Description

On 29 June 2009, an Airbus A310-300 (7O-ADJ) being operated by Yemenia on a scheduled international passenger flight from Sana'a, Yemen to Moroni, Comoros as flight IY626 was making a circling approach to destination runway 20 when contact was lost. It was subsequently found to have crashed into the sea approximately 9 nm from the airport and been destroyed by the impact with only one out of the 153 occupants who survived the initial impact eventually being found alive with serious injuries and rescued 9 hours later.

Investigation

An Investigation was carried out by a specially constituted Commission of Inquiry established by the Union des Comores as the State of Occurrence and commenced on 2 July 2009. With the assistance of the BEA France, both the FDR and CVR were eventually recovered but some of the most potentially useful CVR data, the off-intercom conversations between the two pilots towards the end of the flight, could not be recovered due to the bad quality of the record taken from the cockpit ambient microphone.

It was established that the 44 year-old Captain had been employed by Yemenia since 1989 and had qualified as an A310 Captain in 2005. He had 7,936 hours total flying experience including 5,314 hours on type and had made 25 trips to Moroni since January 2008. The 49 year-old First Officer had been employed by Yemenia since 1980 and had qualified on type in 2004. He had 3,641 hours total flying experience including 3,076 hours on type and had made 13 trips to Moroni since January 2008.