Henan Airlines Flight 8387

Henan Airlines Flight 8387 was a domestic flight operated by Henan Airlines from Harbin to Yichun, China. On the night of 24 August 2010, the Embraer E190 operating the route crashed on approach to Yichun Lindu Airport in fog. Forty-four of the 96 people on board were killed.[1] It was the first hull loss and the first fatal accident involving the Embraer E190, and as of 2020, the deadliest.[2]

Henan Airlines Flight 8387
An Embraer E190 of Henan Airlines (still in its previous Kunpeng Airlines livery) similar to the accident aircraft
Accident
Date24 August 2010 (2010-08-24)
SummaryControlled flight into terrain
SiteNear Lindu Airport, Yichun, China
47°45′19″N 129°00′57″E
Aircraft
Aircraft typeEmbraer E190 LR
OperatorHenan Airlines
IATA flight No.VD8387
ICAO flight No.KPA8387
RegistrationB-3130
Flight originHarbin Taiping International Airport, Harbin, China
DestinationLindu Airport, Yichun, China
Occupants96
Passengers91
Crew5
Fatalities44
Injuries52
Survivors52

The final investigation report, released in June 2012, concluded that the flight crew failed to observe safety procedures for operations in low visibility.[3][4]

Airport and weather

Yichun Lindu Airport, in the Heilongjiang Province, has a runway 2.3 km (1.4 mi) long, 45 m (148 ft) wide, qualified to operate with single-aisle airliners like Airbus A320 and Boeing 737. The airport started operations on 26 August 2009, one year before the accident. On the day of the accident the airport had two flight controllers, they were both in good health conditions and qualified. The final report also confirmed that all safety procedures had been performed correctly, that the airfield navigation and communications equipment was working correctly and that the runway was serviceable.[3]

The airport is located in a valley, with about 90% relative humidity, especially in the afternoon, from 17:00 until 21:00. The rapid temperature drop with little wind provide the conditions for a fog formation known as radiation fog, characterised by a thick and low fog that significantly impacts operations. In September 2009, one month after the start of operations at Yichun airport, China Southern Airlines decided not to operate at night at that airport due to concerns with the safety of operations.[5]

On the night of the accident, the airport's meteorological observatory issued bulletins stating the visibility conditions. At 19:00, the visibility was 1.0 km (0.62 mi), by 21:00 it was 8.0 km (5.0 mi). At 21:08 the airport issued a special bulletin reporting that visibility was reduced to 2.8 km (1.7 mi) and decreasing rapidly.[3]

Accident
Location of the accident shown within China.

Flight 8387 departed Harbin Airport at 20:51, at 21:10 the aircraft obtained the weather report from Yichun Airport and they were told the visibility was 2,800 m (9,200 ft) .[3] At 21:16 the crew were alerted to dense fog at the airport and within the next ten minutes they confirmed a decision height of 440 m (1,440 ft) for a VOR/DME approach to Runway 30. At 21:28:19 the airport controller told the Flight 8387 that although the vertical visibility was ok the horizontal visibility was bad. At 21:28:38 the aircraft overflew the airport and was seen by the airport controller. At 21:33 they completed a procedural turn for the approach, at 21:36 the autopilot was disengaged. At 21:37 the aircraft had descended to the 440 m (1,440 ft) decision height but the pilot could not see the runway. At 21:38 the aural height warning started, although the crew could not see the runway and had passed the decision height they did not do a missed approach procedure and the aircraft hit the ground.[3]

According to Yichun officials preliminary observations, the aircraft broke apart while it was in the process of landing at around 21:36 local time (13:36 UTC), while the airport was enclosed with fog.[6] The aircraft touched down around 1.5 km (0.93 mi) short of the runway, then caught fire.[6][7] The wreckage of the fuselage came to a rest 700 m (2,300 ft) from the runway.[6] Some passengers escaped through gaps in the fuselage of the cabin.[7][8]

Details surrounding the crash were unclear in the immediate aftermath of the incident; a local official reported that the aircraft broke in two as it was landing, and that passengers were thrown from the aircraft, though some survivors said that it remained intact until it came to a rest away from the runway.[9]

