The captain of the El Al Boeing 747 that exploded over Amsterdam in October had the cargo jet under reasonable control until just before the crash and could have hoped to land safely at Schiphol Airport.
A transcript of the conversation between the control tower and the flight crew was given to the media at the airport last Friday by the Dutch Civil Aviation Authority.
It shows that permission was given for takeoff at 6:20 p.m on Oct. 4. At 6:35, the plane crashed.
At 6:27, the captain, Yitzhak Fuchs, issued a “Mayday” emergency call without indicating exactly what had happened.
He received permission to return to the airport.
At 6:23, the captain reported that engine 3 was on fire and a split second later that engine 4 was no longer operational.
Neither the crew nor the control tower was aware that the two engines had dropped off and that in their fall, they had also damaged the leading edge flap of the front of the right wing of the plane.
The pilot believed he could still make it back to Schiphol Airport.
The director of the Civil Aviation Authority, Hendrick Wolleswinkel, said the full circumstances of the disaster will probably never be clarified.
The investigation is hampered because the cockpit voice recorder has still not been recovered.
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