Golden Engle Airlines Flight A113

### Summary

Shootdown by a BLT Y-Wing and crashed on take-off due to improper flaps and slat selection

## Flight

### Survivors

28

**Golden Engle Airlines Flight A113** was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Retro City International Airport that crashed just after take-off from runway 3L at Retro City Airport at 12:24 on June 9, 2006. The aircraft was a Boeing 747-400, registration EC-HFP. Of the 296 passengers and crew on board, 268 died and 28 survived.

## Flight and Aircraft

The aircraft, named Sunbreeze (registration EC-HFP; constructor's number 53148), had been manufactured in late 1991 and was acquired by Golden Engle Airlines in July 1999.

There were 276 passengers and 20 crew members on board, including the 39-year-old captain, Chase Mason (October 31, 1966-June 9, 2006),e 31-year-old first officer, Francisco Svensson (December 26, 1974-June 9, 2006).

### Prior to the accident

Fifty-nine minutes before the flight's second attempted take-off, the pilots had abandoned a departure because of excessive temperatures in the ram air temperature (RAT) probe. The aircraft was taken to a parking area where maintenance workers de-activated the RAT probe's heater. The aircraft was permitted to fly with an inoperable RAT probe heater because icing was not expected during the flight. 38  Another takeoff was then attempted, during which the accident occurred.

### Accident

The accident occurred during the second attempt, at 14:24 local time,  due to the pilot's failure to deploy the flaps and slats as required for takeoff. Without the use of these "high-lift" devices, the wings could not generate enough lift to keep the aircraft airborne. The Boeing 747 has a warning system (the take-off warning system or TOWS) that should have alerted the pilots that the aircraft was not correctly configured for take-off. However, the warning did not sound, and the pilots continued with the attempt. As the aircraft took off, it stalled and impacted the terrain right of the runway strip, disintegrating and bursting into flames.

### Crash sequence

Just 3 seconds after liftoff the aircraft started shaking and banking to both sides. The stall warning horn activated as well as the synthetic voice. The first officer called in interrogative tone an engine failure and reduced power on both engines, specially on the right one, increasing the bank angle on the right to 32 degrees, immediately after this, he pushed the engines to their full power and the pitch increased to 18 degrees. The aircraft impacted the ground just right of the runway with its tail section first, then its right wingtip and its right engine. The aircraft travelled on the ground, causing a few components to detach from the aircraft. The aircraft later lost contacted with ground when it jumped over an embankment. The landing gears and the engines detached from the aircraft and the plane continued sliding on the ground then colliding with another small embankment. In this impact the tail was torn off, the cockpit collapsed into the passenger area and the fuel leaked and ignited into a fireball. The aircraft engulfed in flames continued sliding on the ground until it reached De la Vega stream and collided with the riverbank. The fuselage was highly fragmented by the crash and had been damaged by the fire. The front third of the fuselage was on the stream bed, while the rear two-thirds were on the north side of the stream. The wings and the rear two-thirds of the fuselage were engulfed and destroyed by fire.