DHL Fatal in Lithuania, 11/25

What’s suspicious about the location being just left of the localizer for the ILS19?
 
Based on the track, it’s almost like the ILS was calibrated to the wrong location. A smooth 3 degree descent into an area short of the runway.

At least most of the crew survived, hopefully we get some more info.
 
Shouldn't be a factor on the ILS. There are several surveillance cameras showing all but the last seconds before impact from different angles.
 
Spinka said:
Shouldn't be a factor on the ILS. There are several surveillance cameras showing all but the last seconds before impact from different angles.
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Some different footage in this clip
 
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TCABM said:
I’d be more willing to speculate on a package bomb than an EW mort, but stranger things have happened.
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Especially considering a press release on November 5th by Lithuania, warned of a plot by the Russian GRU to blow up DHL aircraft with incendiary bombs. "Lithuanian Prosecutor General Nida Grunskiene told reporters Vilnius was investigating the parcels and arrests had been made in 'Lithuania and elsewhere'."
 
TCABM said:
What’s suspicious about the location being just left of the localizer for the ILS19?
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There are and have been many unusual activities in the cyber world and in the meat world in Europe over the last few months. We here in the States are not necessarily hearing about many of them.

From physical attacks on underwater Comm cables to cyber attacks on essential utilities and industries, it would be a very short leap to wonder if aviation navigational systems or facilities might also find themselves targeted. Such attacks would certainly cause serious problems for civil and military aviation, if proven.

Hopefully, some capable government agency might look into the possibility of a MIJI event if aircraft and ground data indicate unexplained differences.

And yes, ILS is not necessarily immune to sabotage, though it would likely take the resources of a nation state or a very capable player (physically, financially and technologically) to pull it off. GPS spoofing is relatively easier.

It’s a strange world we live in.
 
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was there much snow on the ground at the time?

E145, Presque Isle ME USA, 2019 | SKYbrary Aviation Safety

On 4 March 2019, an Embraer 145 attempting to land off an ILS approach at Presque Isle in procedure-minima weather conditions flew an unsuccessful first approach and a second in similar conditions which ended in a crash landing abeam the intended landing runway substantially damaging the...
skybrary.aero skybrary.aero

"Three days after the accident, the FAA conducted a flight inspection of the runway 01 ILS and confirmed that the LOC signal was out of tolerance by about 200 feet to the right of course. The depth of accumulated snow around the LOC signal transmitter was estimated at between 2 feet (60 cm) and 5 feet (1.5 metres) in the area of the LOC signal transmitter. After this snow had been removed, another FAA inspection six days later found that both LOC and GS signals were within the required tolerances and the ILS was returned to service the following day."
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
was there much snow on the ground at the time?
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That’s being looked at.
Code: 
 Investigative updates
Later in the day on 25 November, the Polish Air Navigation Service Agency performed calibration tests on the Instrument Landing System in Vilnius, in part for investigative purposes to help determine if the ILS played any role in the crash of BCS18D.

www.flightradar24.com

Swiftair 737 crashes on final approach to Vilnius airport | Flightradar24 Blog

A Swiftair 737-400 operating for DHL crashed while on final approach to Vilnius Airport on 25 November 2024.
www.flightradar24.com www.flightradar24.com
 
TCABM said:
Man, that’s a term I haven’t heard in a long while.
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If you’ve ever been MIJI’d, you’d remember it. Oddly enough, the Czechs and the Poles produced some of the best equipment for that sort of thing. Once upon a time.
 
orca64 said:
If you’ve ever been MIJI’d, you’d remember it. Oddly enough, the Czechs and the Poles produced some of the best equipment for that sort of thing. Once upon a time.
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Oh, I know it. Early in my .mil career I was Old Crow, then 9/11 happened.
 
orca64 said:
And yes, ILS is not necessarily immune to sabotage, though it would likely take the resources of a nation state or a very capable player (physically, financially and technologically) to pull it off. GPS spoofing is relatively easier.
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It wouldn't necessarily be that difficult. One person gets on the airfield, gets to the antennas and messes with something. Granted it would be a guessing game what to do and what effect it would have. Most US ILS have monitoring capability to alert the FAA when something is off.

I do wonder what happened though, the aircraft appears to be low and dragging it in, when it suddenly pitches and rolls. I wonder if they either weren't tracking the ILS correctly then overcorrected. Or once they went visual mistook something else, like a road, for the runway and when they realized their mistake overcorrected. Looking at Google Maps, I don't see anything off the end that should be easily mistaken for a runway, no straight roads or anything.

Or perhaps something mechanical happened causing a loss of control.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
"Three days after the accident, the FAA conducted a flight inspection of the runway 01 ILS and confirmed that the LOC signal was out of tolerance by about 200 feet to the right of course. The depth of accumulated snow around the LOC signal transmitter was estimated at between 2 feet (60 cm) and 5 feet (1.5 metres) in the area of the LOC signal transmitter. After this snow had been removed, another FAA inspection six days later found that both LOC and GS signals were within the required tolerances and the ILS was returned to service the following day."
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One snippet of the video in post #7 above and taken from a quarter front left view appears to show the aircraft enter a steep left turn very close to the ground and fly nose down. The left wing hits a power line (the flash is clearly visible) before the plane impacts the surface and explodes.

It looks like a last second violent manuever to align with the runway, but no definite conclusion can be drawn.
 
TCABM said:
crows.org

Association of Old Crows

More More Courses Coming sooN! More More More More More Jobs Advancing Electromagnetic Warfare TOGETHER Learn More Grab your AOC merchandise, apparel, history books, & more Learn More Advocating for…
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Wow. It looks like they’re teaching people how to do it. Is that a good thing? I was thinking Old Crow would have been a Call Sign, like it was the jamor or the jamee
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
was there much snow on the ground at the time?

