Incident Overview
On January 10, 2000, Crossair flight CRX 498, operating an aircraft with registration HB-AKK, departed Zurich Airport for Dresden. The flight crew consisted of a commander and a first officer, accompanied by seven passengers. The departure occurred in darkness under instrument meteorological conditions, with the cloud base reported at 500 feet above ground level.
Departure Sequence
The aircraft received take-off clearance for runway 28 at 16:54:00 UTC and began its roll at 16:54:10 UTC. After liftoff, the crew initiated a climb with the flight director active and navigation mode armed. The autopilot was not engaged during this phase. At 16:55:39 UTC, air traffic control instructed the crew to turn left to VOR ZUE (Zurich East) to follow the departure procedure.
Loss of Control
Following the instruction, the aircraft initially banked left but subsequently rolled right. By 16:56:00 UTC, the right bank angle had increased to 31 degrees while the pitch attitude decreased. The commander ordered climb power settings, a process that took time to complete. Between 16:56:03 and 16:56:10 UTC, the bank angle widened further to between 39 and 42 degrees right.
At 16:56:10 UTC, the aircraft entered a period of destabilization characterized by uncoordinated aileron deflections. The right bank angle rapidly increased to 80 degrees, causing the nose to drop to 25 degrees attitude nose down. Despite warnings from the first officer and requests for confirmation from departure control, the aircraft continued into a spiral dive. The maximum recorded bank angle reached 137 degrees right, with airspeed increasing to 285 knots indicated airspeed.
Impact
Witnesses reported seeing the aircraft break out of the clouds in a steep descent while turning right. At 16:56:27.2 UTC, the aircraft impacted an open field near Au, Nassenwil, in the canton of Zurich. The crash resulted in the fatalities of all three crew members and seven passengers.