Subsequent investigations concluded that the first impact was with trees, 1,100 m (3,600 ft) from the runway threshold, at 21:38:08. Thereafter, the aircraft hit the ground with the wheels of main landing gear, 1,080 m (3,540 ft) from the landing runway threshold, running on the ground a distance of 870 m (2,850 ft), when the engines collided with the ground. With this impact, the wing fuel tanks ruptured, spilling fuel and causing the fire. The survivors left the aircraft by the door behind the cockpit and through openings in the fuselage. Due to the impact, emergency exits could not be opened, and a large amount of smoke accumulated in the cabin. The pilot, who survived the accident, could not organize nor conduct the passengers evacuation.[3]

Aircraft

The aircraft involved was an Embraer E190 LR, a twin-engined jet airliner registered in China as B-3130. It was built in Brazil in 2008, with manufactures serial number 19000223, and delivered to the airline in December 2008. At the time of accident, the aircraft had flown 5,110 hours and had completed 4,712 flight cycles.[3]

Casualties

The aircraft was in a two-class configuration with six business seats and 92 economy seats but at the time of accident had only 91 passengers.[3] In addition to the passengers, the aircraft had a crew of five (two flight crew, a purser, flight attendant and security officer), for a total of 96 on board.[3]

Initial reports suggested that 53 people survived the crash, while 43 were found dead at the scene; later reports corrected the death toll to 42 because the body of one victim was torn apart.[10][11][12] Most of the dead were seated in the rear of the aircraft.[10] Of the 54 survivors, 17 had only minor injuries but two were seriously burned and died in hospital.[3]

Many passengers were participants of a national conference on human resources and employment, including vice minister Sun Baoshu and other officials of the Chinese Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security. Two participants from Chengdu were among the fatalities.[13]

The pilot survived the accident, though he sustained heavy facial injuries.[14][15]

Nationalities of casualties
Nationality Fatalities Total
Passengers Crew
China 39 4 43
Taiwan 1 0 1
Total 40 4 44

Aftermath

Crews immediately began searching for survivors, although the efforts were hampered by the heavy fog.[10] This phase of the rescue operation lasted for around eight hours before personnel at the scene began clearing the wreckage the morning after the accident.[10]

Henan Airlines cancelled all flights in the days after the incident and fired the airline's general manager. Nationally, Chinese airlines performed increased safety checks in response to the crash.[16]

The Administration for Industry and Commerce of Henan Province announced days after the incident that it had rescinded the enterprise name registration of Henan Airlines, and demanded that the airline operator restore its original name of Kunpeng Airlines. The administration cited as reasons for its decision that the name Henan Airlines had caused public misunderstanding and greatly damaged the image of the province, which holds no stake in the airline operator.[17][18] This move was immediately met with media criticism, which questioned the validity of the administration's interference with Henan Airlines' rights to choice of name. It was also revealed that the province had offered favorable conditions to attract the airline operator to adopt its current name, and celebrated the renaming afterwards.[19]

On August 31, Henan Airlines announced that it would pay 960,000 yuan (around $140,000 USD) to the relatives of each person killed in the crash. The payment was required under PRC civil aviation law.[20]

Investigation

Both the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) and the aircraft's manufacturer, Embraer, sent teams of investigators to the crash site.[10][21] The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board appointed an accredited representative, as the aircraft's General Electric CF34 engines were made in the U.S.[22] The flight recorders were recovered at the scene and sent to Beijing for analysis.[6]

Early in the investigation, the focus of the investigation were the qualifications of the pilot, as it emerged that upwards of a hundred pilots flying for Shenzhen Airlines, Henan Airlines' parent company, had falsified their claims of flying experience.[23]

Investigators from the State Administration of Work Safety concluded that the captain, on his first flight into Yichun, switched off the autopilot and approached the runway covered by radiation fog despite the fact that a visibility of 2,800 m (9,200 ft) was below the minimum of 3,600 m (11,800 ft).[4][3] In addition, the crew descended below minimum descent altitude although visual contact with the runway had not been established.[24]

The crew also failed to initiate a missed approach when the radio altimeter callouts indicated that the airplane was near the ground and the communication and cooperation within the crew was insufficient, despite the known safety risks at that airport.[4][3]

On December 25, 2014, the pilot was sentenced to three years in prison for his role in the accident.[25]

