24 | Flight International | 19-25 January 2016 flightglobal.com
COVER STORY
■ (^) On 29 March 2013 a Hermes
Airlines Airbus A321 (SX-BHS) on
a charter for Air Méditerranée, fol-
lowing an instrument landing sys-
tem Cat I approach to runway 36R
at Lyon Saint-Exupéry airport,
France, overran the far end of the
runway by 300m. Investigator BEA
said the aircraft, inbound from
Dakar, Senegal, via an unscheduled
fuel stop in Agadir, Morocco,
passed its stabilisation height of
1,000ft on approach at an air-
speed 57kt higher than its refer-
ence speed. The report continues:
“At 140ft, an inappropriate in-
crease in thrust by the autothrust
maintained the aeroplane at high
speed. The flare was long and the
aeroplane touched the runway at
1,600 metres past the 36R thresh-
old. The aeroplane overran the run-
way and came to rest
approximately 300 metres after the
opposite threshold.” The report
notes the crew had failed to recog-
nise the significance in the arrival
weather report of strong tailwinds
during the descent and lesser
tailwinds during the final approach
and that, in addition, speed man-
agement during the entire descent
was poor. Finally, an autothrottle
anomaly related to the high air-
speed at the flare extended the
flight runway even further. The crew
had been on duty for 15h, and their
decision-making after the overrun
was slow – air traffic control had to
remind them to shut down the
engines. No-one was injured.
■ (^) The final Indonesian report on
the 28 December 2014 AirAsia
Indonesia Airbus A320 crash in
the Java Sea killing all 155 passen-
gers and seven crew onboard says
an electrical fault – known to the
airline and the captain but not re-
solved – caused an electronic cen-
tralised aircraft monitor alert
announcing a fault in the rudder
travel limiter unit (RTLU). This alert
was repeated three times and the
crew dealt with it according to the
checklist. On the fourth such alert,
the captain attempted to resolve
the issue by tripping and resetting
the circuit breakers for the flight
augmentation computers (FAC).
The aircraft was in the cruise at
32,000ft and the autopilot had
been coping with the control ef-
fects of the electrical fault, which
had offset the rudder 2 ̊ to the left.
But when the autopilot tripped out,
the offset rudder caused the air-
craft to roll left to a 54 ̊ angle of
bank, and control law changed from
normal to alternate. The report
says the electrical fault was caused
by a crack in the solder on a printed
circuit board associated with the
RTLU. The co-pilot was flying, and
he failed to take action immedi-
ately to roll the wings level, so the
nose dropped. Some 9s later, when
he did roll the wings almost level
(to 9 ̊ left bank), he also pulled the
nose up, but then he let the bank
angle return to 53 ̊ left and the pull-
up demand on the co-pilot’s sides-
tick moved to maximum; actions
that suggest the co-pilot was disori-
entated. The aircraft climbed to a
maximum height of 38,500ft, trig-
gering the stall warning, and begin-
ning a stalled descent at a rate of
20,000ft/min until impact with the
sea. The co-pilot’s sidestick
remained at the full nose-up de-
mand throughout. There is evi-
dence the captain may have left his
seat to trip the FAC circuit breakers.
Sharm el-Sheikh MetroJet case, it demon-
strates that weak points in the system can be
exploited.
Former head and chief inspector of flight
operations at the UK Civil Aviation Authority,
Mike Vivian, comments: “The airlines are
going to have to put in extra [security] re-
sources, because governments in many
NOTE: Not including fatal events known to be caused by deliberate action SOURCE: Flightglobal
Fatalities
WORLD AIRLINE FATAL ACCIDENTS AND FATALITIES 2006-2015
0
200
400
600
800
1,000
1,200
1,400
1,600
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
Fatal accidents
10-year average fatal accidents = 25 10-year average fatalities = 582
(^863749817)
514 425
281
671
176
744
583
27
25
34
28
26
32
21
26
19
9
INVESTIGATIONS
ACCIDENT REPORTS PUBLISHED IN LAST SIX MONTHS OF 2015
Airport and airline security systems as
they are operated at present can no longer be
assumed to deliver the results that character-
ised the 14 years since the 11 September 2001
attacks in New York and Washington DC.
Measures introduced as a result of 9/11
ushered in heightened airport and onboard
security measures that have worked well until
very recently. The concern is that the kind of
terrorist fanaticism embraced by a movement
like the so-called Islamic State (IS) appears to
exceed even the zeal of other jihadist groups
such as Al Qaeda, and its ability to recruit or-
dinary people to its cause raises the spectre of
security staff and flight or cabin crew being
subverted. The latter is not an entirely new
threat, but if sabotage is confirmed in the
❯❯
❯❯
TransAsia Airways Flight 235 –
an ATR 72-600 – crashed into
the Keelung River in Taipei on
4 February 2015, killing 43
The crew had been
informed of 22kt
winds gusting to 37kt
but did not carry out
an approach briefing
Airlines will have to put in
extra security resources,
because governments in many
parts of the world do not have
the resources or expertise