Beja: Air Astana plane lands the third attempt at the course of BA11.
“Mayday, mayday”. The story of the plane that was "uncontrollable" but did "spotless landing" in Beja.
The airplane “uncontrollable” He managed to land safely in Beja. But only at the 3rd attempt. The first was almost fatal. The hypothesis ditching was weighted twice, but it has never been attempted.
The third attempt, and after having been considered an attempt to ditching, He landed safely in Beja aircraft Embraer ERJ-passengers of Air Astana, the airline of Kazakhstan, who was struggling to land at Lisbon airport.
The device had six people on board - two pilots and four technical representatives - when announced an emergency: had run out of instruments and the pilots did not have access to the necessary controls to land the plane.
Two hours after having taken flight, and the possibility on the table you have to do two amaragens, the plane finally landed at the military base of Beja. But only at the third attempt. After the first two failed, the last was "spotless", according to the account of a journalist who attended all.
The Embraer ERJ-, an airplane which has a maximum capacity of 120 passengers, He had been in Alverca maintenance in OGMA workshops just to be with electronic problems.
Shortly after takeoff, the crew asked for help. "Mayday, Mayday, We lose control ", You can hear the sound recording of communications between the aircraft and the control tower. "I'm going back to the airport. The plane lost the ability to fly. Totally lost control of the airplane and we need to land in the sea as soon as possible ", He defended the pilot, eventually be deterred by the aviation authorities.
Following the maintenance stop, the aircraft would return to Kazakhstan. Before that, would have to fly to Lisbon to test the instrument panel. When the Observer found, the journey that the device made between Alverca and the Greater Lisbon was part of a test flight that, from the start, It was expected that maintenance.
It was then that the unexpected happened. While trying to land at the airport in the capital, Embraer ERJ-command of Air Astana failed and the pilots lost control device, starting to circulate the air in erratic trajectory. And this is visible in the maps Flightradar24, a website that provides the aircraft display from around the world, In real time.
By then, since the pilot had activated an emergency situation.
The first decision of the crew was conducting the device to Sado Estuary zone for the case to be necessary to make a ditching, i.e, grounding the appliance in water. This has never been attempted ditching, but it would not be the only part of the emergency flight plans. To follow, the plane dropped fuel in Coruche area (Ribatejo) to lighten.
From there, the plane of Air Astana started walking toward the Tagus Estuary region, once again prepared for the possibility of making a ditching. That was also never attempted. But it had to make an emergency landing. That left the Portuguese authorities decide that the safest place to do.
Observer text
