Incorrect Nav Frequency Setting Led To Citation CFIT

Investigators concluded that the most likely scenario leading to the fatal controlled flight into terrain of a Citation 500 while on an ILS approach at night to Spain’s Santiago Airport on Aug. 2, 2012, is that the crew inadvertently set the VOR frequency instead of the localizer frequency into their radios, according to a recently issued final report. Consequently, the aircraft made an unstabilized approach and did not follow the glideslope, using distance references to the VOR instead of to the runway, it noted.
 
The pilots “probably lost visual contact with the ground when the aircraft entered a fog bank,” the report said. The two pilots were killed when their aircraft crashed about 600 feet short of the VOR station, which was about one mile from the runway. Operated by Spain’s Airnor, the jet was returning to base after completing a charter flight.
 
Contributing to the accident were clouds at 600 feet, crew fatigue and “concern with having to divert to the alternate without sufficient fuel combined with the complacency arising from finally reaching their destination,” the report said.