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References
  1. "China passenger plane crashes in north-east". BBC News. August 24, 2010. Retrieved August 24, 2010.
  2. "Accident description". Aviation Safety.net. August 24, 2010. Retrieved August 25, 2010.
  3. "河南航空有限公司黑龙江伊春 Yichun "8·24" 特别重大飞机坠毁事故调查报告" [Henan Airlines Heilongjiang Yichun "8·24" Investigation report of a particularly serious aircraft crash]. CSAWS. June 29, 2012. Archived from the original on 5 April 2013. Retrieved May 3, 2014. Translated article (Note: this translation was made automatically from the original (in Chinese) and has low technical quality, lends itself only to specific queries)
  4. "Henan Airlines E190 at Yichun on Aug 24th 2010, impacted terrain short of runway and burst into flames". AeroInside. June 29, 2012. Retrieved May 3, 2014.
  5. Saiget, Robert (25 August 2010). "Safety questions swirl after China plane crash". Sinchew. Retrieved 5 May 2014.
  6. Simon Hradecky (August 24, 2010). "Crash: Henan Airlines E190 at Yichun on Aug 24th 2010, burst into flames after landing". Aviation Herald. Retrieved August 27, 2010.
  7. "黑龙江伊春一载有96人客机失事 部分乘客难生还" [Fuselage broke when Yichun crashed landing]. NetEase. Xinhua News Agency. August 24, 2010. Archived from the original on 27 August 2010. Retrieved August 24, 2010.Translated article(Note: this translation was made automatically from the original (in Chinese) and has low technical quality, lends itself only to specific queries).
  8. "China plane crash survivor describes severe turbulence". Los Angeles Times. August 25, 2010. Archived from the original on August 28, 2010. Retrieved August 25, 2010.
  9. Lafraniere, Sharon (August 24, 2010). "Plane Crashes in Northeastern China, Killing 42". The New York Times. Retrieved August 25, 2010.
  10. "Heavy fog shrouds NE China airport as plane crash rescue continues overnight". Xinhua. August 25, 2010. Retrieved August 25, 2010.
  11. "Officials correct China plane crash death toll to 42". Xinhua. August 25, 2010. Retrieved August 25, 2010.
  12. "伊春失事飞机已搜救出53人" [Yichun crash plane has searched and rescued 53 people]. NetEase. China News Service. August 25, 2010. Archived from the original on 7 March 2012. Retrieved May 4, 2014.Translated article(Note: this translation was made automatically from the original (in Chinese) and has low technical quality, lends itself only to specific queries).
  13. "Chinese minister hurt in jet crash". www.chinadaily.com.cn. Retrieved 2019-03-27.
  14. "China plane crash flight recorder found after 42 killed". BBC News. August 25, 2010. Retrieved August 25, 2010.
  15. Final report, section (A) After the accident: "The captain did not organize directing passengers to evacuate(...)"
  16. "Chinese carriers review safety checks after air crash". Flightglobal.com. 26 August 2010. Retrieved 26 August 2010.
  17. ""河南航空"撤销 "鲲鹏航空"恢复" ["Henan Airlines" revocation "Kangpeng Airlines" recovery]. People's Daily Online. 2010-08-27. Retrieved 2010-08-28.Translated article(Note: this translation was made automatically from the original (in Chinese) and has low technical quality, lends itself only to specific queries).
  18. Blanchard, Ben (28 August 2010). "China's Henan tells crash airline not to use its name". Reuters. Retrieved 28 August 2010.
  19. "河南航空岂能如此"被鲲鹏"" [Henan Airlines can be so "being Peng Peng"]. Sina. Beijing Times. 2010-08-29. Retrieved 2010-08-29.Translated article(Note: this translation was made automatically from the original (in Chinese) and has low technical quality, lends itself only to specific queries).
  20. "NE China plane crash victims to receive compensation". Xinhua. 31 August 2010. Retrieved 7 September 2010.
  21. "Embraer sends crew to probe China plane crash". Reuters. August 24, 2010. Retrieved August 25, 2010.
  22. "DCA10WA087". NTSB.
  23. "Chinese pilots lied about flying records". BBC News Online. 6 September 2010. Retrieved 7 September 2010.
  24. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2013-01-01. Retrieved 2012-09-15.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  25. 伊春空难机长6月刑满 幸存者称对其恨不起来 [Yichun air force captain was sentenced in June. Survivors said they could not hate it.]. news.sina.com.cn (in Chinese). Retrieved 2019-02-26.
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