Mid-Air collision over Senegal

On September 5th, over Senegal a Hawker-Siddeley HS-125 on a medical mission, with a doctor, patient, two nurses and three crew members went missing. The flight was transporting the patient from Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) to Dakar (Senegal).

Today the news broke that it appears that the aircraft was involved in a mid-air collision with a 737-800 operated by Ceiba Intercontinental. The 737 was operating as flight C2-71 from Dakar to Cotonou (Benin), when the two aircraft crossed paths at 35,000 feet.

After they crossed the HS-125 continued past Dakar and headed out into the Atlantic. The 737 landed safely and was found to have damage to the wing consistent with an impact.

www.avherald.com...

The same sort of thing happened before, Over Brasil. if memory serves the pilots were flying a brand new aircraft from the factory.

a reply to: Soloprotocol

In that case they tried to throw the pilots of the surviving aircraft in jail afterwards. IIRC the other aircraft was not in contact with ATC and came out of an unknown airstrip.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I understand the hospital aircraft was smaller than a regular passenge jet. But it escapes me that it did not rip through the other jet seeing how jets ripped through steel supports...so it's claimed. Perhaps I'm simply dull. Makes no sense to me though I assume physics holds the answers. I'm happy that the passenger plane survived. On the other hand what a horrific death..

a reply to: Tiamat384

The wing of the 737, depending on where it hit the medevac, would have torn a hole in the fuselage, causing an immediate decompression. Until they find the wreckage it won't be clear how much damage was done.

Yes. I also have an issue with flexible aluminum wings tearing through steel girders and columns, no matter the velocity. And I am an Architect. A bullet, a specifically penetration shaped projectile, a .223 for example, can penetrate 3/8" plate steel, but it has to travel over 2000 mph in order to do that. The leading edge of an airliner wing has the ballistic coefficient of a baseball bat, is a softer material than a steel core penetrator round, and is traveling at 1/4 the speed. Yes I have an issue indeed.

So do they know how exactly how this happened. Were transponders turned off, air traffic control not working?

It makes it seem a lot worse when you know that one of the planes had people on board trying to save a life.

What does this have to do with 9/11? Two planes collided with each other, nothing else. It doesn't matter if you think they couldn't have gone into the buildings or not, this didn't even begin to tie into what happened in any way at all.

a reply to: Nexttimemaybe

The HS-125 is very hard to spot visually. The controllers may not have realized they were that close in time, and both pilots would have had trouble finding the other aircraft.

a reply to: Soloprotocol

I remember that.