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If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch. But it was the revelation about how Crossair pilots flew the approach to Lugano which did the most to explain the crash of flight 3597. Immediately thereafter Lutz exclaimed "*****, two miles he said, he sees the runway". But the system which allowed him to make such a confounding decision was rotten to the core: if there was one thing the accident revealed, it was that flying in Switzerland wasnt safe. With Lutz at the controls, flight 3597 lifted off from Berlin Tegel Airport at 9:01 p.m., 21 minutes late.

This course deviation caused the plane to crash into a hilltop, 4.05 kilometres (2.52mi) short of and 150 metres (490ft) north of its assigned landing strip, runway 28.

Dont ever descend below the MDA if you cant see the runway.

The accident aircraft, a British-made Avro 146-RJ100, registration HB-IXM, was manufactured in 1996 and logged more than 13,000 hours and 11,500 cycles in total before the crash.

And while the agreement did allow controllers to route planes onto runways 16 and 14 after hours if the weather prevented a VOR/DME approach to runway 28, there was considerable pressure on them to avoid doing this. Four minutes after the crash, she suddenly realized that the plane had not landed and raised the alarm.

This airport was not Sion, but Aosta, across the border in Italy. The pair were accompanied by three flight attendants and 28 passengers for the short hop down to Zurich. Loehrer hesitated before replying "Yes". It was quite probable that he did. The captain (Hans Ulrich Lutz) has a list of incidents prior to flight 3597: 1990 - Accidentally retracts landing gear and writes off Saab 340 (HB-AHA), 1995 - Came within 300 ft of a lake while conducting a night approach to Lugano Airport, Switzerland, 1999 - Flew 50 miles the wrong way on a sightseeing flight (HB-AKI, CRX4718). The crash was the second for Crossair in less than two years, and the people of Switzerland were beginning to ask questions. It was into this hill that Flight 3597 eventually crashed. The AAIB noted that despite his immense experience, Lutz made several fairly basic mistakes during the approach that raised questions about his mental state at the time of the crash. In the late 1960s, he needed three years to get his instrument flight certification because he kept failing the exam.

prior to that he nearly crashed into lake, got lost in Italy, and destroyed a Saab 340 by retracting its gear on the ground

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When Captain Lutz decided to deliberately fly below the MDA, he did so in an environment where that type of behavior had been normalized. WebHans-Ulrich Rudel (19161982), German ground-attack pilot during World War II. Because flight 3597 was on track to land shortly after 10:00, they just missed the cutoff to avoid having to use runway 28.

Based on his statements, he believed he had reached the point where the previous flight said they saw the runway that is, 2.2nm (4km) out. Not long after the crash, the Swiss Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) determined that it was a controlled flight into terrain. It was the specific incidents during his career that truly raised eyebrows at the AAIB.

The visual minimums at the time of the accident were actually inappropriate for using the standard approach to runway 28. Lutz was an extremely experienced pilot with more than 19,500 flight hours approximately 19,300 of which were as pilot in command. Believing that he had already reached the point where the previous crew spotted the runway lights, he decided to deliberately descend below the MDA in an attempt to break through what he thought must be a thin layer of cloud preventing him from copying his colleagues successful landing.

At that time, Swissair was grounded exactly one month before the crash.

Melanie Thornton, the lead singer of the Eurodance group La Bouche, was killed in the crash. Upon reaching MDA of 2,400 feet (730m), Lutz declared that he had "ground contact" and would continue on, then deliberately descended the plane below the MDA without having the required visual contact with either the approach lights or the runway,[2] a major piloting error that ultimately led to the crash. Our journalists will take your contribution on board for their coverage and may follow up with you via email. For example, in 1999, while conducting a privately chartered sightseeing flight to Sion, Lutz accidentally overshot the destination by more than 50 kilometers and ended up in Italy. Lutz exclaimed, "Shit, two miles he said, he sees the runway!" The agreement to bring planes in via runway 28 after 10:00 p.m. was intended solely to reduce noise over German villages, and little thought seemed to have been given to the question of whether this approach was suitable for frequent use by large aircraft. But all of these difficulties by themselves werent sufficient to say much about Lutz, except that he was maybe a little bit slow to learn.

WebIt carries 28 passengers and 5 crew members, which include Hans Ulrich Lutz, a 57 year old Captain, and Stefan Loehrer, a 25 year old First Officer.

His enthusiasm for aviation news and wealth of experience lends itself to some excellent insight, with his work cited in Forbes amongst other publications. prior to that he nearly crashed into lake, got lost in Italy, and destroyed a Saab 340 by retracting its gear on the ground

WebCaptain Lutz had originally been scheduled to land on runway 14, the main landing runway at Zurich, a runway equipped with an Instrument Landing System (ILS) that handles virtually all tasks associated with landing an airplane, including using the plane's auto-pilot to control the angle and speed of descent; all the pilot is required to do in an Crossair also had no anonymous incident reporting system until shortly before the accident, preventing the airline from discovering pilots unsafe habit of violating the MDA on approach to Lugano.

