Controlled flight into terrain

"CFIT" redirects here. For the IQ test, see Cattell Culture Fair III. For the Canadian radio station, see CFIT-FM.

A piece of the remains of Air New Zealand Flight 901, which crashed in 1979. All 257 people on the plane were killed.

Controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) describes an accident in which an airworthy aircraft, under pilot control, is unintentionally flown into the ground, a mountain, water, or an obstacle. The term was coined by engineers at Boeing in the late 1970s. The pilots are generally unaware of the danger until it is too late. Accidents where an aircraft is damaged and uncontrollable (also known as uncontrolled flight into terrain) are not considered CFIT.

According to Boeing, CFIT is a leading cause of airplane accidents involving the loss of life, causing over 9,000 deaths since the beginning of the commercial jet age. CFIT was identified as a cause of 25% of USAF Class A Mishaps between 1993 and 2002.

Causes

Animation of the descent of Korean Air Flight 801 in Guam in 1997 (NTSB)

While there are many reasons why a plane might crash into terrain, including bad weather and navigation equipment problems, it is claimed that pilot error is the single biggest factor leading to a CFIT incident.

Even highly experienced professionals may commit CFIT due to fatigue, loss of situational awareness, or disorientation. CFIT is considered to be caused by spatial disorientation, where the pilot(s) do not correctly perceive their position and orientation with respect to the Earth's surface.

The incidents often involve a collision with terrain such as hills or mountains, and may occur in conditions of clouds or otherwise reduced visibility. CFIT often occurs during aircraft descent to landing near an airport. CFIT may be associated with subtle equipment malfunctions. If the malfunction occurs in a piece of navigational equipment and it is not detected by the crew, it may mislead the crew into improperly guiding the aircraft despite other information received from all properly functioning equipment, or despite clear sky visibility that should have allowed the crew to easily notice ground proximity (compare tunnel vision).

Solutions

Traditionally adequate procedures and crew coordination and communication (CRM) as well as control or surveillance by air traffic services may reduce the likelihood of CFIT. To prevent the occurrence of CFIT accidents, manufacturers and safety regulators developed terrain awareness and warning systems (TAWS). The first generation of these TAWS systems is known as a ground proximity warning system (GPWS), which uses a radar altimeter to assist in calculating terrain closure rates. This system has now been further improved with the addition of a GPS terrain database and is known as an enhanced ground proximity warning system (EGPWS). This and the older system have mandatory pilot procedures and actions following any caution or warning event. Smaller aircraft often use a GPS database of terrain to provide terrain warning. The GPS database contains a database of nearby terrain and will present terrain that is near the aircraft in red or yellow depending on its distance from the aircraft.

Statistics show that aircraft fitted with a second-generation EGPWS have not suffered a CFIT accident if TAWS or EGPWS are properly handled (there are at least three CFIT accidents of planes with EGPWS/TAWS: Garuda Indonesia Flight 200, 2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash, Mirosławiec air accident). As of 2007, 5% of the world's commercial airlines still lack a TAWS, leading to a prediction of two CFIT accidents in 2009. In the case of Mount Salak Sukhoi Superjet 100 crash, the TAWS was working but the pilot intentionally turned it off.

Notable accidents

Many notable accidents have been ascribed to CFIT.

Flight	Date	Comments
TWA Flight 3	January 16, 1942	A TWA DC-3 flight from New York to Burbank, via Indianapolis, St. Louis, Albuquerque, and Las Vegas. 15 minutes after takeoff from Las Vegas, the aircraft slammed into a sheer cliff on Potosi Mountain, 32 miles southwest of the airport, at an elevation of 7,770 ft killing all nineteen passengers, including movie star Carole Lombard and her mother, and all three crew members. Pilot error was blamed for the crash.
BSAA Star Dust	August 2, 1947	Due to a misjudgment of position, the flight crew appear to have believed that the aircraft was approaching the airport of Santiago, when in fact it was still above Tupungato mountain in the Andes. The plane vanished shortly after its last transmission estimating the time of its arrival at Santiago. Its wreckage was discovered fifty years later.
Superga air disaster	May 4, 1949	Collision with the hill of Superga, near Turin.
Pan Am Flight 151	June 21, 1951
British Commonwealth Pacific Airlines Flight 304	October 29, 1953
TWA Flight 260	February 19, 1955	Sandia Mountains, Albuquerque, NM
Trans-Canada Air Lines Flight 810	December 9, 1956
Northeast Airlines Flight 823	February 1, 1957
1958 Bristol Britannia 312 crash	December 24, 1958
American Airlines Flight 320	February 3, 1959
The Day the Music Died	February 3, 1959
Piedmont Airlines Flight 349	October 30, 1959
TAA Fokker Friendship disaster	June 10, 1960
Alitalia Flight 771	July 7, 1962
Aero Flight 217	November 8, 1963	DC-3. Crashed into a knoll on landing approach at Mariehamn, Finland. All 23 on board perished. The root causes were a malfunctioning radio altimeter and intoxication of both pilots.
United Airlines Flight 389	August 16, 1965
American Airlines Flight 383	November 8, 1965
TABSO Flight 101	November 24, 1966	Crashed Bratislava, Slovakia, killing all 82 on board
Iberia Airlines Flight 062	November 4, 1967
TWA Flight 128	November 20, 1967
South African Airways Flight 228	April 20, 1968	Failure by crew to maintain a safe airspeed and altitude and a positive climb by not observing flight instruments during take-off.
Southern Airways Flight 932	November 14, 1970	Crashed near Huntington, West Virginia, killing all 75 on board
Alaska Airlines Flight 1866	September 4, 1971	Flew into the side of a canyon on approach to Juneau, Alaska. 111 fatalities (104 passengers, 7 crew)
Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571	October 13, 1972	Known less formally as the Andes flight disaster, October 13, 1972 to December 23, 1972, during which stranded snow-bound survivors resorted to cannibalism. The incident became the subject of feature films and best-selling books.
Braathens SAFE Flight 239	December 23, 1972
Eastern Air Lines Flight 401	December 29, 1972	The cockpit crew became fixated on a faulty landing gear light and had failed to realize that the autopilot had been switched off. The distracted crew did not recognize the plane's slow descent and the otherwise completely airworthy aircraft struck swampy ground in the Everglades, killing 101 out of 176 passengers and crew. This accident became the subject of books and made-for-television movies.
Delta Air Lines Flight 723	July 31, 1973
TWA Flight 514	December 1, 1974
Turkish Airlines Flight 452	September 19, 1976	Crashed into a hill 60 miles off the destination airport killing all 154 people on board.
Air New Zealand Flight 901	November 28, 1979	Crashed into Mount Erebus, Antarctica on November 28, 1979. There is still disagreement over the exact causes of the crash, but it is commonly accepted that a changing of pre-programmed coordinates without informing the pilots, the pilots' loss of situational awareness and whiteout conditions at the time were contributory factors leading to the crash. All 257 people on the plane were killed.
Dan-Air Flight 1008	April 25, 1980	Crashed into high terrain in Tenerife after turning the wrong way in a holding pattern. All 146 people aboard were killed.
Inex-Adria Aviopromet Flight 1308	December 1, 1981	Struck Corsica's Mt. San Pietro and crashed shortly before it was scheduled to land. All 180 people on board were killed.
VASP Flight 168	June 8, 1982	Highest death toll of aviation accidents in Brazil for 24 years.
Avianca Flight 011	November 27, 1983
Eastern Air Lines Flight 980	January 1, 1985	Struck Mount Illimani in Bolivia at an altitude of 19,600 feet. The flight took off from Silvio Pettirossi International Airport in Asunción, Paraguay, and intended to reach El Alto International Airport in La Paz, Bolivia. All 19 passengers and 10 crew were killed on impact.
1986 Mozambican Tupolev Tu-134 crash	October 19, 1986	President Machel of Mozambique and 33 others die when their off course plane descends and flies into the Lebombo Mountains.
Avianca Flight 410	March 17, 1988
Air France Flight 296	June 26, 1988	Crashed into trees while performing a flyover for an airshow at Mulhouse-Habsheim Airport. Out of 130 passengers and six crew members, three passengers died in the post-impact fire.
Indian Airlines Flight 113	October 19, 1988	The aircraft hit an electric mast in Ahmedabad, India, five miles (eight km) out on approach in poor visibility. All six crew members and 124 of 129 passengers were killed.
