Incident Overview

Description
The DHC-6 Twin Otter, registered PK-BRS, operated under Visual Flight Rules (VFR) on a scheduled passenger service from Biak-Frans Kaisiepo Airport, to Serui. The first officer who occupied left hand seat acted as Pilot Flying (PF) and the pilot in command occupied who right hand seat was a training captain (instructor), acting as Pilot Monitoring (PM). The first officer’s first flight to Serui was on 11 September 2009 and was the check flight to be qualified first officer. This flight was the first landing accomplished from the left seat. While approaching Serui Airport, the pilot received information that the wind direction was 150ø to 200ø and velocity 15 up to 20 knots. This wind figure has a cross wind component up to 10 knots from the right and tail wind component of 12-16 knots. The aircraft landed with flap at 20ø and the target threshold speed was 87 knots. The training captain noticed that on final approach, the aircraft speed was higher than the target, which he announced. The normal operation at Serui is for takeoffs to use runway 18 and landings to use runway 36. This is caused by high terrain on the north side of the airport. The aircraft landed on runway 36. Prior to touch down the aircraft floated over the runway and on landing roll the aircraft drifted to the right. At a speed of approximately 40 knots, the aircraft then drifted to the right, the first officer countered the situation by right rudder but could not manage the aircraft back to centreline. The right main wheel ran out of the runway. The first officer then tried to correct the situation by applying nose wheel steering. The aircraft then experienced a ground loop and stopped at 90ø relative to the runway. During the ground loop the forward inertia in combination with the tail wind component caused the left wing to be lifted up and the right wing tip and right engine propeller touched the runway. The forward inertia also collapsed the nose landing gear to 120ø to the left relative to the aircraft longitudinal axis. The pilot then shut down both engines and commanded to the passengers to evacuate. No one was injured in this accident. The aircraft has substantial damage. The DHC-6 Twin Otter, registered PK-BRS, operated under Visual Flight Rules (VFR) on a scheduled passenger service from Biak-Frans Kaisiepo Airport, to Serui. The first officer who occupied left hand seat acted as Pilot Flying (PF) and the pilot in command occupied who right hand seat was a training captain (instructor), acting as Pilot Monitoring (PM). The first officer’s first flight to Serui was on 11 September 2009 and was the check flight to be qualified first officer. This flight was the first landing accomplished from the left seat. While approaching Serui Airport, the pilot received information that the wind direction was 150ø to 200ø and velocity 15 up to 20 knots. This wind figure has a cross wind component up to 10 knots from the right and tail wind component of 12-16 knots. The aircraft landed with flap at 20ø and the target threshold speed was 87 knots. The training captain noticed that on final approach, the aircraft speed was higher than the target, which he announced. The normal operation at Serui is for takeoffs to use runway 18 and landings to use runway 36. This is caused by high terrain on the north side of the airport. The aircraft landed on runway 36. Prior to touch down the aircraft floated over the runway and on landing roll the aircraft drifted to the right. At a speed of approximately 40 knots, the aircraft then drifted to the right, the first officer countered the situation by right rudder but could not manage the aircraft back to centreline. The right main wheel ran out of the runway. The first officer then tried to correct the situation by applying nose wheel steering. The aircraft then experienced a ground loop and stopped at 90ø relative to the runway. During the ground loop the forward inertia in combination with the tail wind component caused the left wing to be lifted up and the right wing tip and right engine propeller touched the runway. The forward inertia also collapsed the nose landing gear to 120ø to the left relative to the aircraft longitudinal axis. The pilot then shut down both engines and commanded to the passengers to evacuate. No one was injured in this accident. The aircraft has substantial damage. Contributing factors: “The decision making process was not well performed where less experience pilot handling the aircraft in a the high risk situation such as one way landing operation and wind condition lead to excessive operation of the nose wheel steering during the veer recovery.”
Primary Cause
Insufficient decision-making regarding the high-risk conditions of a one-way landing operation and the influence of the wind, leading to excessive nose wheel steering during the veer recovery.Insufficient decision-making regarding the high-risk conditions of a one-way landing operation and the influence of the wind, leading to excessive nose wheel steering during the veer recovery.Share on: