Terrible accident at Conakry International Airport, Guinea where a TAP A320 after landing collided with a motorcycle that was crossing the runway.

According to the Newsavia website, the two occupants of the motorcycle died horribly after being sucked into an engine. The driver of the motorcycle was identified as a security agent responsible to protect airport facilities.

 

From Newsavia:

https://newsavia.com/a320neo-da-tap-colide-com-uma-moto-ao-aterrar-em-conacri-motociclista-morreu/amp/

From The Aviation Herald

https://avherald.com/h?article=4fdbe2da&opt=0

Having witnessed the result of people being sucked through an engine, I can attest, that is an awful way to go. So very sad.

4 hours ago, GACSavannah said:

Having witnessed the result of people being sucked through an engine, I can attest, that is an awful way to go. So very sad.

I can imagine how horrible that would be to see. I’d hate to witness it and I’d also hate to be on the crew who has to examine the aftermath.

When I was around 8 or 9 I unfortunately witnessed a motorcyclist with a female passenger drive under an 18 wheeler style flatbed trailer that was pulling out of a Home Depot. The driver of the trailer was safely passing across the 3 south bound lanes of traffic to get across to the 3 north bound lanes. My mom and I were stopped in the left lane and traffic was stopped in the right lane letting the rig cross to the other side. The center lane was open and the motorcycle drove right into the trailer, decapitating both the rider and his lady passenger. Unfortunately I was in the right front passenger seat and saw the whole thing. It was something I thought about almost everyday for quite a few years and is probably why I’m a very observant when driving. It was probably also the reason I never wanted to be an EMT, fireman, or policeman who routinely gets called to traffic fatalities.

In ramp jobs, as part of the intro training, new staff get shown few videos and pictures of this sort of danger to demonstrate how hazardous it is to be near jet engines. The pics and videos are so grim that the trainers usually say that people in the class don't actually have to look at them if they don't want to.

Since the intake fan blades are spinning at several thousand RPM and are metal with a thin edge, if someone is unfortunately sucked into the front of the engine, bascially you end up with a big ring of blood spattered around the inside of the intake cowling in front of the fan, then a lot of very small diced bits on the ground, fired out to about 150 feet behind the engine. As horrible as this is, I should imagine it's a pretty quick way to go based on having seen all that stuff. You only have to see a jet engine running when the ground in wet conditions to know how much suction force there is out in front of the engine; there is often a little twister of water visibly being pulled up off the ground in front of the intake, and this is at comparatively low RPM too. It's a risk we have to be very aware of when headsetting aeroplanes, especially small ones such as the ATR-42 and the Dornier 328, because you are very near those engines when doing this task, but even the larger ones could present this risk if you were not concentrating, especially when walking away, passing the engine to give the wave off after the engine start. At EGCC, because of it being an old airport which has expanded a lot over the years, the layout is less than ideal, so there are several places you can only get to by driving across live taxiways. If I recall correctly, there are six locations where you can do this at EGCC, and you have to be really careful and especially observant near these places.

Back with this accident, it seems to me that procedures and observation were not that great on the part of the motorcyclist if they actually rode across in front of a taxying aeroplane. Moreover, anyone who rides motorcycles should know, when you have a pillion passenger, some of your concentration is on riding safely with that person, which is inevitably a distraction; it strikes me as a very bad idea to allow any sort of potential distraction of this kind when driving near aeroplanes. We don't even let newly signed off drivers go within the footprint of aeroplanes until they've been driving for at least 40 hours on the airport, after which they get signed off on that. So I'm guessing that rules and procedures at the place where this recent accident occurred are not the best if you can just blast across a taxiway on a motorbike.

This is a very sad incident, but it demonstrates that working at an airport is potentially very hazardous.

 

Looking at the AVHerald post's pics of the lower cowl damage and the remains of the motorcycle still embedded in it, it's clear that this was a pretty high-speed collision.  Runway incursions are bad juju.

If the riders ended up going through the engine, they were already dead from the impact.

I remember flying into Kinshasa Zaire/DRC way back when and observing a jaw-dropping amount of uncontrolled people/animal/vehicle movements occurring around the airfield.  Flying into another airfield in Zimbabwe, we had to do a low approach down the length of the runway to clear it of wildlife.

As DiCaprio said in the movie Blood Diamond..."thees eez Aaaafreeca"

In such incidents as collision with vehicles, poles, hangars etc which happen from time to time, always wonder how well are the airframes able to withstand the impact and maintain their airworthiness safety including after repairs. Do they get fully restored or have a reduced certification? Is there chance some internal damage may go overlooked that could lead to a catastrophic failure in the long term?

8 hours ago, him225 said:

In such incidents as collision with vehicles, poles, hangars etc which happen from time to time, always wonder how well are the airframes able to withstand the impact and maintain their airworthiness safety including after repairs. Do they get fully restored or have a reduced certification? Is there chance some internal damage may go overlooked that could lead to a catastrophic failure in the long term?

Hi Him225.

To my knowledge, I am not aware that there are Airworthiness Certificates of aircraft in "reduced" form.