You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here.

Crossair was expanding rapidly and always had a tight budget; its salaries were poor and it struggled to find enough qualified pilots.

Regarded as an exceptionally quiet plane, Swiss carrier Crossair was the largest operator of the Avro RJ100, with 16 aircraft in its fleet.

The AAIB would conclude that the accident was a controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) caused by a series of pilot errors and navigation mistakes that led the plane off-course. The SBC Privacy Policy provides additional information on how your data is processed. This meant that they needed to descend more slowly in order to drop the same amount over the same distance.

Lutz immediately pushed the throttles to go-around power and pulled up to abandon the approach. Ten seconds after deciding to continue past the MDA, he said, Scheisse, two miles he said, he sees the runway! He apparently had no idea that they were still more than three nautical miles from the airport. A few seconds later Lutz said, "Two thousand" and then one second later the synthetic voice gave the "minimums" GPWS message, which was triggered by the radio altimeter reading at 300 feet.

Analyzer of plane crashes.


There were poor visibility conditions due to low clouds, and the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) captured the transmission of a previously-landing Crossair flight informing air traffic control (ATC) that they could not see the runway until 2.2 nautical miles (4.1km; 2.5mi) away. Moments before the crash, Lutz's running commentary indicated to investigators that he thought he was at or near 2.2 nautical miles (4.1km; 2.5mi) from runway 28 because he said, "Someone said he saw the runway late here". Born : 22 Aug 1922: Berlin-Treptow: Died : 27 Dec 1950 (28) Moscow, Russia: If you can help with photo or any information on this Officer please contact us at gummi@uboat.net.

Was it really one mans bad decision, or was it a perfect storm of adverse circumstances?

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This was a violation of the most basic rule of flying any approach: dont descend below the MDA if you cant see the runway. At 22:07 CET, the airplane crashed into a wooded range of hills near the small town of Bassersdorf, around 4km (2.5 miles) short of the runway, where it broke apart and went up in flames. A password reset e-mail has been sent to your address.

He was required to inform Crossair of this second job so that company dispatchers could ensure he complied with flight duty time limits, but while airline management knew of Lutzs activities on an informal basis, no attempt was made to ensure that he adhered to regulatory limits. (How Swiss residents felt about this must not have been given as much thought.)

Based in Alicante, Spain. After an Italian airliner flew into a mountain while on approach to Zrich Airport in 1990, Switzerland installed MSAW systems on runways 16 and 14, but declined to do so on runway 28 as it was rarely used at the time. As a result of the accident, Swiss authorities took numerous measures to try to improve aviation safety in Switzerland.

And even if he did know it was there, his misunderstanding about their distance from the runway might have caused him to believe that they had already passed it. "I want to emphasise that this was a pilot with lots of flight experience. WebHans-Ulrich Rudel (19161982), German ground-attack pilot during World War II. A little bit of sloppiness was probably to be expected. All nine survivors were quickly taken to area hospitals, while a search and rescue operation was launched to find any others who had wandered away into the woods. Hans Ulrich Lutz, Swiss aviator with the Crossair airline, worked as a pilot-in-command and a training pilot, even though his competences were somewhat slim: flying a Saab 340, he failed an upgrade exam to MD-80 eight consecutive times; he crashed an aircraft while sitting on the tarmac (he tried to retract the gear to show the student .

WebHans Ulrich Lutz has been listed as a noteworthy biochemist, researcher by Marquis Who's Who.

An MSAW system detects when an airplane is too low on approach and sounds an alarm in the control tower, allowing controllers to actively intervene to prevent controlled flight into terrain.

To understand this decision, the AAIB began looking through records and conducting interviews to piece together Lutzs flying history. Due to increased azimuth error associated with the use of VORs and lack of vertical guidance (Glide Slope), the MDA is therefore much higher than a DA (Decision Altitude) for an ILS. In this particular incident, Lutz missed his approach into Sion and circled over what he thought was Sion's airport for several minutes before passengers spotted road signs in Italian; the navigation error had taken them over the St. Bernard Pass through the Alps, and the airport they had been circling was in fact located near Aosta, Italy.

Connections Married Ivanka Pistek, July 5, 1942. This time, nope, it was just the shitty pilot. Your web browser is outdated.

Switzerland is an attractive place to work and the country needs specialists. However, flight simulators programmed with the time of day, terrain, and weather Lutz was facing at that time allowed investigators to determine that the only ground Lutz or Lhrer could see was the ground of the hilly terrain over which the plane was flying.

Please enter your email address so that the password reset email can be sent to you account. It was one of these RJ100s that was scheduled to carry out Crossair flight 3597, a regular flight from Berlin, Germany to Zrich, Switzerland on the 24th of November 2001.

There was a famous singer on board who died (Melanie Thornton). While Captain Lutz was an experienced pilot, his competency would come under close scrutiny during the course of the investigation, which concluded that the accident was a controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) caused by a series of pilot errors and navigation mistakes that led the plane off-course. These were the only major incidents that were known to Crossair, but interviews with other Crossair pilots revealed several more.

With our newsletters you get the top stories to your inbox. Nevertheless, he believed that the lights of the airport would come into view at any moment.



All of that having been said, the mentality of pilots like Hans Ulrich Lutz continues to mystify. Select any of the newsletters below to "Subscribe" with your email address {0}.

Ranks. Despite the hilly terrain surrounding it, the approach to runway 28 was not equipped with a Minimum Safe Altitude Warning (MSAW) system, which triggers an alarm if a minimum safe altitude is violated. [2] Even though Lutz finally realized that his inability to see the runway meant he needed to initiate a missed approach maneuver (called a "go-around"), his call for the go-around came too late; the plane's engines were not able to spool up fast enough to generate sufficient thrust to climb above the hill that had been obstructing his view, and the plane crashed into the hilltop at 22:06 CET. This runway change forced Captain Lutz to abandon his planned ILS approach and required First Officer Loehrer to consult the Jeppesen charts for runway 28. Directed by witnesses in a nearby village, local emergency services quickly reached the site, where they were stunned to find survivors running from the forest, backlit by towering flames.

WebWhile Captain Lutz was an experienced pilot, his competence soon came under close scrutiny by investigators from the Swiss Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB). The charts included a new set of approach parameters, of which the higher MDA (Minimum Descent Altitude) was the most crucial piece of information.

Okay.. When Loehrer reported the plane reaching 100 feet above MDA, the CVR records Lutz asking Loehrer, "Do we have ground contact?" Lutz was able to see the lights of villages below the plane, but he was much too far from the airport to see the runway lights, given the conditions.

In that accident, the AAIB found that the pilots both hired from countries in Eastern Europe had not been adequately trained or assessed after coming to Switzerland, and while taking off in low visibility conditions they lost control of the plane. Without a substantial increase in the number of adequately trained inspectors, ICAO wrote, the industry may become essentially self-regulating. The behavior of employees at all levels of Crossair, from pilots all the way to management, showed that this was already occurring. Membership Member of European Complement Network (board member 2001-2006), European Association for Red Cell Research. WebAlfred Schulze-Hinrichs (6 November 1899 23 June 1972) was a Kapitn zur See with the Kriegsmarine during World War II and a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross . The AAIB would conclude that the accident was a controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) caused by a series of pilot errors and navigation mistakes that led the plane off-course. Connections Married Ivanka Pistek, July 5, 1942. European regulations mandated that passenger airliners install TAWS by 2005, but this deadline was far enough away that at the time of the accident Avro hadnt even published a procedure for installing the system on older versions of the RJ100.

Several of those who survived also suffered serious injuries, including Passion Fruit singer Debby St. Maarten, who still required weekly medical care more than a decade after the crash effectively ending her music career. The report also documented Lutz's role in causing the total loss of a Crossair Saab 340 by retracting its landing gear while it was still on the apron, which led to Crossair relieving him of his training captain duties in 1991. In command of Crossair Flight 3597 was 57-year-old Captain Hans Ulrich Lutz, a seasoned pilot with close to 20,000 flight hours.

In fact, if flight 3597 had maintained the MDA up to the point where the runway became visible, they would have had to perform their final descent at an angle greater than 6 degrees, much steeper than is considered safe. At the time of the accident, Lutz had been flying for 13 hours, only part of which was with Crossair, and his rest breaks were almost always too short because he would invariably spend part of his designated rest time working at the flight school. TIL that Captain Lutz, the pilot mainly responsible for the Crossair 3597 crash, piloted a sightseeing tour to the Alps in Switzerland.

1 Dec 1939 : Offiziersanwrter: 1 Nov 1940 : But a number of obstacles prevented him from doing so, not least among them Lutzs vastly superior experience. The aircraft was powered by four Lycoming LF507-1F turbofan engines. Lutz was also known for being extremely quiet and calm at all times, giving off an air of competence and certainty that totally belied the danger of what he was doing. This brought the AAIB back to the decision to use runway 28 in the first place. instead, Lutz was over 4 nautical miles (7.4km; 4.6mi) from the runway, and could not possibly have seen the runway due to the presence of a hill, below the MDA of 2,400 feet (730m), that would have obscured his view. Because of their excessive rate of descent they had reached the MDA earlier in the approach than Lutz had anticipated, and he did not check his DME to confirm how far out they actually were. Consequently, flight 3597 began to descend below the glide path to the runway. If you have questions. There was supposed to be a group of 21 tourists on the flight, but they never showed up, leaving the 97-seat plane two-thirds empty.