August 22, 2009 is supposed to be a very special day for the couple from Ganderkesee near Bremen. It has booked a fantastic sightseeing flight - for 129 euros per person - over the port of Hamburg and is looking forward to a unique view of the "gateway to the world". Flight operator Clipper Aviation, according to its own statements Germany's largest seaplane company, promises a "box seat in the sky". But everything turns out differently, as the report by the Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation (BFU) in Braunschweig shows.
Flyed from Fuhlsbüttel to the port
The 54-year-old woman and her husband, who is three years older, climb into the snow-white Cessna 206 at an air temperature of 20 degrees and slightly cloudy. It is supposed to go up to an altitude of 600 meters. Your 42-year-old pilot is considered an experienced man with more than 7,100 flight hours. After a brief stop for fuel at Fuhlsbüttel Airport, he takes off again from runway 23 at 12:45 p.m. with the destination of the Port of Hamburg. With the wide view over the Hanseatic city, a dream comes true for the couple. At the Alster, the Cessna flies in the direction of Landungsbrücken on the Elbe. The landing is to take place in Baakenhafen. According to the BFU's accident report, the pilot checks and changes various settings of the machine and reports the forthcoming landing to his seaplane station.
Plane overturns immediately upon landing
At 12:52 p.m., eyewitnesses saw the plane heading for Baakenhafen - with the landing gear down. When the floats - the "skids" of the machine - touch down on the water, it immediately rolls over. The windscreen breaks and water penetrates. At 12:56 p.m., the police received an emergency call, and the fire brigade was alerted shortly thereafter. Meanwhile, the pilot was able to save himself from the machine floating upside down in the water. He immediately tries to free the two passengers from the cabin. Despite several desperate attempts and great efforts, he and eyewitnesses who rushed over didn't succeed.
Dramatic Scenes
With tethers, the alarmed rescue workers rush to the plane and try to get the passengers who are strapped into their seats out of the cabin. But the rescue is very difficult because of the high water pressure. Attempts to right the machine again fail. Divers finally manage to get the couple out. As soon as they have the victims in the rubber dinghy, the rescuers begin to resuscitate them. The couple is taken to a hospital. First the woman dies there and a little later her husband. The pilot himself suffers a shock.
The wreck of the Cessna is later recovered. To do this, divers attach ropes to the machine in order to pull it out of the water with a crane and bring it onto a pontoon. Then the fire brigade pumps out the fuel.
There are multiple security indicators
As the BFU writes in its accident report, the landing gear wheels, which are located in the floats, are retracted and extended hydromechanically. The position of the wheels is indicated to the pilot by four blue lights (retracted position for water landings) and four green lights (extended position for landings on solid ground). In addition, there is a mechanical display for the position of the wheel chassis per float. According to the BFU, the Cessna also has an audio announcement as a reminder. Only when the pilot presses a switch does the repeating announcement stop. A checklist should also help the pilot. According to the BFU, it does not contain instructions on how to check the landing gear indicators or the correct position of the landing gear.
Didn't notice wheel landing gear extended
The Cessna 206 is almost new. It was built in 2007 and is state of the art. Ultimately, all safety precautions could not prevent the accident:"After take-off from land, the wheel undercarriage was not retracted, which was not noticed until landing," says the BFU report. The pilot completed the majority of his approximately 7,100 flight hours in conventional aircraft (5,340). Added to this are 1,801 hours in helicopters. Seaplanes only have 34 hours with 73 landings on the water. The pilot is later given a suspended sentence.
Another disaster in 2006
The Canadian Department of Transportation's publication, "Flying with Floats," states that landing on water with the landing gear down is one of the top ten causes of seaplane accidents. In Germany, before the accident in Hamburg in 2009, there had already been an accident with a seaplane in 1985 and 2002, in which an extended landing gear was the cause of the accident.
Another seaplane crashed in Hamburg in 2006 due to a fire. At that time, the machine crashed onto the railway tracks shortly after take-off in the port. The pilot, known in the Hanseatic city as the "Skywriter", and four occupants die. During the flight, fire broke out in the tanks in the fuselage and in the engine of the 44-year-old Beaver DHC-2.