Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Pilot error cause of off-target landing

AN OFFICIAL investigation into an off-centre landing which an Air Namibia Airbus carried out at Hosea Kutako International Airport in April has ended with a finding that human error was the probable cause of the incident.

Air Namibia should train its pilots in adverse weather conditions at Hosea Kutako International Airport and should ensure that the cockpits of its aircraft are properly managed, and the Namibia Airports Company should upgrade the runways at the airport, it is recommended in the report which concludes the investigation into the incident.

The investigation was conducted after an Airbus 340-312 flying 172 passengers and 12 crew members from Frankfurt carried out a rough landing at the airport on the morning of April 6 this year.

With the landing, the aircraft touched down on the right-hand edge of the runway, destroyed two runway lights in the process, and then veered towards the centre of the runway, leaving long tyre marks behind as evidence of the angle at which the Airbus was landed.

Nobody was injured in the incident, but some passengers were left shaken and screaming was heard as the landing was carried out.

The 54-year-old pilot who was in control of the aircraft was highly experienced, with more than 19 400 hours of flying experience behind him, it is recorded in the report from the Directorate of Aircraft Accident Investigation in the Ministry of Works and Transport which was released last week.

The pilot did not switch on the aircraft’s landing light when he disengaged the autopilot as the aircraft approached the runway, it is stated in the report. With fog present, the landing light could have helped the pilot to see where the runway centre line was, it is also stated.

According to the pilot the aircraft was drifting to the left and after the first officer called out to him to fly right he responded, resulting in the plane no longer being in line with the runway centre line.

The aircraft “landed at a very excessive crab angle on the right hand side of the runway edge”, it is recounted in the report. The aircraft then veered to the left, went over the runway centre line up to the left edge of the runway and then went back to the centre of the runway.

The pilot was at first flying the aircraft on the left side of the runway centre line, and then over-corrected the aircraft to the right side of the runway centre line after being told by the first officer to fly to the right, the report states.

“The pilot’s excessive input to the control contributed to the aircraft flying left and right getting out of alignment with the runway centre line,” the report reads.

It also states that the pilot did not respond to three calls which were made out to him by the first officer and the relief captain on board, commenting that this “was a sign of poor cockpit resources management coordination”.

As the probable cause of the incident, the report simply states: “Human error”.

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