History: Flydubai Flight 981

Flydubai Flight 981 (FZ981/FDB981) was a scheduled international passenger flight from Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, to Rostov on Don, Russia. The aircraft that flew this route on 19 March 2016, a Boeing 737-800 crashed after two unsuccessful landing attempts at Rostov on Don Airport in adverse weather conditions. At time time of the crash the aircraft has just started climbing to 4000 feet after its second aborted landing attempt when for yet unknown reasons rapidly descended and crashed on the runway. All 62 passengers and crew lost their lives.

This was the first fatal incident in the eight year history of Flydubai.

Aircraft

The aircraft involved in the crash was a relatively new Boeing 737-8KN which was delivered as new to Flydubai on the 24 January 2011. The aircraft had the serial number MSN 40241, it performed its maiden flight on 21 December 2010 and upon delivery to Flydubai it was registered as A6-FDN. The two CFM56 engines were manufactured by CFM International. The last C-check of the aircraft was performed on 21 January 2016.

Accident

Search and recovery

Passengers and crew

Crew

The aircraft's captain was Aristos Sokratous (38 years old) from Cyprus. During his career captain Sokratous had flown 5965 hours. He was promoted to captain about one and a half years before the crash (The required minimal number of hours for becoming a captain at Flydubai is 5000). His wife was due to give birth to their first child just weeks after the crash and he wanted to be close to his family. Because of this at the time of the crash he already accepted a job from Ryanair and he was going to quit Flydubai.

Spanish Alejandro Cruz Alava was the first officer of the flight. He was 37 years old and accumulated 5769 hours of flying time. Before joining Flydubai some two years before the crash he worked at two regional airlines in the Canary Islands: Binter and Naysa.

Both pilots had experience landing at Rostov on Don Airport.

Passengers

From the 55 passengers 44 (including 4 children) were Russian citizens. 30 of the passengers were tourists on a package tour from Natalie Tours - one of the largest Russian tour operators.

Notable passengers were Igor Pakus (chief pysician of the Rostov Oblast regional hospital and member of the Regional Legislative Assembly) and Elvira Belyakova (head of Rostvertol's pension fund).

Investigation

Conclusions

Aftermath

Further reading

Airlines in the United Arab Emirates
Aircraft disasters