Accidents
Pilots in CL604 Upset Use Clouds for Attitude Recovery
Since the sky and the ocean were almost the same blue color, the pilot had been able to recognize the aircraft's flight attitude only with the clouds.
While this Challenger 604 displays no outward damage, Bombardier determined that the airframe could not be restored to airworthiness since it had exceeded several maximum loads while tangling with an A380's wake vortex in January over the Arabian Sea. (Photo: BFU)
While this Challenger 604 displays no outward damage, Bombardier determined that the airframe could not be restored to airworthiness since it had exceeded several maximum loads while tangling with an A380's wake vortex in January over the Arabian Sea. (Photo: BFU)

A review of the newly released interim report on a wake vortex encounter shows how close a Bombardier Challenger 604 came to crashing into the sea in January. While flying over the Arabian Sea, the pilots temporarily lost control of their twin-turbine business jet when it flew into the wake from an Airbus A380 flying in the opposite direction that was 1,000 feet overhead and slightly to the right.