[A448] - Bin Laden Family Plane Crash Raises Questions

Bin Laden Family Plane Crash Raises Questions

• Bin Laden Family Plane Crash Raises Questions

On 31 July 2015, an Embraer Phenom 300 business jet crashed into a car park next to Blackbushe Airport in Hampshire, United Kingdom, while attempting to land. The only pilot and all three passengers on board were killed. The three passengers were members of the bin Laden family.

The subsequent inquiry found no evidence of any pre‑existing technical defect in the aircraft and concluded that "several factors combined to create a very high workload for the pilot leading him to become fixated on continuing the approach. At the time of the crash, the aircraft was on a flight from Milan Malpensa Airport, Italy, to Blackbushe Airport with three passengers, all Saudi nationals, and one crew member, a Jordanian pilot, on board. The passengers were Rajaa Hashim, one of the wives of Osama bin Laden's father Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (who had died in an aircraft crash in the 1960s), as well as her daughter Sana Hashim and Sana's husband Zuhair Hashim. The aircraft involved had no prior incidents; weather conditions for the approach into Blackbushe Airport were warm and sunny, with very good visibility and winds from the south.

The crash occurred at 15:00 BST. Shortly before landing and while flying along the landing circuit, the pilot received a traffic collision avoidance system (TCAS) advisory message warning him of the presence of a microlight aircraft also in the circuit. Six times during the Phenom's final approach, the terrain awareness and warning system issued "pull up" warnings. As it reached the runway threshold, the jet was travelling at 151 knots (280 km/h), 43 knots (80 km/h) faster than its final approach target speed of 108 knots (200 km/h).

Based on tyre marks left on the runway, the aircraft touched down two-thirds of the way along the runway, leaving only about 440 m (1,440 ft) of runway in which to stop. The aircraft landed at a speed of 134 knots (248 km/h) (compared to the 108 knots (200 km/h) recommended by the manufacturer); the required stopping distance at this speed would have been more than 600 m (2,000 ft). It struck an earthen bank and became briefly airborne again before coming to a rest in the car park of a British Car Auctions facility, directly adjacent to Blackbushe Airport. The wreckage caught fire within one second of coming to rest.:30 Several fire engines attended the scene to extinguish the fire, which was complicated by the burning wreckage setting alight several cars around the wreckage in the car park.

All four people on board the aircraft survived the accident, but were killed by the post-crash fire. No-one on the ground was injured.

Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.