8U771

Afriqiyah Airways Flight 771 was a scheduled international Afriqiyah Airways passenger flight from Johannesburg, South Africa to Tripoli, Libya. On 12 May 2010 at about 06:01 (04:01 UTC) while on approach to Tripoli International Airport, the aircraft operating the flight, an Airbus A330-200, crashed about 1,200 metres (3,900 ft; 1,300 yd) short of the runway. Of the 104 passengers and crew on board, 103 were killed. The sole survivor was a 9-year-old Dutch boy.

The crash of Flight 771 was the deadliest aviation disaster in Libya since the crash of Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 1103 in 1992. This was also the third hull-loss of an Airbus A330 involving fatalities, occurring eleven months after the crash of Air France Flight 447. The crash was also the first fatal accident in the operational history of Afriqiyah Airways.

The investigation, led by the Libyan Civil Aviation Authority, concluded that the crash was caused by pilot error. Following a series of misunderstandings between the pilots, the flight failed to stabilise its approach, causing the already fatigued crew to execute a missed approach. While initiating the go-around, they suffered somatogravic illusion. They then applied nose-down input at low altitude and caused the aircraft to slam onto terrain.

INVESTIGATION