Crash: East African Express E120 at Berdale on May 4th 2020, aircraft shot down by Ethiopian troops

By Simon Hradecky, created Tuesday, May 5th 2020 14:04Z, last updated Saturday, May 9th 2020 18:02Z

An East African Express Airways Embraer EMB-120, registration 5Y-AXO performing a charter freight flight from Baidoa to Berdale (Somalia) with 4 passengers, 2 crew and a load of medical supplies, was on approach to Berdale at about 2200 feet MSL about 3 minutes prior to landing and about 3nm before the airport at approximately 15:45L (12:45Z), when the aircraft was hit by an object similiar to a rocket propelled grenade, lost height, impacted ground and burst into flames. All occupants perished, the aircraft was destroyed.

The Transport Minister of Southwest Region of Somalia reported there were no survivors.

Ethiopian troops operating and guarding the airport in the civil war stricken area secured the crash site.

The airline reported the aircraft was shot down 5km from the airport in Bardale. The aircraft had flown from Mogadishu via an intermediate stop in Baidoa to Berdale (Baardale).

Kenyan Security Forces reported the aircraft was downed by a rocket propelled grenade launched from the area of Berdale. Al Shabab rebel forces can not be ruled out.

An Ethiopian journalist on site claims without providing evidence, the rocket propelled grenade was launched by Ethiopian troops.

Somalia's President promised his Kenyan counterpart that Somalia is going to conduct a thorough investigation into the crash of the Kenyan Aircraft.

Somalia's officials report the aircraft was shot down. A projectile fired from the ground hit the aircraft. Berdale Airport is a base for Ethiopian Military under the multinational African Union Mission Somalia (AMISOM) combating al Qaeda linked Al Shabab extremist forces.

AMISOM, with main contributors of military personal by Kenya and Ethiopia, welcomed the decision by the leaders of Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia to jointly investigate the accident.

On May 9th 2020 a prelimnary report filed by AMISOM stated Ethiopian troops at Berdale admitted they shot down the aircraft on mistaken identity. The troops at Berdale Airfield did not know abuot the arrival of the aircraft and judged the aircraft's unusual flight path at low altitude to be a potential suicide mission seeking a target to attack and shot the aircraft down. AMISOM further reports the Ethiopian troops at Berdale were not part of AMISOM but Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF), which raises legal questions on their presence in Somalia.

According to a local source the Berdale Airfield is located at coordinates N3.2170 E43.1767 elevation about 1320 feet MSL about 53km/28nm westnorthwest of Baidoa, the crash site is at coordinates N3.2403 E43.2114.

On May 8th 2020 Somalia's Aircraft Accident Investigation Department (AAID) reported the crash site at coordinates N3.2120 E43.2084 and confirmed Berdale Airfield at coordinates N3.2170 E43.1767.

The crash site (Photo: Harun Maruf):

Statement of Berdale Commander to AMISOM:

Flight Permit by SCAA:

Map (Graphics: AVH/Google Earth):

Reader Comments: (the comments posted below do not reflect the view of The Aviation Herald but represent the view of the various posters)

Aircraft & Military Comms
By Manzel on Tuesday, May 12th 2020 15:01Z

Another thought that's just come to mind. Was this a controlled or uncontrolled airfield? Just looking at the Google Earth pic above, I'm guessing it was uncontrolled. If so, should we now consider issuing military units defending such places with CTAF/Unicom radios to at least have the possibility of communicating with the aircraft before someone decides to pull a trigger?

I don't know...I can see all sorts of difficulties, especially with language differences and aircraft terminologies...("What you mean runway six? There's only one runway here!") Not trying to be funny, but you get the idea. How many Somali footsoldiers would know runway numbers refer to direction, not how many actual runways there are?

I'm just soliciting opinions...would communications between aircraft and troops make the situation better or worse?

Paint job or whatever probably useless
By Thomas on Tuesday, May 12th 2020 09:42Z

Sandman, exactly. Even if paint jobs were visible (which is unrealistic), this would just lead to attackers painting the plane. Same goes to suggesting a call-sign which only humanitarian flights are allowed to use - it'll get abused sometime.

The only way is trust and communication. Adherence to no-fly zones, adherence to established routes, adherence to standard communication. And of course, communication actually needs to work.

Possibly the development of a challenge-response keyword system on a per-flight basis could be evaluated to test friend/foe, but even that will be vulnerable to a "good" pilot turning "bad" in-flight.

For the Iran event in January and this one, I believe communication skills of the people with access to the trigger are the point of failure.

