2011 Aer Arann accident report published.

Pete67

The AAIU report into this incident at Shannon in July 2011 has been published today. It can be found here

In summary, while landing in crosswind conditions, the aircraft bounced heavily and a go-around was initiated. On the second approach, the aircraft bounced again, landed in a nose down attitude, the nosegear collapsed, and the aircraft skidded to a stop on the runway. There were no injuries but the aircraft was damaged beyond economic repair.

Wise Old Elf

Interesting report, thanks for the link.

The influence of turbulence caused by the hangar is very interesting and now something that I'd ever heard of before.

Anyone in the industry know if it's because of the size of the ATR that the hangar may have contributed to the turbulence, i.e. do the A320s and 737s have similar problems?

Bsal

All aircraft in the same situation would encounter what is called windshear. Windshear is a rapid change in velocity and or direction of the wind over short distances. A big hangar is definetly going to interact with the wind as it blows from behind or across it into your path. For example as you are descending to the runway you may have a headwind of 30kts and in an instance change to 10kts or even a tailwind due to the wind interacting with trees, buildings or terrain. This change in wind, affects the airflow over the wings and changes how much lift is being produced.

Wise Old Elf

Bsal wrote: »

All aircraft in the same situation would encounter what is called windshear. Windshear is a rapid change in velocity and or direction of the wind over short distances. A big hangar is definetly going to interact with the wind as it blows from behind or across it into your path. For example as you are descending to the runway you may have a headwind of 30kts and in an instance change to 10kts or even a tailwind due to the wind interacting with trees, buildings or terrain. This change in wind, affects the airflow over the wings and changes how much lift is being produced.

Interesting.
I presume that specific information for each airport/runway is detailed in flight plans, etc. as part of normal operations?

globemaster1986

Disco Stuart wrote: »

Interesting report, thanks for the link.

The influence of turbulence caused by the hangar is very interesting and now something that I'd ever heard of before.

Anyone in the industry know if it's because of the size of the ATR that the hangar may have contributed to the turbulence, i.e. do the A320s and 737s have similar problems?

Turblence as a result of wind flowing over/around irregular terrain and/or man made objects is called Mechanical Turbulence.

lintdrummer

Then, nose down inputs were recorded on the right control column during both approaches. This led to an excessive nose down pitch attitude with a subsequent impact on the nose landing
gear. Neither pilot recalled such inputs subsequently.

Found this odd when I read it first and nothing more was made of it in the report.
Would I be correct in saying these were probably involuntary inputs by the PNF caused by the g force and general turbulence experienced on board?

Fully Established

Interesting to see a fair portion of the blame is pointed towards the pilot flying who was the commander who the report claims was relatively inexperienced .With the blame put on the pilots in this case, are the pilots fired demoted ,or retrained ?

Kumsheen

Disco Stuart wrote: »

Interesting report, thanks for the link.

The influence of turbulence caused by the hangar is very interesting and now something that I'd ever heard of before.

Anyone in the industry know if it's because of the size of the ATR that the hangar may have contributed to the turbulence, i.e. do the A320s and 737s have similar problems?

Well to me the report actually plays down on that myth. The two pilots mentioned it a good bit but the investigation didn't back them up.

NobodyImportant

Fully Established wrote: »

Interesting to see a fair portion of the blame is pointed towards the pilot flying who was the commander who the report claims was relatively inexperienced .With the blame put on the pilots in this case, are the pilots fired demoted ,or retrained ?

I would guess they will be retrained.

All these posts and not a single sexist remark on the gender of both pilot and co-pilot. I'm seriously impressed!

Wise Old Elf

NobodyImportant wrote: »

I would guess they will be retrained.

All these posts and not a single sexist remark on the gender of both pilot and co-pilot. I'm seriously impressed!

Yeah but the story on thejournal.ie had a few!

I think i saw a mention in the report about them having some element of re-training/observation for a specified number of hours following the accident. I'll try to dig out the ref later.

Bebop

There seemed to be a general misconception by Aer Arran aircrew that the ATR 72-200 needed a bit of power at touchdown and the crew in question also miscalculated their approach speed
Aer Arran aircrew training was at fault and the airline is now required to Implement a Flight Data Management program so they know what their pilots are doing

Fully Established

Bebop wrote: »

There seemed to be a general misconception by Aer Arran aircrew that the ATR 72-200 needed a bit of power at touchdown and the crew in question also miscalculated their approach speed
Aer Arran aircrew training was at fault and the airline is now required to Implement a Flight Data Management program so they know what their pilots are doing

From reading the report it seems that along with the pilot flying the aircraft into the ground that the training department are to be held accountable as well in respect that pilots had their own techniques for landing .