On 5 March 1993, the aircraft operating the flight, a Fokker 100, crashed shortly after taking off from Skopje Airport in snowy conditions.

While conducting the pre-takeoff ground inspection, the crew opted not to de-ice the aircraft, thinking that most of the ice had melted and the remaining was safe enough for flying.

However, due to fears of violating work and rest regulations, a crew switch was conducted and a new set of pilots were brought in.

For the flight to Zurich, the aircraft would be piloted by Captain Peter Bierdrager and his Macedonian co-pilot who was undergoing training to transfer from Boeing 737 to Fokker 100.

The replacement crew eventually arrived in Skopje approximately 30 minutes after the refueling and immediately boarded the aircraft.

This was eventually confirmed again during the second refueling when the FSE and Palair's ground crew members conducted a walk-around to check for the presence of ice and snow on the aircraft.

One of the ground crew then tried to confirm it and conducted a tactile check as well, collecting a stroke of snow from the inner flap of the right wing before showing it to the FSE.

The tip eventually contacted the ground and grazed a road, cutting the airport's perimeter fence and detaching from the aircraft due to the collision.

Despite this, the aft fuselage had been penetrated by the detached right engine during the crash, causing a fire that eventually destroyed the whole section.

[7][1] The sound of the crash was loud enough to be heard by a United Nations Peacekeeper Pilot who was walking on a ramp nearby.

After landing at the crash site, the personnel quickly notified other emergency services and nearby UNPROFOR army base about the accident and transported seven survivors from the area.

[1] Following the crash, the Macedonian government immediately set up the State Accident Investigation Commission (SAIC), which was led by Yugoslavia's Ministry of Transport and Communications.

The Dutch government ultimately decided to produce a separate investigation report into the crash, and the inquiry would later be the only one to be publicly released.

[1] The aircraft crashed immediately after takeoff in a violent manner, with its right wing being the first to contact the ground at a perpendicular angle.

The aircraft could be felt shaking while lifting off from Skopje, and seconds later it began to sway violently to the left and right before plummeting towards the ground.

[1] The result of the flight recorder readout confirmed that the aircraft had encountered problems with its controls immediately after takeoff.

The aircraft was exposed to wet snow and the temperature was lower than the freezing dew point, a conducive condition for airframe icing.

[1] Analysis made by investigators suggested that the ice contamination was likely to be located on the front part of the wing, particularly close to the leading edges of the aircraft.

[1] Estimation conducted by investigators showed that the aircraft had been exposed with light precipitation, which later increased to moderate, for 1 hour and 15 minutes, with an unspecified amount of thickness.

Due to the prevailing weather condition, investigators believed that the aircraft's wing upper surface had been covered with a thin layer of snow and possibly frozen to the skin.

Prior to the de-icing, the manual stated that one of the crew members, either the FSE or the captain, would be the one who conducted the external inspection of the aircraft.

Apparently, due to his highly regarded skills and the fact that he was the representative of Swissair, which was reputable for its safety, the crew decided to immediately trust his judgement without any criticism.

The crew did not leave the cockpit to confirm the result of the check and instead focused their attention on the instruments and other preparations for the takeoff.

The surface of the CT and MT 1 responded rapidly to the added fuel and ice immediately melted from the skin.

[1] The fuel compartments were designed in slope-like chambers, with the MT3 being the furthest from the main airframe, located near the wing tip.

The result indicated that even with such thin ice, the aircraft lost a total of 35% of its maximum obtainable wing lift, and the nose could never exceed 5–6 degrees.

The aircraft was more likely to lose more lift due to its heavily swept wings that were not equipped with leading edge slats, causing it to be more susceptible to smaller amounts of ice.

[1] The investigation eventually revealed that the operator of the aircraft, AFT, did not include de-icing procedures in adverse weather conditions in their Fokker F100 manual.

The manual provided generic explanations for the meaning of icing and other relevant concepts, but it lacked specific guidance on when anti-icing should be applied.

This situation resulted from an omission to carry out spraying of the aircraft with deicing or anti-icing fluid in meteorological conditions conducive to icing, due to a lack of ice-awareness of the flight crew and the Flying Station Engineer.