@Manzel is 100% correct
By sandman on Monday, May 11th 2020 17:31Z

Beyond the logistics of repainting constantly, if a paint job ensures that a plane won�t be shot down then guess what everybody will start doing, and subsequently what will no longer work as protection. Long gone are the days rules like that are followed by all.

RPG?
By Winston on Monday, May 11th 2020 03:37Z

Read the report. Put charitably, it seems like maybe english wasn't everyone's first language. MANPADs are "similar to a rocket propelled grenade". I kinda doubt they hit a plane with an RPG-7.

Re: Paint Job vs Human Life
By Manzel on Monday, May 11th 2020 02:04Z

@ffs (great original name)

Tell you what, I don't know where you live but why don't you have a look at any twin-engine turboprop aircraft that might be approaching your town at around 230knots and tell me if you can identify any markings on it.

If you think a red cross painted on the side is going to be visible to someone several KMs away with a rocket launcher, good luck to you.

Once again, if they had to repaint an aircraft every time it loaded medical supplies, no airline would bother. The medical supplies would sit unused at the airport.

walter on Sunday, May 10th 2020 20:57Z
By Simon Hradecky on Sunday, May 10th 2020 22:07Z

Negative, Baidoa Aerodrome, BIB, is at position N3.1047 E43.6300.

Berdale Position as well as the final position of the aircraft are confirmed by Somalia's Aircraft Accident Investigation Department.

map
By walter on Sunday, May 10th 2020 20:57Z

wrong map this is Baidoa from were the plane was coming

@Manzel
By ffs on Sunday, May 10th 2020 19:20Z

Is a paint job ever more expensive than a human life?

@Anonymous
By Hans R. on Sunday, May 10th 2020 16:59Z

I agree. The similarities to the down-shooting of the 737 nearby Teheran in January are astonishing: troups nearby an Airports in high alert, lack of information, unexpected moving of the plane and shooting. Something should be done to prevent further accidents like this ones.

@Manzel
By Michael Anthony on Sunday, May 10th 2020 16:27Z

Good point. I was thinking more of just a painted cross, or something simi!liar. The "rules of war" in use, so to speak. Might do no good, but with the amount of humanitarian aid in that region, one would hope that those helping are not put in more danger.

Re: Red Cross Livery
By Manzel on Sunday, May 10th 2020 12:50Z

@Michael Anthony,
It would not be reasonable to expect an airline to repaint its aircraft with Red Cross livery every time it gets loaded with medical supplies and then re-painted back to its normal livery when carrying normal cargo. The paintwork would probably cost more than the flight!

Coordination issue
By (anonymous) on Sunday, May 10th 2020 06:41Z

The defective coordination option brings us back to the Teheran scenario: when you have troops in high alert, they have weapons and what they would know the best is how to employ them.
Considering the number of various drone attacks and suicide scenario we have been seing in Yemen, Syria, Irak and other places in the last decade, we will see more of those mishaps in the future..

By KKN on Saturday, May 9th 2020 18:34Z

Kalle, you do have an idea. On top of this page, in what can be considered an article, it says "medical supplies".

Would you not agree this is sort of an idea - ultimate truth or not if there should be any general incentive to doubt. Good enough as assumption.

If apart from casting doubt on the reporting on here or the cargo declaration of the deceased, yes I agree, nothing special about Khat.

@Hans R.
By Kalle on Saturday, May 9th 2020 00:30Z

Kat is perfectly legal in EA and was legal in many countries until some years ago. You would find a lot of "drug dealers" at Wilson. Nonsense.
It�s got nothing to do with "Western","Eastern" or striped and chequered.
Just a fact. I have no idea what was on the plane and it doesn�t matter.

Why spreading this rumor about kat?
By Hans R. on Friday, May 8th 2020 12:08Z

@kalle

You know that in the understanding of Western societies Kat is drug and kat dealers are drug dealers. So in the connotation of language use in Western societies this is transfering the dead occupants of this plane from victims of a homicide into drug dealers who've gotten what they've.

Would you spread this rumor, too, that they were Kat dealers if the plane would have belonged to an American or Western European Airline and the occupants would have had a white coloured skin?

To repeat it: There's no reason to think that there freight was anything else than medical supply and that the six people who died in this Crash would be anything else than victims of a homicide.

If we would have to learn something different it should be based on facto and not on hearsay and rumor.

Kat
By Kalle on Friday, May 8th 2020 09:29Z

Kat is legal in EA and its distribution works better than most activities there.

