Incident Overview
Description
It was still dark outside when Air Littoral flight 440 received clearance to taxi to runway 35 for its early morning flight to Paris. The first officer was pilot flying on this leg. Six minutes later, at 06:31, the throttles were advanced and the Metro II started the takeoff roll. Shortly after lifting off the runway, the nose pitched down. The Metro II descended and contacted the ground again 600 m past the runway end and continued through bushes, eventually catching fire. It appears that the Stall Avoidance System (SAS) had activated, resulting in the stick pusher activation at a critical altitude. The Metro’s SAS system, as well as the SAS system on this particular aircraft, had a history of problems. These problems resulted in several NTSB Safety Recommendations (A-84-66, A-88-154). PROBABLE CAUSE: “The accident resulted from a reduction in the attitude of the airplane causing a downward trajectory in the moments that followed the takeoff. It is likely that this decrease in attitude is due to an untimely triggering of the stick pusher. The absence of a recorder and the complete destruction of the SAS (apart from angle of attack vane and its transmitter) did not prove this hypothesis. With or without inadvertent triggering of the stick pusher, the imprecision of the right horizon and the absence of external visual references played an important role in this accident.”
Primary Cause
Early activation of the stick pusher during a reduction in airplane attitude.Early activation of the stick pusher during a reduction in airplane attitude.Share on:
