DC-9 CRASH UPDATE - 45 CONFIRMED DEAD

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 KINSHASA 000367 SIPDIS SIPDIS SENSITIVE E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: CASC EAIR PGOV ECON KPKO CG UN SUBJECT: DC-9 CRASH UPDATE - 45 CONFIRMED DEAD REF: A. Kinshasa 349 B. Kinshasa 363 Note: Following report was prepared by Embassy officer serving in Goma, with additional reporting from Kinshasa EmbOffs: ¶1. Summary: Six days after the April 15 crash of a Hewa Bora Airways DC-9 at Goma airport (ref A),and in the absence of an official report, the toll of passenger and ground casualties stands at 121, with 45 dead and about 76 injured. Company and civil aviation officials say they have found the airplane's black box, and are interviewing survivors before making a report. A lawyer for Hewa Bora Airways is now in Goma but is not discussing his mission. The cause of the crash remains unknown. End summary. ¶2. The American missionary family that survived the crash left the city April 19 on a charter flight to Kisangani. EmbOffs met with the family of a Congolese man listed on the manifest who is still missing. Despite initial claims of American citizenship, consular investigation and subsequent interviews with the family have determined that he is/was an asylee or LPR and not an Amcit. ¶3. MONUC personnel and municipal workers believe that most of the human remains from the fuselage and the impacted houses are now removed from the site and buried, or interned in morgues. There are photos of the missing posted near the site and in hospitals. Injured people remain in three Goma hospitals and two small clinics, and two victims are hospitalized in Gisenyi, Rwanda. ¶4. At least two Kinshasa-based civil aviation officials are in Goma to take possession of the DC-9's black box. They are also interviewing the pilot, who survived the crash and saved the life of his co-pilot by pulling her from a cockpit window with the help of bystanders. She suffered psychological trauma and left the city. ¶5. Congolese Civil Aviation Authority (AAC) chief Richard Kasanza confirmed April 21 that the flight data recorder (FDR) had been recovered. He told us the ACC had turned it over to MONUC, which planned to send it to the NTSB in Washington. He said the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) had not been found, but that this was inconsequential since the crew had survived and were being interviewed. We are working to confirm the arrival of the FDR and how long it will take for results to be known. ¶6. Several observers' versions of the accident boil down to a sequence of mechanical failures, and possibly human error. Unable to reach or maintain take-off velocity, the DC-9 rose slightly from the ground, though its wheels might not have left the wet runway when the pilot tried to abort the take-off. At this point a tire ruptured and the pilot lost control of the aircraft. Its skid marks begin in the grass a few meters from the end of the runway and continue down a hill to the wrecked buildings at the edge of a commercial area. ¶7. Kasanza cited the runway conditions (short, choppy, and wet) as the main problem, but conceded that mechanical problems and human error may have played a role as well. He stated that the blown tire was a result of the attempt to stop the plane after takeoff was aborted, not the cause of the crash itself, but that this may have contributed to the pilots' inability to keep the DC-9 from leaving the runway. (Note: Kasanza's agency does not oversee the Congolese airport authority, RVA, which is responsible for the runway. End note.) ¶8. Provincial officials and Hewa Bora employees are keeping a low profile in the post-crash period. Oddly, bystanders booed some MONUC soldiers and officers who returned to the crash site for two days to reposition the wreckage and remove bodies. Governor Julien Paluku declared a strict three-day mourning period beginning April 15, with big fines for any shops that failed to close, but it was business as usual by the following morning. ¶9. Press and citizen commentary most often touches on the need for much faster government action to make safe air transportation available to isolated cities like Goma. But even without a single change in airport or airplane security, flights had resumed operation within two hours of the fatal crash on April 15. ¶10. Comment: Congolese authorities do not know what caused the crash: mechanical failure, human error, poor runway conditions, or some combination of all three. But the accident illustrates weaknesses in all three "legs" of the Congolese aviation sector: the planes/airlines themselves, the national airport authority, and the civil aviation administration that oversees the whole system. This is reflected in our decision to temporarily suspend USG KINSHASA 00000367 002 OF 002 employee travel on locally-owned and -operated commercial airlines (ref B). End comment. GARVELINK