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Piper Warrior crashed in Northwest Bosnia

Piper PA-28-161 Warrior II, registration YU-DCX crashed in Northwest Bosnia (mountain Kozara region, between towns of Omarska and Bosanska Grediška) while airdropping anti-rabies vaccines yesterday (December 10th) around 1300 UTC. Both persons on board (pilot, Romanian citizen, female, age 31, and vaccine handler, Serbian citizen, male, age 34) have perished in the accident. The terrain is pretty hostile and and rescue team needed almost 24 hours to locate the wreck regardless ELT activated almost immediately after the aircraft disappeared from radar.

The accident cause is unknown, some reports mention CFIT but nothing official and I would take it with big reserve. Video footage from rescue helicopter shows pretty low clouds but I guess it’s from this morning rather than yesterday afternoon because the search was started after sunset, so yesterday no helicopter was engaged.

I didn’t link any article because everything currently available is in Bosnian only and no info is presented beyond what I wrote above.

S&R video

Last Edited by Emir at 11 Dec 19:10
LDZA LDVA, Croatia

Emir wrote:

I didn’t link any article because everything currently available is in Bosnian only and no info is presented beyond what I wrote above.

Won’t hurt to link anyway. In the day and age of google translator we have to deal with a lot of foreign languages. And some may actually be able to read it anyhow.

Pretty horrible crash.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

Here and here

LDZA LDVA, Croatia

Thanks Emir

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

ASN published record with several links to media articles but no additional info.

LDZA LDVA, Croatia

It’s the fourth or fifth accident of the same company (STS from Serbia) – previous accidents here here and here

I’ll check the records at ASN later and post if I find something.

LDZA LDVA, Croatia

Here’s the list of accidents of the same company recorded at ASN:
Piper PA-28-161 Warrior II YU-DCX, Dec 10 2020
Cessna 421B Golden Eagle YU-BSW, Sep 24 2109
Piper PA-28-161 Warrior II YU-DDB, Jun 7 2014
Piper PA-28-161 Warrior II YU-DDB, Jun 27 2019

Plus these two not recorded at ASN:
article and report

So six accidents of the same company with multiple deaths and injured people and they still operate obviously without any problem.

LDZA LDVA, Croatia

They are under Serbian register? That means not EASA if I understand that right. Does not sound very encouraging.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

@Emir, depends on big are they and how much they are flying.

EGTR

Mooney_Driver wrote:

They are under Serbian register? That means not EASA if I understand that right. Does not sound very encouraging.

Yes, under Serbian registry.

arj1 wrote:

@Emir, depends on big are they and how much they are flying.

AFAIK they practically do only this job – vaccine dropping. I don’t know how much they fly but they are pretty active in our region – few days ago they were operating in Croatia. I can’t say much about their maintenance or training record but I would say that reports speak for themselves.

YU-BSW:
The root cause of the accident is the entry of the aircraft into the cloud at a low altitude, in conditions of increased cloudiness, which led to the impact of the aircraft in the ground. The accident is caused by inadequate preparation of the crew for the flight, deviation of the crew from the planned and approved route by location (diversion from the given route) and flight height (flight at a lower altitude than the approved one), as well as not taking timely procedures to return to the given route and flight height, as well as incorrect actions in case of encountering a deteriorated weather situation on the route under VFR flight conditions.
The accident was affected by:
a) The decision of the manager on the manner of execution of the flight
b) Ignoring information about the meteorological situation and weather forecast
c) Inadequate preparation of the crew for the execution of the flight at a low altitude and in conditions of fire of the meteorological situation,
d) Non-compliance with VFR rules for minimum flight height and meteorological minimum for airspace class “F” and “G”
e) Loss of visual contact with the ground.

YU-DDB:
2014: The PA-28-161, registration YU-DDB, with a pilot and operator for spreading vaccines, performed a flight for spreading rabies vaccines on the route Balchik – Svishtov – Balchik. When performing the flight on the return route from Svishtov, due to a deterioration of the meteorological situation, the captain chose to perform a forced landing on an unlicensed airfield in the area of ​​the village of Gradishte, district Shumen.
The aircraft touched down short of the runway hit the threshold, turned and stopped. The operator of the vaccine dispensing equipment was seriously injured. The pilot was not injured. The aircraft suffered significant damage.

2019: The Piper PA-28-161 Warrior II crashed in a wooded area after a loss of engine power. Both occupants were injured.

For YU-DCX nothing is released yet but it’s very similar to YU-BSW and 2014 YU-DDB accidents.

Last Edited by Emir at 12 Dec 18:39
LDZA LDVA, Croatia
19 Posts
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