The repairs or replacements of damaged parts of the crashed aircraft are carried out by companies, which must then issue a document certifying the compliance of the repairs or replacements made that must bring the aircraft back to the "original" conditions that allowed the issuance of the Airworthiness Certificate.

Obviously, we are talking about damage or breakdowns that do not allow the aircraft to navigate.

In this specific case, another problem arises because it is necessary to determine if the engine is repairable or, more likely, it needs to be replaced, but in both cases it is difficult to think that in this Guinea apt there is a company capable of carrying out the repair or the replacement of the damaged engine therefore TAP will have to organize the necessary to repair and make this aircraft compliant with the Certificate of navigability in order to be able to reuse it.

Thanks for the explanation, engines are definitely a critical part indeed that get very easily damaged. However it also looks like the wing structure and its root joint must also take a lot of impact such as in the recent two other ground incidents one of china 744F and the other qatar 777F. Especially the latter where it struck something fixed to the ground left me wondering how bad the stresses might be on the wing in such incidents and if that would cause any irreversible damage.

 

 

1 hour ago, him225 said:

Thanks for the explanation, engines are definitely a critical part indeed that get very easily damaged. However it also looks like the wing structure and its root joint must also take a lot of impact such as in the recent two other ground incidents one of china 744F and the other qatar 777F. Especially the latter where it struck something fixed to the ground left me wondering how bad the stresses might be on the wing in such incidents and if that would cause any irreversible damage.

 

 

From a Portuguese online newspaper site:

"The damage will be inventoried by a TAP engineering and maintenance team, which will travel to Conakry."

On a forum it is stated that TAP is looking for volunteers for this team who will obviously have to work in "particular" conditions given what, unfortunately, they will be forced to see.

If the airport security officer driving the motorcycle has been identified, nothing is yet known about the second passenger, it has yet been ascertained whether it was a man or a woman.

On another site there is a post of a pilot who landed yesterday at the apt of the tragedy, obviously what he wrote is all to be verified if true, because he was shocked by what he saw especially behind the damaged engine, I leave out the horrendous description made but which would indicate that "no one" had, until yesterday, removed anything of what we can imagine.

14 hours ago, him225 said:

In such incidents as collision with vehicles, poles, hangars etc which happen from time to time, always wonder how well are the airframes able to withstand the impact and maintain their airworthiness safety including after repairs. Do they get fully restored or have a reduced certification? Is there chance some internal damage may go overlooked that could lead to a catastrophic failure in the long term?

In most serious aircraft damage incidents, they'll have engineers from the aircraft manufacturer inspect the damage and recommend the needed repairs and inspections.

In the case of engines, the mounts are made to sacrifice themselves and allow the engine to break away prior to damaging the wing structure, as the rotating fans have a tremendous amount of kinetic energy.  Unless there's more damage that's not in the pix, I'd surmise that they'll be good to go with a full engine change without having to replace anything beyond the engine mounts.  They might still want to fly the jet to Toulouse and do some NDI (non-destructive inspection e.g. X-ray, eddy-current, etc) on the wing around the engine mount attach points.

When I was at Takhli in Thailand a landing F-105 hit a Thai crossing the runway on a motorcycle.  The front edge if the right main landing gear cover cut him in half.  I didn't witness it myself.  I only heard the reports on it.

The Thai part of Takhli was a training base for the Thai Airforce.  Their boot camp.  The two sides were connected by a road that crossed the main runway.  

Once you are on the ramp or taxiway or runway you are in a dangerous place.

Noel  

Just realized, how common is it for two wheelers to be allowed to ply on the airside area of airports? I thought they never were due to the surrounding awareness loss they can cause from ride balancing, wind, sun, helmet etc, also being less easily visible from a distance than a car which are also often special painted for the purpose.

I’d like to think of the engine being written off, but I suppose economics mean it won’t be.

 I’m hesitant to write this as it’s unpleasant so please forgive me if it causes offence I don’t mean it  to , and is with the greatest of respect to all involved In this terrible event, as both a motorcyclist and pilot.

When an engine that has been put back into service after suffering a large bird strike, there is for a while after the aroma of roast chicken coming through the bleed system into the cabin air conditioning. You can see where I’m going and why I’d hope the engine is written off.

5 hours ago, jon b said:

You can see where I’m going and why I’d hope the engine is written off.

I fully agree. Although the aroma of roast pork is mouthwatering, possibly knowing the source of that aroma would be most unpleasant!

On 9/6/2022 at 7:36 AM, jon b said:

When an engine that has been put back into service after suffering a large bird strike, there is for a while after the aroma of roast chicken coming through the bleed system into the cabin air conditioning. You can see where I’m going and why I’d hope the engine is written off.

Usually, If a bird goes through the core, a boroscope will be done to see if the engine has any internal damage. If the boroscope gives it the all clear then a compressor wash is carried out and then engine runs afterwards. The smelll doesnt remain long after that but it is evident as mentioned.

In this case it will be an engine change as I saw in one of the pics the engine was missing a blade I feel for the guys having to go and do it. AME's are used to seeing ,smelling + cleaning up after  birdstrikes but this going to be horrendous. Full PPE for this one. Even with an engine change I feel that the bleed air system will still have been permeated due to the heat.