Both the Norwegian Air Force and the Swedish Civil Aviation Administration is criticized in the classified report, but no individual is blamed, according to Swedish newspaper Norrbottens Kuriren.
According to information the newspaper got hold of, analyses of the voice recorder and flight recorder show that the plane’s altitude warning system was shut off. The crew had no warning that the plane was about to hit ground. The air traffic controllers in Stockholm and Kiruna and the crew did “not fully understand each other’s intentions”, the report says.
All the five crew members were killed when a Norwegian Hercules transport aircraft crashed into the top of Kebnekaise, Sweden’s highest mountain on March 15 2012. The plane was participating in the large NATO exercise Cold Response.
As a result of the strong crash and the following explosion, the wreckage was scattered over a large area and buried in an avalanche. The search operations were very difficult and dangerous, as the terrain is very hard and the weather conditions in the area are often bad.
The investigation report has been postponed five times. The Swedish Accident Investigation Authority had planned to have it ready by the end of 2012, but the report has now become so comprehensive that it is still not ready to be published.
Head of the investigation commission Agne Widholm refuses to comment on the newspaper’s information.
