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Pilot blamed for plane crash in Namibia: official

Xinhua, January 22, 2015 Adjust font size:

Initial probe into the Mozambique aircraft that crashed in Namibia in 2013 states that the pilot intentionally caused the accident, a Namibian official said Wednesday.

Acting permanent secretary in the Ministry of Works and Transport Ericksson Nengola released the preliminary findings Wednesday in the capital Windhoek.

The crash that occurred in the Bwabwata National Park involved a Mozambique Airlines' Embraer 190 jet that killed all 33 people on board -- six crew members and 27 passengers on Nov. 29.

The aircraft was flying from Maputo to Luanda.

The report was compiled by the Directorate of Aircraft Accident Investigations in Namibia and would be released any time this year.

The information used was based on the flight data recorders that were retrieved from the crash scene and sent to the National Transportation Safety Board in the U.S..

According to the report, the flight data showed that the aircraft was operating normally before the crash, which occurred when the captain Herminio dos Santos Fernandes, 49, was alone in the cockpit after the 24-year-old first officer had gone to the toilet.

Furthermore, the report said the aircraft was flying at 38,000 feet when the first officer left the cockpit and that it started to descent sharply soon after.

The findings further revealed that the plane's altitude was manually changed from 38,000 feet to 4,288 feet, then to 1,888 feet, and finally to 592 feet. More changes were made manually during the last 10 minutes of the flight.

Chiming alarms and bangings, which could have been caused by somebody trying to enter the cockpit were recorded by the voice recorder.

A ground proximity warning went off in the cockpit when the aircraft reached 2,010 feet above the ground, while a second warning sounded off five seconds later. The report said there were no distress calls sent to declare an emergency.

The jet then hit the ground 18 seconds later after taking seven minutes and 17 seconds to descend from 38,000 feet. Endi