Background
The eastern part of the DRC had been war-torn for decades, as various factions sought control of mineral resources. Goma was a center for the air shipping of cassiterite (tin oxide ore) from Nord-Kivu.
The European Union placed all DRC airlines on its List of airlines banned in the EU. HBA has held a single exemption for a single Boeing 767-266ER tail number 9Q-CJD, construction number 193H-1209, but that too had been removed on 11 April 2008. Very similar crashes in the DRC the previous October in the capital, Kinshasa and in 1996 also came down in residential or market areas. Because the DRC has so little passable roadway, most freight is moved by air and markets are common near airstrips.
HBA operates a number of different aircraft types, none of them modern. This aircraft was 31 years old.
Goma is on the volcanically active Great African Rift Valley. One volcano, Nyiragongo, is so close that its January 2002 eruption destroyed the north end of runway 18/36, leaving just 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) for aircraft operations. The 1,995-metre (6,545 ft) runway is, however, adequate for the DC-9, which was designed to operate off shorter runways. Goma International is at 1,551 metres (5,089 ft) elevation, and the mid-afternoon temperature is about 22 °C (72 °F). These factors would reduce the maximum takeoff weight (MTOW) on the 1995 metre runway from 55 tonnes (121,000 lb) to less than 45 tonnes (99,000 lb). Another report asserts that only 1600 to 1800 m of the runway was usable. If the lower of these figures were correct, then the corresponding MTOW would be reduced another 3 tonnes (7,000 lb).
Read more about this topic: Hewa Bora Airways Flight 122
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