ADC Airlines Flight 86
|
A Boeing 727 of ADC Airlines | |
| Accident summary | |
|---|---|
| Date | 7 November 1996 |
| Summary | Pilot error (mis-handling induced by ATC error and TCAS warning) |
| Site | Ejirin[1] |
| Passengers | 134[1] |
| Crew | 10[1] |
| Fatalities | 144[1] |
| Survivors | 0[1] |
| Aircraft type | Boeing 727–231[1] |
| Operator | ADC Airlines[1] |
| Registration | 5N-BBG[1] |
| Flight origin | Port Harcourt Airport[1] |
| Destination | Lagos Airport[1] |
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ADC Airlines Flight 86 was a Nigerian domestic flight operated by ADC Airlines from Port Harcourt to Lagos. On 7 November 1996 the crew of the Boeing 727-200 operating the flight lost control of the aircraft while avoiding a mid-air collision on approach; the aircraft crashed inverted at a very high speed, killing all 144 passengers and crew on board.[1][2]
Accident
Flight 86 was en route to Lagos airport at flight level (FL) 240 (approximately 24,000 ft (7,300 m) altitude). At the same time an aircraft operated by Triax was on its way from Lagos to Enugu at FL160. The Lagos Air Traffic Controller cleared the crew of Flight 86 to descend, but erroneously thought that he had earlier cleared Flight 86 to descend to 10,000 ft (3,000 m) and that it was below the Triax aircraft. The descent from FL240 caused Flight 86 to conflict with the Triax flight at FL160. The traffic collision avoidance system (TCAS) sounded an alert but when the crew took evasive action they overcompensated and it rolled too far; the pilots lost control and within sixteen seconds the aircraft was upside down and diving towards the ground at near-Mach 1 speed. The inverted aircraft disintegrated on impact near Imota (Ejirin) at 17:05 local time.[1]