MK Airlines Flight 1602

MK Airlines Flight 1602 was an MK Airlines Boeing 747-200F cargo flight on a flight from Halifax Stanfield International Airport, Nova Scotia, Canada, to Zaragoza Airport, Spain. It crashed on take-off in 2004, killing the crew of 7. It was the fourth accident for MK Airlines, as well as the deadliest.

Aircraft and crew
The Boeing 747-200 was originally manufactured for South African Airways in 1980 as ZS-SAR, making its first flight on 24 October of the same year, and being delivered on 6 November. At some point during its service with SAA, ZS-SAR was converted to a freighter. On 11 November 1992, ZS-SAR was leased to Garuda Indonesia as 3B-NAS. Sometime before September 1995, the aircraft was returned to SAA, and in March 2000, was sold to MK Airlines as 9G-MKJ. The plane was destroyed after the crash.

The captain was Michael Thornycroft, who had been with MK Airlines since its establishment in 1990. He had 23,200 flight hours including 4,000 hours on the Boeing 747. Thornycroft also had dual South African and United Kingdom citizenship. The first officer was Gary Keogh, who had 8,537 flight hours. The flight engineer was Peter Launder, who had 2,000 flight hours. There was also a relief captain and flight engineer. The relief captain was David Lamb, and the relief flight engineer was Steven Hooper, who had 1,600 and 1,990 flight hours respectively. The ground engineer was Mario Zahn, who held dual South African and German citizenship, and the loadmaster was Chris Strydom. Five of the seven crew members were from Zimbabwe; the remaining two (Thornycroft and Zahn) were from South Africa.

Accident
At 00:03 local time, on 14 October 2004, MK Airlines Flight 1602 took off from Windsor Locks-Bradley International Airport. The aircraft was loaded with a cargo of lawn tractors and made an intermediate stop at Halifax at 02:12 to be loaded up with approximately 53000 kg of lobster and fish.

Flight 1602 taxied to Runway 24 (now assigned '23' designation), and the takeoff roll was commenced at 06:53:22. When the aircraft reached 130 knots, the control column was moved aft to 8.4° to initiate rotation as the aircraft passed the 5500 ft mark of Runway 24; with 3300 ft left on the runway, the aircraft began to rotate. The pitch attitude stabilized briefly at approximately 9° nose-up, with an airspeed of 144 knots. Because the 747 still had not lifted off the runway, the control column was moved further aft to 10°, and the aircraft responded with a further pitch up to approximately 11°; at this time, a tailstrike occurred. The aircraft was approximately at the 8000 ft mark and slightly left of the center-line. The control column was then relaxed slightly, to 9° aft. The pitch attitude stabilized in the 11° range for the next four seconds, and the tailstrike abated as a result. With approximately 600 ft of runway remaining, the thrust levers were advanced to 92% and the engine pressure ratios (EPRs) increased to 1.60. With 420 ft remaining, a second tailstrike took place. As the aircraft passed the end of the runway, the control column was 13.5° aft, pitch attitude was 11.9° nose-up, and airspeed was 152 knots. The highest recorded nose-up pitch of 14.5° was recorded at one minute and two seconds after takeoff initiation after the aircraft passed the end of the runway at a speed of 155 knots. The aircraft became airborne approximately 670 ft beyond the paved surface and flew a distance of 325 ft. The lower aft fuselage then struck an earthen berm supporting an instrument landing system (ILS) localizer antenna 300 m beyond the end of the runway, separating from the plane. The plane then headed forwards in a straight line for another 1200 ft, breaking into pieces and bursting into flames when it struck the ground.

Emergency response
Over 60–80 firefighters and 20 pieces of apparatus from Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency responded to the call. It took nearly three hours to extinguish the post-crash fire.

Investigation
An investigation into the crash revealed that the flight crew had used the incorrect speeds and thrust setting during the take-off attempt, with incorrect take-off data being calculated when preparing the flight (incorrect V speed calculation, as the result of the crew re-using a lighter take-off weight of 240000 kg from the aircraft's previous take-off at Bradley, instead of the correct weight of 353000 kg. The official report blamed the company for serious non-conformance to flight and duty time with no regulations or company rules governing maximum duty periods for loadmasters and ground engineers resulting in increased potential for fatigue-induced errors.

MK Airlines disputed the findings citing that the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) was too heavily damaged in the post-crash fire to yield any information.