Plane crash Safety regulations tightened after crash near Nassenwil ZH
On January 10, 2000, shortly after take-off from Zurich Airport, a Crossair plane crashed almost vertically into a field in Nassenwil ZH: the accident, which today marks the 25th anniversary, was due to an initially harmless navigation error.
10.01.2025, 04:31
SDA
When the fire department arrived at the scene of the accident that Monday evening at around 6 p.m., the emergency services saw a crater in the open grassland where it was burning. They were still wondering where the plane was, as they later said. There was hardly anything to be seen of the aircraft, a Saab 340B belonging to Crossair at the time.
The final report of the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau stated that the degree of destruction of the aircraft was extremely high. The majority of the debris had drilled about three meters deep into the cultivated land, and only 20 percent of the pieces were found outside the crater.
Witnesses said that the plane had crashed out of the clouds in a steep descent. In the last data recording shortly before the impact, its nose was lowered by 63 degrees.
A flight of two minutes and 17 seconds
The Crossair flight to Dresden took off at 17:54 and 10 seconds in the dark on Zurich Airport's runway 28 heading west. Two minutes and 17 seconds later, the aircraft, which was carrying seven passengers and three crew members, touched down near Au in the municipality of Nassenwil. There were no survivors.
As the accident was not due to a defect in the aircraft, the focus was on the pilots. Among other things, the final report mentions inappropriate reactions to tower instructions. And that the pilot had almost certainly lost his spatial orientation.
The accident took its course when the pilots were instructed after around one minute of climbing in a westerly direction to make a large left turn towards the "Zurich East" rotating beacon, which is located in Thurgau and therefore to the north-east of the airport.
A right turn instead of a left turn
The co-pilot typed in the relevant data. However, he did not enter the direction of turn to the left. The flight management system then initiated a right turn, as this was the shorter one to turn to the desired rotating beacon.
According to the final report, this error did not necessarily have to lead to a dangerous flight situation - it was initially a navigational error. Air traffic control also noticed this and finally cleared the right turn.
However, the pilot was apparently unaware of this and, confused by the displays or incorrect assumptions, steered the aircraft into a spiral dive. The plane turned more and more to the right, causing the nose to pitch more and more - the plane then rapidly lost altitude and became faster and faster.
Favorable pilots and rapid training
The crash led to heated debates. This was because there was a shortage of pilots in the aviation industry at the time; Crossair made particular use of the East, where it hired cheap workers who were retrained relatively quickly.
The pilot of the ill-fated plane was an experienced 42-year-old Moldovan who had learned to fly in the Soviet Union. Crossair hired him from Moldovian Airlines in the summer of 1999. On the evening of the accident, he, who spoke only passable English, was taking off from Zurich for only the fourth time. The 35-year-old co-pilot came from Slovakia and had joined Crossair in 1999.
The confusion in the cockpit as to the actual flight attitude of the aircraft was probably due, among other things, to the different displays in use. Whereas in Russian aircraft the horizon is fixed and the image of the aircraft turns, in Western aircraft the aircraft remains fixed and the horizon moves - the turn is therefore just the opposite.
In addition, the pilot did not use the autopilot during the labor-intensive phase, which would probably have prevented the accident according to the final report. However, at the time of the accident, there were no binding regulations, and the use of the autopilot was considered an aviation weakness in the former Russian environment.
As a result of the Nassenwil crash, safety and training regulations were tightened.