Independent Air Flight 1851	February 8, 1989
Flying Tiger Line Flight 66	February 19, 1989	Flying Tigers 747 The aircraft was on an international cargo flight from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and crashed shortly before landing. The crew descended below approach altitude and crashed into a hill. All four crew members were killed.
Surinam Airways Flight 764	June 7, 1989
Indian Airlines Flight 605	February 14, 1990	Crashed short of the runway during final approach to Bangalore, killing 92 on board.
Death of Stevie Ray Vaughan, East Troy, Wisconsin	August 27, 1990	Bell 206B Jet Ranger helicopter flown into the side of a hill in heavy fog.
Air Inter Flight 148	January 20, 1992	Crashed into Mt. Ste. Odile in the Vosges Mountains whilst on approach into Strasbourg Entzheim Airport.
Thai Airways International Flight 311	July 31, 1992	Crashed on approach to Kathmandu. All 113 people on board were killed, 59 days before the PIA Flight 268 accident at Kathmandu.
PIA Flight 268	September 28, 1992	File:KhatmanduCrash2.jpg Wreckage Of PIA Flight 268. Crashed on approach to Kathmandu. The approach to Kathmandu is difficult, as the airport is located in an oval-shaped valley surrounded by mountains. Flight 268 was approximately 900 feet below the designated approach path and crashed into a steep cloud-covered hillside. All 167 people on the plane were killed.
SAM Colombia Flight 501	May 19, 1993	Crashed near Mt. Panamo Frontino, killing all 132 people on board the Boeing 727-100
Asiana Airlines Flight 733	July 26, 1993	While approaching in bad weather, a Boeing 737-500 crashed into a mountain near Mokpo, South Korea. 68 of 106 on board were killed.
Ansett New Zealand Flight 703	June 5, 1995
American Airlines Flight 1572	November 12, 1995
American Airlines Flight 965	December 20, 1995	Crashed into a mountain near Buga, Colombia. The crew failed to recognize a series of navigational errors they had made, and forgot that they had deployed the air brakes. All eight crew members and 151 of the 155 passengers were killed.
1996 Croatia USAF CT-43 crash	April 3, 1996	A modified Boeing 737 crashed into a mountain in Croatia.
Vnukovo Flight 2801	August 29, 1996	All 141 people aboard a Tupolev Tu-154M were killed, when the aircraft crashed into Operafjellet during approach to Svalbard Airport, Longyear, Svalbard, Norway. This airport does not provide any approach service.
1996 New Hampshire Learjet crash	December 24, 1996	Found November 13, 1999
Korean Air Flight 801	August 6, 1997	A Boeing 747-300 crashed into Nimitz Hill on approach to Guam, killing 228 of 254 people aboard. The fatigued crew were following outdated flight maps, while ATC had modified its MSAW system to eliminate false alarms.
Garuda Indonesia Flight 152	September 26, 1997	An Airbus A300, registered PK-GAI, crashed in Pancur Batu, Pematang Siantar, North Sumatera, becoming the worst air disaster in Indonesian aviation history.
Kenya Airways Flight 431	January 30, 2000	Impacted ocean after takeoff from Félix Houphouët-Boigny Int'l Airport, killing all 10 crew and 159 out of 169 passengers. The pilots put the plane into a descent in response to a erroneous stall warning.
Air Philippines Flight 541	April 19, 2000	Crashed in Island Garden City of Samal, Davao del Norte, killing all 131 people on board. It is also currently the deadliest air disaster in the Philippines.
Crossair Flight 3597	November 24, 2001	Flight from Berlin to Zurich that crashed during its landing approach, killing 24 people.
Air China Flight 129	April 15, 2002
Kam Air Flight 904	February 3, 2005
2006 Slovak Air Force Antonov An-24 crash	January 19, 2006
Armavia Flight 967	May 3, 2006
Atlasjet Flight 4203	November 30, 2007
Santa Bárbara Airlines Flight 518	February 21, 2008
2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash	April 10, 2010	Polish president Lech Kaczyński, was among those killed the crash.
Airblue Flight 202	July 28, 2010	Crashed into the Margalla Hills near Islamabad, Pakistan
RusAir Flight 9605	June 20, 2011	Crashed near Petrozavodsk Airport (PES, ULPB). Tu-134 RA-65691.
First Air Flight 6560	August 20, 2011	Was an internal Canadian charter flight from Yellowknife Airport, Northwest Territories, to Resolute Bay Airport, Nunavut. It crashed approximately 2 km (1.2 mi) east of the Resolute Bay, Airport runway, in poor weather attempting a go-around after a failed ILS landing. 12 of the 15 people on board were killed.
Royal Norwegian Air Force C-130J	March 15, 2012	Crashed into Kebnekaise, Sweden en route to Kiruna Airport, killing the 5 officers on board. C-130J-30 'Siv'.
Mount Salak Sukhoi Superjet 100 crash	May 9, 2012	Aircraft crashed while on a demonstration flight, killing all 45 on board. The pilots had intentionally turned off the terrain warning system and were speaking to potential customers when the impact occurred.

See also

• Acronyms and abbreviations in avionics
• Air safety
• Digital fly-by-wire
• Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS)
• Minimum Safe Altitude Warning (MSAW)

External links

• CFIT articles in SKYbrary: The single point of reference in the network of aviation safety knowledge