Description

On 5 April 2019, a Boeing 737-500 (LY-KLJ) being operated by Klasjet on an international passenger charter flight from Madrid to Kaunas, Lithuania as KLJ125 had made a daylight takeoff from Madrid when, having entered IMC, it requested an immediate return, declaring an emergency for reasons which crew lack of language competence prevented being communicated. ATC observed the aircraft’s extremely erratic flightpath on radar and twice attempted to vector it onto a stable ILS approach but both were discontinued and it was then successfully diverted by ATC to a nearby military airbase.

Investigation

After becoming aware of the event four days after it had occurred, the Spanish Commission for the Investigation of Accidents and Incidents (CIAIAC), after initial inquiries, opened an Investigation. Both the CVR and FDR were removed from the aircraft and downloaded but although the FDR data was of value, it was found that the event flight had not been recorded on the CVR for reasons that could not be determined.

It was noted that the 56 year-old Training Captain in command had a total of 13,598 flying hours experience including 4,309 hours on type, all of which had been in command. The 34 year-old First Officer had a total of 2,260 flying hours all but 260 hours of which were on type.