Aviaco - Aviacion y Comercio

The exact cause of the accident remains determined.

The cause of the accident was probably a strong gust of wind which tilted the aircraft to the right during final approach to land, causing it to crash to the ground.

The above leads to the conclusion that if the accident was due to meteorological factors, icing would have been the factor most directly responsible. It is assumed that during its flight through innocuous stratiform clouds, the aircraft may have encountered a cumulus congestus where sudden severe icing occurred. The following may have taken place:
a) a sudden change in the aerodynamic characteristics of the aircraft may have caused stalling without giving the captain time to initiate recovery action,
b) the aircraft may have lost height rapidly, down to a level where the downdrafts over the lee slope swept it into a lower zone of erratic turbulence that sent it out of control,
c) when icing occurred, the captain may, in the belief he had already passed the mountain divide, have decided to fly below the freezing level which, as he knew, was to be found at about 2 200 metres. It is possible that in assumptions (a) and (b) turbulence within the cumuli may have been a contributing factor. Under severe icing conditions, the mechanical de-icing equipment is practically inoperative. About 40 minutes before the accident, the mountain divide was over- flown, also at level 95, by a scheduled Santiago-Madrid flight. This aircraft found nothing unusual to report, since light icing and turbulence are the normal accompaniments of winter weather in a low pressure area. This fact however, in no way precludes the possibility that shortly thereafter conditions of severe icing may have prevailed.

The fact that EC-AEJ was permitted to takeoff without the exact position of EC-ANJ being known. During avoidance action taken by EC-ANJ, loss of control occurred, and the aircraft fell into the sea.

The exact cause of the accident could not be determined with certainty. However, ADF approach to Son Bonet Airport was cleared by Control Centre as no other aircraft was in flight at the time, and the aircraft was asked to report on starting its procedure turn, i. e. after 4 minutes on the outbound track. If the aircraft did actually reach flight level 60 above MJ, since it did not carry out the holding procedure it is impossible to determine its rate of descent during let-down. To perform such a manoeuvre - once the radio compass has indicated passage over the radio beacon - the pilot should adjust his directional gyro to the heading of 195" indicated on the aerodrome chart (see Figure 3). In other words, he should have placed his aircraft on the outbound track toward Palma Bay and maintained this heading during three minutes after which he should have taken a 240° heading during one minute and then reported his procedure turn to Control. Now if a line is drawn from the radio beacon MJ to the site of the accident, it will be seen that the direction of the line is 295°, i. e. that it forms an angle of 100° with the let-down heading (195°). It is possible, therefore, that in setting the directional gyro the pilot mistakenly added 100 degrees. The distance of 14.5 km corresponds approximately to the distance from the beacon of a procedure turn. The possibility of a 14-knot wind causing such a displacement in the track of the aircraft within such a short period of time must be ruled out. Poor weather conditions and the rainfall prevailing at the time of the accident, coupled with the turbulence reported to EC-AHI on the Barcelona-Palma route might have influenced a pilot whose experience was limited.

The total discharge of the air system bottles, owing to the internal leak in the landing gear selector, prevented brake functioning.

The accident was due to personnel errors.
1) The failure of radiotelephony compelled the pilot to concentrate on the green light during the approach manoeuvre,
2) The pilot's attention was so distracted that he operated close to the speed limit. Although such a distraction is infrequent, statistics show that it may occur after 5 000, 7 000 and even after 13 000 flying hours.