Incident Overview

Description
A Dassault Falcon 7X, registration number VP-BZE, departed the stand 2 at Malta-Luqa Airport, rolled down the slope on the north-western edge of Park 4, went through the airport perimeter fence, crossed the road and crashed into the building across the road, where it came to a halt. At the time of the accident, there was no one on board and the aircraft was not being tended to. It had been parked with a heading of 9.5ø. At the time of the accident, the wind was blowing from the left rear quarter of the aircraft that tended to propel the aircraft forward and rotate it anticlockwise in the direction of the wind, due to the natural weather-cocking effect caused by the fin. This effect became sufficiently strong to castor the nose wheel and deflect it anticlockwise. The aircraft rotated to the left on its outer tyre on the port undercarriage, with the two nose wheel tyres narrowly missing their chocks. The rotation continued up to a point where the angle between the tyre and chock became acute enough to dislodge the front chock of the left Main-Gear, a movement that left the aircraft completely free. At the time of the accident it was dark with patches of rain; the surface wind on runway 05, which is close to Park 4, was reported to be ranging between 220ø230ø, gusting to 35 kts. The strong localised wind is what moved the aircraft from its parking position, but unintentional errors and oversights may have been contributory factors. Combined efforts by the crew and ground handlers, establishing better lines of communication and paying more attention to detail, may have prevented this accident from happening.
Primary Cause
Strong localized wind conditions and potential human error in handling the aircraft.Strong localized wind conditions and potential human error in handling the aircraft.Share on: