Hewa Bora Airways Flight 952
Boeing 727-022 · Controlled flight into terrain
From Ndjili International Airport (FIH) to Bangoka International Airport (FKI)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA11RA080
- 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
- Unknown · led by another country; figures from NTSB notifications
- Event fatalities
- 77 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 115
- Survivors
- 38
- 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
- 38
- 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
Boeing 727-022
- Flight
- EO952
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 727
- 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
- 9Q-COP
- Operator
- Hewa Bora Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- 77
- Route
- From Ndjili International Airport (FIH)To Bangoka International Airport (FKI)
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Environmental issues › Operating environment
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
On 8 July 2011, Hewa Bora Airways Flight 952, a Boeing 727 passenger jet on a domestic flight from Kinshasa, to Kisangani, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), crashed on final approach at Kisangani, killing 77 of the 115 people on board.
Accident
Hewa Bora Airways Flight 952 had taken off on 8 July from Kinshasa's N'djili Airport with 112 passengers and 6 crew on board bound for Kisangani Airport. At around 15:00 local time, the aircraft attempted an approach reportedly to Kisangani's runway 13, but the approach was discontinued. The aircraft then approached the opposite runway 31, but impacted terrain about 400 m from the runway threshold.
At the time, thunderstorms and poor visibility were reported in the area, and Kisangani Airport had no official instrument approach procedure published, although a VOR/DME procedure was available commercially.
Reports on the number of casualties initially varied, with the final toll reaching 77 fatalities and 38 injuries.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
A commission was set up to investigate the accident. A preliminary report was issued a month later, in August 2011, without data from the cockpit voice recorder nor flight data recorder, which had been sent to the US National Transportation Safety Board for analysis.
The commission found that the crew of Flight 952 had misjudged the weather conditions at destination, and that weather information provided to the crew by air traffic controllers at Kisangani was incorrect.
It also emerged that the captain of the aircraft was licensed to fly the MD-82 aircraft, but his type rating for the Boeing 727 had expired and was pending renewal. The control tower at Kisangani was found to be understaffed, and some of the air traffic controllers were not properly licensed. Both facilities that should have recorded all air traffic radio communications in the tower were also inoperative.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Hewa Bora Airways Flight 952” (revision 1339300580, 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 July 8, 2011 about 1311 UTC (1511 local time), a Hewa Bora Airways Boeing 727-100, 9Q-COP, a domestic scheduled commercial flight, operating as Hewa Bora flight 952, collided with the ground during visual approach to runway 31 at Bangoka International Airport, Kisangani, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Preliminary information from the DRC indicates that of the 115 persons on board, there were 77 fatalities, including the three flight crewmembers and two of the four cabin crew. The airplane was destroyed and consumed by post-crash fire. The departure point was Kinshasa, DRC. An instrument flight plan was filed, and the weather was reported as heavy rain and poor visibility with thunderstorms in the vicinity of the airport.
The investigation is being conducted by the Government of the DRC. All inquiries should be directed to them at:
Direction de l'Aéronautique Civile Ministère des Transports et Communications Building Ontara, boulevard du 30 juin B.P. 3304 Kinshasa/Gombe République démocratique du Congo
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
Wikipedia article: Hewa Bora Airways Flight 952
- Article
- Hewa Bora Airways Flight 952
- Revision
- 1339300580 · 2026-02-19 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q1616631
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record DCA11RA080
- Event ID
- 20110711X20245
- Case number
- DCA11RA080
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Hewa Bora Airways Flight 952" (page 32347446, revision 1339300580); merged with NTSB case DCA11RA080 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates
- 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 DCA11RA080
- Operation
- airline flight number in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- Wikipedia: not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (3)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Hewa Bora Airways Flight 952" and NTSB case DCA11RA080, 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.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: damage. The narrative states "The airplane was destroyed and consumed by post-crash fire".