The pilots of a Cessna Citation S550 operated by the South African Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) lost control of the airplane while attempting to calibrate an airport’s instrument landing system on a cloudy morning and crashed into a mountain, killing all three crewmembers and destroying the airplane.
The final report on the Jan. 23, 2020, accident – investigated by the Ethiopian Air Accident Investigation Bureau and issued by the South African CAA’s Aircraft Accident and Incident Investigations Division (AIID) – cited the loss of control as the probable cause. Noting the “significant cloud coverage” and obscured mountain tops, the report said that flight data indicated the aircraft’s attitude “drastically changed into an unusual attitude when approaching the mountain area” – an indication that “most probably, the pilot has entered into an unusual attitude during transition from VFR [visua…
