El ACCIDENTE de aviación más MORTÍFERO de un Boeing 757 | Vuelo 301 de Birgenair

Video from the channel Codigo7700 about Boeing, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 12:46. Language: Spanish. Video type: Documentary.

A reconstruction of the crash of Birgenair Flight 301, a Boeing 757 that went down in the Atlantic Ocean shortly after taking off from Puerto Plata, in the Dominican Republic, on the night of 6 February 1996. It also covers the subsequent investigation.

The flight was bound for Frankfurt with stops in Gander and Berlin. It carried 176 passengers, mostly German tourists, and 13 crew. The aircraft was eleven years old and had spent 20 days parked in Puerto Plata. During the takeoff roll the captain's airspeed indicator read zero, but the crew continued anyway. Once airborne, that indicator gave false readings that fed the autopilot, which raised the nose and reduced power until the aircraft stalled. None of the 189 people on board survived.

The investigation by the Dominican Dirección General de Aeronáutica Civil attributed the faulty readings, probably, to an insect nest in the captain's pitot tube, although the tubes were never recovered. It considered this a contributing factor. The cause was that the crew failed to recognise and recover from the stall, and did not apply the unreliable airspeed procedure. The report noted that the airline did not train its pilots in crew resource management. It recommended adding that training and simulator practice for pitot failures on the 757.