Air Algérie Flight 2208
Air Algerie Lockheed L-100-30 Hercules · Instrument failure leading to a loss of control
From Houari Boumediene Airport (ALG) to Frankfurt Main Airport (FRA)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC06WA202
- 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
- 3 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 3
- Survivors
- 0
- 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
- 0 serious · 0 minor (NTSB)
- 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
Lockheed L-100-30 Hercules
- Flight
- AH2208
- Aircraft type
- Lockheed L-100
- 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
- 7T-VHG
- Operator
- Air Algérie
- Onboard fatalities
- 3
- Route
- From Houari Boumediene Airport (ALG)To Frankfurt Main Airport (FRA)
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
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
Air Algérie Flight 2208 was a cargo flight between Algiers-Houari Boumediene Airport, Algiers, Algeria, and Frankfurt Airport, Germany. On 13 August 2006, the Lockheed L-100 operating the flight crashed in Northern Italy as a result of an autopilot malfunction. The aircraft struck the ground in a sparsely populated area after a very steep and rapid descent, narrowly avoiding crashing into a highly populated area. The crew of three on board were killed in the accident; there were no passengers, nor were there injuries or property damage on the ground.
Accident
The 25-year-old aircraft, a Lockheed L-100-30 Hercules, registration 7T-VHG, was operating a cargo service between Algiers-Houari Boumediene Airport and Frankfurt Airport as Flight 2208; it was flying over Italian soil at 24000 ft when it began descending for unknown reasons. The pilot had informed that there was an engine loss of power prior to losing contact with the Milan air traffic control while the aircraft was flying at 13500 ft.
The pilot was able to direct the aircraft's descent towards a sparsely populated area. It struck the ground between Milan and Parma in a village named Besurica, located in the outskirts of Piacenza. Upon impacting, the airframe broke in two. According to the Corriere della Sera, the impact was so devastating that the wreckage of the aircraft was strewn over several kilometres, while the loud noise of the crash was heard in the city proper. The impact created a crater 50 m long and 15 m wide. The upper portion of the rudder and parts of the elevator were found 1200 m and 3000 m ahead of the impact point, respectively.
The aircraft narrowly avoided crashing into highly populated areas, to the extent that the mayor of Piacenza referred to the occurrence as a miracle. There were neither injuries nor property damage on the ground, but the crew of three on board lost their lives in the accident.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The National Agency for the Safety of Flight (ANSV) started an inquiry, following the recovery of the cockpit voice recorder a week after the crash. The flight data recorder was also recovered, and results from its decoded ribbon showed that the aircraft was flying at cruising altitude with the autopilot engaged, that it got disengaged twelve seconds after the autopilot failure light lit, and that both directional and longitudinal control was lost moments later, with the aircraft crashing 73 seconds after the light came on. The angle and the speed of the impact were estimated to be between 45° and 50° and in the range of 460 to 485 kn, respectively.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Air Algérie Flight 2208” (revision 1340953238, 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
Sources
Wikipedia article: Air Algérie Flight 2208
- Article
- Air Algérie Flight 2208
- Revision
- 1340953238 · 2026-02-28 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q4697723
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record NYC06WA202
- Event ID
- 20060822X01220
- Case number
- NYC06WA202
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Air Algérie Flight 2208" (page 38234667, revision 1340953238); merged with NTSB case NYC06WA202 (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 NYC06WA202
- 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 (2)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Air Algérie Flight 2208" and NTSB case NYC06WA202, 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.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.