Durban - Pietermaritzburg

On September 24, 2009 at 07:57 AM, Durban - Pietermaritzburg experienced a crash involving Bae Jetstream 41, operated by South African Airlink, with the event recorded near Durban KwaZulu-Natal.

The flight was categorized as positioning and the reported phase was takeoff (climb) at a airport (less than 10 km from airport) crash site.

3 people were known to be on board, 1 fatalities were recorded, 2 survivors were identified or estimated. This corresponds to an estimated fatality rate of 33.3%.

Crew on board: 3, crew fatalities: 1, passengers on board: 0, passenger fatalities: 0, other fatalities: 0.

The listed crash cause is technical failure. During the take-off roll, the cockpit crew of another airliner observed smoke pouring from the right engine of ZS-NRM. They were shocked, yet reluctant to tell the crew of ZS-NRM to abort the take-off as they felt that they might be blamed had the abort gone wrong. Instead, the witnessing pilots enquired from the tower whether the aircraft was aware of the smoke. By the time the ATC responded, the aircraft was already in the air, but with its landing gear not yet retracted. Another aircraft lining up at the holding point informed ZS-NRM that their undercarriage was still extended, and the captain of ZS-NRM then transmitted (instead of using the intercom) an instruction to his co-pilot to raise the gear. During this transmission, the sound of what was possibly a warning sound could be heard in the background. The aircraft became airborne and climbed to approximately 500 ft above mean sea level before losing altitude and making a forced landing on a small field in the Merebank residential area, about 1,4 km from the end of the runway. During the forced landing, a member of the public was struck by the wing of the aircraft and the three crew members were seriously injured in the accident. The captain subsequently died from his injuries.

Aircraft reference details include registration ZS-NRM, MSN 41069, year of manufacture 1995.

Geospatial coordinates for this crash are approximately -29.8618°, 31.0099°.