A PRELIMINARY report into an Aer Arann crash last month has recommended the airline should review the wind conditions under which it lands at Shannon airport.
Some 21 passengers and four crew were on board the flight from Manchester on the morning of July 17th when the Aer Arann ATR-72 bounced and skidded along a runway, before coming to a halt on a grass verge.
The preliminary report from the air accident investigation unit at the Department of Transport found the crew had been warned of moderate turbulence and a wind speed of 20 knots at the airport before the plane was landed.
The ATR-72 has capacity for up to 78 passengers with two pilots and four crew. The twin-engine turboprop is widely used as a short-haul regional aircraft and is manufactured by Franco-Italian consortium ATR in France.
The report said the crew had problems when it first attempted to land the plane on runway 24.
There was difficulty in getting the aircraft to “settle on the runway” and the pilot became “increasingly concerned about the remaining length of runway available”.
The first touchdown involved a “significant nose-down attitude”, the report said and the aircraft immediately bounced back into the air. The pilot had to perform a go-around and attempt the landing again.
On the second occasion, the plane bounced a number of times, the report said. The data on its flight recorder showed the nose wheel collapsed and the nose was “scraping along the runway” with smoke and steam coming out of it.
The plane then veered to the left and came to a stop at the edge of one of the airport’s taxiways.
“The flight crew had no directional control of the aircraft from the initial runway impact to the final stopping point,” the report noted.
When the aircraft came to a stop, the flight crew decided not to perform an emergency evacuation, but cabin crew subsequently detected a smell of burning and the aircraft was evacuated.
Airport fire services arrived on the scene in less than two minutes, having been alerted by air traffic control during the first go-around that there might be a problem.
Passengers and crew were taken to the terminal building, where they were assessed by paramedics. There were no injuries.
The report said investigators also learned that on a previous evening the same aircraft, with different crew, reported difficult conditions during approach on two separate flights.
In both cases the wind gusts, strength and direction were similar.
The report recommended, pending further investigation, that Aer Arann should review the maximum crosswind limitations for approaches onto runway 24 at Shannon, depending on the direction of the wind, when its speed was more than 15 knots.
