DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A plane involved in a fatal crash near Dubai International Airport was flying too close to larger aircraft, a preliminary investigative report released Sunday found.
The May 16 crash of the Diamond DA62 saw the aircraft roll upside-down in air and smash into a park near the airport at high speed, killing the three Britons and one South African who were working on board, according to the report by the United Arab Emirates’ General Civil Aviation Authority.
The twin propeller-engine light aircraft first lost control in the wake of a Thai Airways Airbus A350 landing at Dubai’s airport, the world’s busiest for international travel. The pilot corrected but lost control seven seconds later, the report found.
The plane crashed some 5 miles southeast of the airport in Mushrif Park, near the city-state’s water reservoirs, and was destroyed on impact. The plane carried no voice recorder, nor a flight data recorder, known colloquially as a “black box,” as it was not required to do so because of its small size, the report said.
The plane, belonging to Flight Calibration Services Ltd. of Shoreham, England, was being used to calibrate the approach systems at the airport. The work involved resurfacing and replacing light and support infrastructure on the airport’s southern runway.
The plane crashed on its 10th approach to the airfield that day.
The preliminary report found that air traffic controllers were not consistent in their warnings about how closely the small aircraft was following preceding traffic on its approaches to the parallel runway.
“The radar monitor recording indicated that there was an air traffic control inconsistency in advising the DA62 of the expected occurrence of hazards caused by wake turbulence from traffic,” the report said.
Dubai International Airport declined to comment. Flight Calibration Services Ltd. did not respond to requests for comment.
A Section on 06/24/2019