Co-Pilot’s Coffee Spill Blamed in Plunge of Serbian President’s Plane
Version 0 of 1. WARSAW — The nearly disastrous plunge of the Serbian president’s plane Friday was the fault of the co-pilot, who spilled coffee in the cockpit and accidentally activated an emergency switch, the Serbian Civil Aviation Directorate said in a report published Tuesday. Initially, Serbian officials said that the aircraft, carrying President Tomislav Nikolic and nine others to a meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican, had been sent into a plunge over the Adriatic Sea after one of its three engines failed at an altitude of about 33,000 feet. But an investigation by the Civil Aviation Directorate found that the dive occurred after the co-pilot, Bojan Zoric, “spilled coffee on the instrument panel” and “accidentally activated the emergency slot extension” as he was trying to clean it up. This led to a brief shutdown of the third engine, the report said. After about a minute, in which the plane fell about a mile, the captain regained control and the aircraft returned to Belgrade. Mr. Nikolic had to postpone his meeting with the pope. “These 60 seconds felt like an eternity,” said Stanislava Pak, a presidential adviser who was on the plane. “We were falling like a rock. Our things were flying all over the cabin. I fell on my colleague, and then grabbed his hand. It was the most terrifying moment.” The Serbian authorities said the co-pilot had been suspended from duty for “endangering flight safety.” Aviation officials had planned to run tests on the aircraft over the weekend, but canceled them because of a problem with the fuel pump in the third engine, they said. The plane was sent to Basel, Switzerland, for additional checks. The plane, a French-built Dassault Falcon 50, is one of Serbia’s two official jets and has been in service for 31 years. The other plane, a smaller Learjet 31A, was built in 1991. Both have experienced serious malfunctions in recent years. After Friday’s episode, the presidential press office said that Mr. Nikolic’s ministers would no longer use either of the two aging machines, and that they would take commercial flights instead. But on Tuesday, Ms. Pak said that had not been fully decided. “During his next trip, the president will take a commercial flight, but after that it will be up to him to decide what he wants to do,” she said. “But I hope he will not use this aircraft ever again,” she added. It was not the first time that a coffee spill had endangered plane passengers. In 2011, a cup that spilled in the cockpit, possibly because of turbulence, created communication and navigation problems for a Boeing 777 bound for Frankfurt from Chicago. The flight was diverted to Toronto, grounding 241 passengers. |