@Anonymous
By Hans R. on Thursday, May 7th 2020 13:52Z

You made out really good points. Btw.: The Airline is based At Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi/ Kenya. Usually it Koffers flights to destinations in Eastern Africa and in some Arab Countries like Dubai. In this Corona-Times it obviously Triest to survive with charter freight flights. If you would be a drug dealer you wouldn't use this Airline for your stuff and you wouldn't direkt it to an airfield controlled by government armed forces.

So the most likely answers to the question why are: somebody with a nervous Finger or some hostile militias in this territory shaken over long years by a civil war.

As it is reports here.

why shooting down a plane
By (anonymous) on Thursday, May 7th 2020 09:26Z

There is no reason to shoot down a plane you would suspect to carry illegal stuf and about to land in the place you already have your own troops...
So the plane was either shot by other forces, could be diverse hostile groups.
Or it was shot down by troops protecting the airport because it was considered by someone as a threat (suicide attack, bringing suicide troops inside the airport...), in this case this might be a failed coordination scenario.

RPG's are widely spead "low cost" weapons, much much more than infra red guided missiles, and it is pretty easy to train with, as rounds do not cost so much, so you can find trained people pretty good at that in many places...

@Raffles
By Hans R. on Wednesday, May 6th 2020 22:51Z

Everything what I could find in the Internet reports that it was a freight flight chartered by a NGO and containing medial supply in the ongoing Corona-Pandemia and mosquito-nets.

Everything what what I could in the Internet looks like a normal airline - yes, with some very old planes as not so uncommon in Africa. You can even find the destroyed plane as example picture for their fleet in the internet (5Y-AXO).

Alltogether that doesn't looks like drug dealing. And if a drug dealer plane would have been shot down by regul�r army forces the Presidents of three countries wouldn't have settleted down an international agreement for investigation of the reason.

So everything seems to be exactly as Simon reports it here.

To be open: I don't think it's approprate to finger point the victims of this crash as drug dealers as long as there's no evidence for it. Not all small planes cruising in Africa are flown by criminals. We should avoid such short-thinking.

Cargo
By Michael Anthony on Wednesday, May 6th 2020 22:11Z

I always take it with a grain of salt the "cargo" being carried. Medical supplies could be true, as could Khat. Rumours run rampart in that part of the world & perhaps the shooters susoected sinething else. Not an excuse, just an observation.

They should have some sort of designation on the plane, lije a red cross, that these are humanitarian supplies??

Trying the body text again
By MathFox on Wednesday, May 6th 2020 19:50Z

This year we count four fatal incidents with commercial planes, this is the second that has been shot down.

By (anonymous) on Wednesday, May 6th 2020 17:53Z

Rest in peace!

ffs
By ffs on Wednesday, May 6th 2020 17:07Z

ffs!

By (anonymous) on Wednesday, May 6th 2020 16:34Z

I have no idea what Ethiopian troops are stationed there but considering that their job is to guard an airfield, it should be assumed that they are equipped with more effective (looking at likelihood to hit the target) ground to air armament. Of course this cannot rule out anything.

Khat_2
By Raffles on Tuesday, May 5th 2020 23:02Z

BTW khat is legal there.

Khat
By Raffles on Tuesday, May 5th 2020 23:00Z

From press reports I have read the cargo was khat and they were shot down inadvertently by Ethiopian forces.

@ Phil on Tuesday, May 5th 2020 21:11Z
By Simon Hradecky on Tuesday, May 5th 2020 21:59Z

Thanks a lot, fixed.

There was a lot of confusion, local Somali sources identified both Baidoa and Bardala (!) Airstrip (which is in the north of Somalia, far away from this), I believed therefore initially the airport of Baidoa was named Bardala and both locations were the same. It turned out, Baardale (Somali)/Berdale is a different airfield (after I managed to find an according resource within the UN materials). I then tried to fix everything up, but confusion kept its reign ;-)

Meaningless
By Kemal on Tuesday, May 5th 2020 21:21Z

It's meaningless to make this attack reasonable. I think they didn't know that she was carrying medicine, but I don't know either if they would know or don't know they would attack or not. RIP

Berdale, not Baidoa
By Phil on Tuesday, May 5th 2020 21:11Z

In second line it should say Berdale, not Baidoa. Seems like that's the only mistake. Cheers, and stay safe. You are not replaceable.

@Forrest Green WHY
By Mario on Tuesday, May 5th 2020 19:31Z

Because a slow flying aircraft at 1000ft above ground is a target much too tempting for a turbo-charged Somali with a RPG-7 Anti-tank rocket grenade launcher that fires rocket-boosted projectiles.

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