LAM Mozambique Airlines Flight 470

Investigation

On 21 December 2013, the Mozambican Civil Aviation Institute (Instituto Moçambicano de Aviação Civil, IACM) head João Abreu presented the preliminary investigation report, according to which Captain Herminio dos Santos Fernandes had a "clear intention" to crash the jet and manually changed its autopilot settings, making this a suicide by pilot. After the co-pilot left the cockpit, two minutes passed before the captain decided to lock the door, and a further minute passed before he initiated a descent. NTSB pilot psychologist Malcolm Brenner stated that during this period the captain was probably "thinking about life" and contemplating whether he could carry out such an action.

The aircraft's intended altitude was reportedly changed in the autopilot in three steps from 38000 ft to 592 ft, the latter being below ground level; the autopilot speed was manually adjusted as well. The cockpit voice recorder captured the sounds of the captain's inputs to the autopilot, several alarms going off during the rapid descent, as well as repeated loud bangs on the door from the co-pilot, who was locked out of the cockpit. Contrary to the operational policy of Mozambique Airlines, a cabin crew member was not present in the cockpit during the co-pilot's absence.

Investigations of the aircraft's pilot revealed that Captain Fernandes had suffered a number of blows of fate prior to the accident. His son died in a suspected suicide in November 2012; Fernandes stayed away from the funeral. The one-year anniversary of Fernandes' son's death occurred almost exactly on the date of the accident. His daughter was also in hospital for heart surgery at the time of the crash, and his divorce proceedings had been unresolved for over a decade.

Despite the conclusion of the IACM, the Mozambican Association of Air Operators (AMOPAR) disputed the preliminary report, explaining that the maneuvers of Captain Fernandes were from the manual of standard operating procedures issued by Embraer (the manufacturer of the crashed aircraft) about how to "act in emergency situation to avert disaster". According to the AMOPAR document, the Mozambican Government had not complied with the standards and recommendations of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) "about the disclosure, contents and procedures relating to the preliminary report of the investigation of the crash of flight TM 470."

On 15 April 2016 the DAAI released its final report finding that the inputs to the autopilot flight systems by the person believed to be the Captain, who remained alone on the flight deck when the person believed to be the co-pilot requested to go to the lavatory, caused the aircraft to depart from cruise flight, transitioned to a sustained controlled descent and subsequently crashed.

According to experts interviewed in the TV series Mayday, the LAM crash was not extensively covered by the media because the crash happened in a developing country. This meant that the airline industry failed to apply safety measures in time to avoid another similar incident, the crash of Germanwings Flight 9525 in the French Alps in 2015, which was found to be a deliberate act by the co-pilot.