O: First officer

C/P: Captain

Time          Source     Content

21:11:03      F/O “Should we be concerned about that?”

21:11:05      C/P “that should not be going off…”

21:11:09      F/O “Should we divert?

21:11:12      C/P “Не.”

21:11:14      F/O “what?”

21:11:17      C/P “I said no, it's Bulgarian for ‘no’.”

21:11:20      F/O “Ah.”

21:11:23      C/P “Yeah… Let's just turn that off.”

21:11:30      F/O “Ok.”

As the aircraft continues to Zurich, the “Stall” Alarm goes off

Time          Source     Content

21:12:04       F/O “Τώρα τι?”

21:12:09       C/P “Now you're speaking something I don’t know.”

21:12:14       F/O “Its Greek for ‘What now?’.”

21:12:19       C/P “Its a cultural cockpit.”

21:12:19       F/O “I’m thinking we should divert…”

21:12:24       C/P “We are closest to Zurich, so we need to continue.”

21:12:29       F/O “Ok then…. Here goes something.”

The aircraft Continues to Zurich, Air Traffic Control tells them to Approach runway 28 As the aircraft Approaches the runway, Air Traffic Control tells flight 1119 to descend 25000 to begin its approach. The Pilots of flight 1119 hear it as

“Descend too 22000.”

The pilots descend to 4000 ft without problem, The pilots radio in and tell Air Traffic Controller that they have descend to 20000. The Controller is taken by suprise because he told Flight 1119 to descend to 24000, not 22000.

Cockpit voice recorder

Time           Source Content

21:54:45       ATC “you are at 24000, correct?”

21:54:50       F/O “No.. we are at 22000.”

21:55:04       ATC “You are supposed to be at 24000!”

21:55:11       F/O “Should we climb back up to 24000?”

21:55:17       ATC “No.. Descend 21000.”

21:55:21       F/O “Descending, thank you.”

The aircraft Continues It’s, but they mistook 21000 for 1000.

Time           Source Content

22:01:23     GPWS Whoop Whoop, too low, Terrain (Goes till end of recording)

21:01:27       F/O “What the?”

21:01:34       C/P “Go around.”

21:01:34       N/A \*Striking trees\*

21:01:37       N/A \*Engine exploding into flames\*

21:01:42       N/A \*Wing getting ripped off\*

21:01:47         ? \*Grunting\*

21:01:49       C/P “WE’RE GOING OVER!”

21:01:52       F/O “RAISE THE NOSE!”

21:01:56       ATC “Balkan 1119, do you read?

21:01:58       N/A \*Part of the Elevators getting ripped off\*

21:02:01       F/O “Ok, Ok, Ok, steady… Steady…. STEADY!”

21:02:05       C/P “LEFT RUDDER! LEFT RUDDER!”

21:02:09       F/O “Approach lights! Almost there!”

21:02:11     GPWS \*Stall Alarm\*

21:02:13       N/A \*Wing breaks off\*

21:02:15       F/O “WE'RE GOING DOWN!”

21:02:16       N/A \*Impact\*

The aircraft Crashes into the ground just 65 feet away from the runway, The aircraft begins to leak fuel just 2 seconds after colliding with the ground. 6 people manage to survive the initial aircraft, 1 person burns to death, the 6 others escape the burning wreckage, but 1 more dies of smoke inhalation, and 1 more person dies of their injuries (Internal bleeding, Blood Loss, damage to the brain, ETC.) the Incident has killed 133 of the 137 passengers onboard, making this the deadliest plane crash in switzerland’s history.

Crew Manifest         Deceased   Living

Bulgaria - 4   4         0

Greece - 1   1         0

Passenger Manifest     Deceased   Living

Bulgaria -  97 Passengers 97     0 (initially 1)

Greece -   11 Passengers 10      1

Turkey -    8 Passengers  8         0

Romania -5 Passengers  5         0

S. Africa - 5 passengers  5         0

Egypt    -  2 Passengers  2         0

Russian - 2 Passengers  1         1

America - 1 Passenger    0         1

S. Korea - 1 Passenger   0     1

Investigation

The AAIB was tasked with finding out why flight 1119 crashed. It did not take too long for them to figure out that The pilots thought the Air Traffic control said “descend to 1000.” instead of them descending to 21000. Although the pilots got themselves into the mess, they tried desperately to escape what they had created. The AAIB blamed the pilots for the deadly accident.