A Qatar Airways flight from Doha, Qatar to Copenhagen, Denmark came close to crashing into the sea after the pilot lost situational awareness, reports Aviation Herald. Significantly, this incident happened with the Boeing 787-8 aircraft when it was flying QR-161. The incident happened on January 10 with the aircraft with registration A7-BCO. However, this was not reported to the authorities and it came to light only recently.
The Aviation Herald reports that the flight took off from Doha in night conditions and the aircraft climbed approximately 1800 feet when it began to lose altitude and made a vertical drop of approximately 1000 feet in 24 seconds. The first officer attempted to manually turn to the next waypoint flown and without the flight director’s indication (the captain was slow to put Direct into the FMS) when the aircraft was about 1600 feet to that waypoint. was given.
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However, the first officer lost situational awareness and the aircraft descended at a speed that exceeded the speed limit of the flaps and reached a sink rate of 3000 fpm before the captain regained control and recovered approximately 800 feet above water.
A Qatar Airways 787 came within seconds of plunging into the sea after the pilots lost situational awareness on departure from Doha in January. https://t.co/aTdq3Sc2He pic.twitter.com/RvBd96hRWC– Breaking Aviation News & Videos (@aviationbrk) February 7, 2023
The aircraft was at an altitude of 1850 feet when it started descending and reached an altitude of 850 feet after 24 seconds. Thereafter, according to the ADS-B data, the pilot regained control and the aircraft leveled off briefly before rising once again. Significantly, after this the plane landed safely in Denmark without any problem and the passengers aboard remained safe.
The airline said that an incident involving QR-161 occurred on January 10, 2023 and they are aware of the incident. The airline is also conducting an internal investigation, and the matter has been immediately reported to the authorities.