Seven charged over 2017 Cessna beach deaths

Paul Rees 01 July 2019

cessna152 Seven people have been charged in relation to the death of two people, one an eight-year-old girl, when a light aircraft landed on the beach at Costa da Caparica, on the western coast of the district of Setúbal.

The fatal accident on August 2, 2017, was the result in an engine fault. Instead of landing in the sea, the pilot brough the aircraft down on the beach, with devastating effect.

Seven people now have been charged. The pilot, Carlos Conde D'Almeida, has been accused of two crimes of negligence himicide and of the dangerous driving of an aircraft, despite claiming not to have receievd the indictment.

In addition to the pilot, three officials of the National Civil Aviation Authority (ANAC) also have been charged.

The ANAC president, Luís Silva Ribeiro, the director of Operational Safety, Vítor Rosa, the head of the Department of Personnel and Training Licensing, José Queiroz have been accused of a lack of air transport security, aggravated by the fact that two people died.

Three people from the Aerocondor aviation school, which owned the light aircraft, also have been charged with the same crime: Ana Vasques, the school administrator, Ricardo Olim Freitas, director of training, and José Coelho, director of security.

On August 2, 2017, a Cessna 152 took off from the Cascais Aerodrome to Évora on a training flight. Shortly afterwards, when an engine failure was reported, an emergency landing was made on São João beach, on the Costa da Caparica.

Comments

0 #7 Peter Booker 2019-07-04 10:08

I agree with Roy Carpenter´s comment that the pilot-instructor must shoulder the blame.

But a number of people has been indicted. These accusations indicate that either the level of knowledge of these people of the "training" of the pilot-instructor was not up to scratch; or they knew that his training was not good enough. Either way, they were not doing their jobs properly; and they were jeopardising the lives of an innocent eight year-old on the beach, and one other person, who clearly was not eight.

0 #6 Roy Carpenter 2019-07-03 18:03

Instructors have to undergo biennial assessments,oral and practical, in the course of which they have demonstrate procedures in a simulated engine failure situation. If he had been instructing for 30 years that means 15 assessments. He surely cannot claim every assessment hs been deficient. Sorry Peter but your defence does not stand up - in my book there is only one culpable person.

-1 #5 Peter Booker 2019-07-03 10:05

Quoting Roy Carpenter:

Engines do stop running - sometimes from mechanical failure, sometimes from pilot mismanagement i.e. failure to select carb heat in humid conditions or failure to switch on the fuel pump. Whatever the cause pilots are trained to deal with the situation. In this case the 'pilot in command' was the (experienced ?) instructor who made a wrong decision in landing on a crowded beach rather than in the sea close to the shore. Therefore the only person responsible was the instructor - not the trainee or ground staff. If you read my comments at the time, priorities are safety of ground personnel, safety of flight personnel and lastly safety of aircraft.

Supposing that the instructor can show that his training was not equal to this particular emergency? He would then drag down with him those who had "trained" him, licensed him, and also those who employed him.

0 #4 Roy Carpenter 2019-07-02 20:02

Engines do stop running - sometimes from mechanical failure, sometimes from pilot mismanagement i.e. failure to select carb heat in humid conditions or failure to switch on the fuel pump. Whatever the cause pilots are trained to deal with the situation. In this case the 'pilot in command' was the (experienced ?) instructor who made a wrong decision in landing on a crowded beach rather than in the sea close to the shore. Therefore the only person responsible was the instructor - not the trainee or ground staff. If you read my comments at the time, priorities are safety of ground personnel, safety of flight personnel and lastly safety of aircraft.

-2 #3 AL 2019-07-02 13:50

Quoting Jordan:

Surely the issue here is the pilot taking off in a plane that had not been effectively maintained and who are the 'hands on' managers checking plane maintenance procedures at airfields. None of the 'arguidos', judging by their titles, are plane engineers so why, along with the pilot being of nobility - Charles Count of Almeida. alleging he has not (yet) been charged, is there the whiff of sham here? The intentional outcome being the judge not being able to allocate blame. An old pre-EU Portuguese solution.

You call it a sham when nearly everybody involved in this flight, including admins from the aviation school have been charged with either negligence or homicide? The pilot is not nobility, Conde is just a name like King. Engine failure does not necessarily mean poor maintenance, I guess that it will be known during the court case. It's Algarve Daily News not Algarve Fake News!!

0 #2 Jordan 2019-07-02 09:54

Surely the issue here is the pilot taking off in a plane that had not been effectively maintained and who are the 'hands on' managers checking plane maintenance procedures at airfields. None of the 'arguidos', judging by their titles, are plane engineers so why, along with the pilot being of nobility - Charles Count of Almeida. alleging he has not (yet) been charged, is there the whiff of sham here? The intentional outcome being the judge not being able to allocate blame. An old pre-EU Portuguese solution.

0 #1 Peter Booker 2019-07-02 09:40

My recollection of this incident is that it was a training flight, and I suppose that the trainee was handling the aircraft when the engine failed, and it was then the pilot-instructor Almeida who made the lethal landing. He maintained that he had acted according to the training he had received as pilot-instructor.

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