Incident Overview

Description
The aircraft departed Visakhapatnam for Bhubaneswar, and at 08:44 hours, the pilot reported overhead Bhubaneswar at 1500 ft. The reported weather over destination was above company’s minima. After reporting 1500 ft, overhead VOR Bhubaneswar, the pilot joined the holding pattern. After holding for about 4 to 5 minutes for proper orientation, the pilot commenced let-down. While the aircraft was on in-bound heading descending, it broke cloud at 700 ft in moderate continuous rain and also simultaneously sighted the runway. Since the aircraft was not in line with the runway, the captain did a zigzag approach primarily for aligning with the runway. The aircraft crossed the runway threshold at a height of about 50 ft and the indicated airspeed was about 85 kt. Full flaps had been selected before the threshold, and the same had been selected ‘up’ when the nose wheel had touched the ground and the propeller ground fine pitch selected. The aircraft made a normal touchdown 38 ft to the right of the centre line of the runway and 1800 ft from the 05 threshold of the 4150 ft runway. The pilot stated that, after touchdown and little run, he experienced sudden heavy shower sweeping past the airfield, which had deteriorated the visibility very much. However, the direction of the aircraft was maintained straight. Towards the end of the landing run, the pilot felt that there was very little braking effect. Realising this, the pilot tried to swerve the aircraft to the right near the threshold of runway 23, with the idea of keeping the aircraft on the dumb-bell . But the aircraft went off the end of the runway before coming to halt on the port wing and fuselage, as the port landing gear collapsed, at a distance of 120 ft after the end of runway 23 on wet uneven ground. The aircraft faced 135ø against the approach heading of 50ø. The passengers were evacuated safely through the main exit doors. Probable Causes: “The aircraft touching down, under downwind conditions well beyond the threshold of a wet runway, which provided poor friction for braking. A contributory factor was lack of information with the pilot concerning the surface wind.”
Primary Cause
Poor surface friction due to a wet runway and lack of information regarding the surface wind.Poor surface friction due to a wet runway and lack of information regarding the surface wind.Share on: