Afriqiyah Airways Flight 771
Airbus A330-202 · Controlled flight into terrain in low visibility due to spatial disorientation and pilot error
From O.R. Tambo International Airport (JNB) to Tripoli International Airport, Tripoli, Libya
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA10RA059
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Final · LYCAA final report, Feb 2013
- Event fatalities
- 103 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 104
- Survivors
- 1
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 1
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Not recorded
Airbus A330-202
- Flight
- 8U771
- Aircraft type
- Airbus A330
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- 5A-ONG
- Operator
- Afriqiyah Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- 103
- Route
- From O.R. Tambo International Airport (JNB)To Tripoli International Airport, Tripoli, Libya
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Non-U.S., Commercial
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Not recorded
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Not recorded
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
Afriqiyah Airways Flight 771 was a scheduled international Afriqiyah Airways passenger flight from Johannesburg, South Africa to Tripoli, Libya. On 12 May 2010 at about 06:01 (04:01 UTC) while on approach to Tripoli International Airport, the aircraft operating the flight, an Airbus A330, crashed about 1200 m short of the runway. Of the 104 passengers and crew on board, 103 were killed. The sole survivor was a 9-year-old Dutch boy.
The crash of Flight 771 was the deadliest aviation disaster in Libya since the crash of Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 1103 in 1992. This was also the third hull-loss of an Airbus A330 involving fatalities, occurring eleven months after the crash of Air France Flight 447. The crash was also the first fatal accident in the operational history of Afriqiyah Airways.
The investigation, led by the Libyan Civil Aviation Authority, concluded that the crash was caused by pilot error. Following a series of misunderstandings between the pilots, the flight failed to stabilise its approach, causing the already fatigued crew to execute a missed approach. While initiating the go-around, they suffered somatogravic illusion. They then applied nose-down input at low altitude and caused the aircraft to slam onto terrain.
Accident
Flight 771 was an international long-haul flight that originated at O. R. Tambo International Airport in South Africa's largest city of Johannesburg to Tripoli International Airport in the Libyan capital of Tripoli. There were 93 passengers and 11 crew members on board. Most of the passengers were Dutch citizens returning from holiday in South Africa. After arriving in Libya, the majority of the passengers would have boarded two other aircraft, one of which was bound to Düsseldorf and the other to Brussels. On this flight, al-Saadi was the monitoring pilot, while Abu-Shawashi was in charge of the aircraft controls.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Afriqiyah Airways Flight 771” (revision 1372624722, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
NTSB narrative
On May 12, 2010, at approximately 0600 local time (0400 UTC), Afriqiyah Airways flight number 771, an Airbus A330-200 equipped with General Electric CF6-8E1 engines, tail number 5A-ONG, crashed short of the runway in Tripoli, Libya. The flight originated in Johannesburg, South Africa. Of the 93 passengers and 11 crew on board, one passenger survived.
The Libyan CAA is investigating the accident. As the State of design and manufacture of the engines, the NTSB has designated a U.S. Accredited Representative to the Libyan CAA's investigation. All inquiries regarding this accident should be directed to:
LIBYAN ARAB JAMAHIRIYA Civil Aviation and Meteorology Higher Institute P.O. Box 84116 Tripoli Libyan Arab Jamahiriya
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
Wikipedia article: Afriqiyah Airways Flight 771
- Article
- Afriqiyah Airways Flight 771
- Revision
- 1372624722 · 2026-09-01 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q387892
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record DCA10RA059
- Event ID
- 20100512X53621
- Case number
- DCA10RA059
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Afriqiyah Airways Flight 771" (page 27327197, revision 1372624722); merged with NTSB case DCA10RA059 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date; matches the Libyan Civil Aviation Authority (LYCAA), Investigation Committee final report
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates; matches the Libyan Civil Aviation Authority (LYCAA), Investigation Committee final report
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports); gaps and aircraft details from NTSB record DCA10RA059
- Operation
- airline flight number in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities; matches the Libyan Civil Aviation Authority (LYCAA), Investigation Committee final report
- Ground fatalities
- Libyan Civil Aviation Authority (LYCAA), Investigation Committee final report
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (3)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Afriqiyah Airways Flight 771" and NTSB case DCA10RA059, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this event outside the United States Wikipedia's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- No bulk values were replaced by the NTSB case API.
- Checked against the Libyan Civil Aviation Authority (LYCAA), Investigation Committee final report (2013-02) on 2026-09-18. The report states the same date, crash-site coordinates, flight number, fatalities, registration, operator, departure, destination and damage. Taken from the report: ground fatalities. Not checked: place, aircraft type and type of operation.