E145, Presque Isle ME USA, 2019 | SKYbrary Aviation Safety

On 4 March 2019, an Embraer 145 attempting to land off an ILS approach at Presque Isle in procedure-minima weather conditions flew an unsuccessful first approach and a second in similar conditions which ended in a crash landing abeam the intended landing runway substantially damaging the...
skybrary.aero skybrary.aero

"Three days after the accident, the FAA conducted a flight inspection of the runway 01 ILS and confirmed that the LOC signal was out of tolerance by about 200 feet to the right of course. The depth of accumulated snow around the LOC signal transmitter was estimated at between 2 feet (60 cm) and 5 feet (1.5 metres) in the area of the LOC signal transmitter. After this snow had been removed, another FAA inspection six days later found that both LOC and GS signals were within the required tolerances and the ILS was returned to service the following day."
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Off topic, it's surprising they had the ILS in service at Presque Isle in 2019. Way back in the 70s and 80s we always reverted to the NDB at DTW the first few hours of snow and snow removal. Other than the sim those were the only NDBs we flew on the line.
 
On another forum there is info from comms. It seems they may have misunderstood a frequency, so could have been dealing with that and lost SA.
 
Pinecone said:
On another forum there is info from comms. It seems they may have misunderstood a frequency, so could have been dealing with that and lost SA.
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I've seen commenters say there is no way a professional flight crew would get so distracted by a radio they would crash. I'm guessing they have forgotten Eastern 401, that crashed because of a light bulb.
 
Havent read through this one but sounds similar to first air 6560
 
midwestpa24 said:
I've seen commenters say there is no way a professional flight crew would get so distracted by a radio they would crash. I'm guessing they have forgotten Eastern 401, that crashed because of a light bulb.
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It’s hard to think of an airline crash that this couldn’t be said about. There’s no way a professional flight crew would make such a mistake … except for the times that they have. Invulnerability is the mother of all hazardous attitudes.
 
What I find most surprising about Eastern 401 wasn’t the lack of CRM but the lack of controller intervention. “How’s everything comin’ along out there” does nothing to alert the crew about their altitude deviation. But, a different ATC system (early ARTS III) and different procedures back then. Today a safety alert would immediately be issued.
  • Lack of air traffic controller intervention - The controller was aware of the altitude deviation from the assigned 2,000 foot altitude but did not believe the indicated deviation was real. Further, the controller was under no requirement to notify the flight of the deviation or to issue instructions to correct the deviation.
 
midwestpa24 said:
I've seen commenters say there is no way a professional flight crew would get so distracted by a radio they would crash. I'm guessing they have forgotten Eastern 401, that crashed because of a light bulb.
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Thanks to "Air Disasters", there's also United 173.

Fixated on a gear issue they flew in landing configuration for an hour in a hold and finally ran out of fuel. When landing gear was lowered something broke. Gear free fell and hit so hard it broke a micro switch. So one gear light wasnt illuminated, but it turned out it was actually locked.
 
luvflyin said:
Wow. It looks like they’re teaching people how to do it. Is that a good thing? I was thinking Old Crow would have been a Call Sign, like it was the jamor or the jamee
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It’s a professional organization The physics and mechanics of nuclear weapons or IEDs is public knowledge; acquiring the skills, equipment, and supplies to apply that knowledge is the difficult part. Same concept.
 
Ski cam video from just up the hill. Appears to be an accelerated stall leading to impact. Don’t watch it if fireballs are triggering.

 
TCABM said:
Ski cam video from just up the hill. Appears to be an accelerated stall leading to impact. Don’t watch it if fireballs are triggering.

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You think they broke out at 500agl, noticed the ground and started pulling, stalled it and dropped that wing?


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Peter Anderson said:
You think they broke out at 500agl, noticed the ground and started pulling, stalled it and dropped that wing?


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Wouldn’t be the first time in the history of CFIT for that to happen.
 
Pure speculation until we get the black box data, but my $0.02 is PM was mucking about eithbrwdio, PF tried to help and had to look down to do so. Meanwhile, despite visual conditions + ILS and LNAV/VNAV data available and, likely, operating normally, the PF let the nose drop a bit low for too long and by the time he realizes it, the recovery was too late and sudden causing a stall, dropping the wing as viewed in the video.

Doing the night freight myself, the level of awareness deteriorates and small, unexpected things can become big distractions. Adherence to SOPs will save your bacon. No landing clearance despite the runway being right there? Go around and figure it out, don't have either of your heads down at 500' AGL.

FWIW, for those that don't know, the radio tuning units and audio control panels in these jets are not on the dash Infront of you but down by your thigh - far from the view of your flight instrumentation.
 
Bill said:
Not familiar with this piece of equipment.
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With the radio. There’s some speculation the PM went to the wrong freq when switched to tower which could explain why there’s no comms with tower.
 
Peter Anderson said:
You think they broke out at 500agl, noticed the ground and started pulling, stalled it and dropped that wing?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
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Does look like there was a brief, abrupt pitch-up right after it comes into frame- then the nose drops...
Flight data recorder should tell the story, no?
 
what time body clock was this for the accident crew? May not be a factor at all, just thinking out loud, the question just reminds me of the UPS 1354 accident, where fatigue management on the part of the FO was deemed contributory to the overal lack of "glovesave ability" implied in the 2-pilot operation concept.
 
hindsight2020 said:
what time body clock was this for the accident crew? May not be a factor at all, just thinking out loud, the question just reminds me of the UPS 1354 accident, where fatigue management on the part of the FO was deemed contributory to the overal lack of "glovesave ability" implied in the 2-pilot operation concept.
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Most likely a contributing factor. Local time at their destination was just before 0530 in the morning and local time where they departed from would have been 0430 in the morning.
 
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