Description

On 10 January 2011, an Airbus A300-600 being operated by Air Atlanta Icelandic on a scheduled cargo flight from Belfast Aldergrove to East Midlands made a bounced touchdown on runway 09 at destination after a final approach in night Visual Meteorological Conditions (VMC) followed by a go around which was conducted with considerable difficulty in establishing a climb and involved the shutting down of the right hand engine because of abnormal thrust reverser indications. To obtain the benefit of an into wind runway for the subsequent single engine landing, a diversion to London Stansted was made without further event. None of the three occupants were injured but tail strike damage to the fuselage was discovered after landing.

Investigation

A Field Investigation was carried out by the UK AAIB. Flight Data Recorder (FDR), Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) and QAR downloads were taken but only the FDR contained useable data due to pre-existing hard faults with the other two units. It was note that “the absence of a functional CVR undermined the AAIB’s ability to determine crew actions” during the incident. Maintenance intervention by the operator engineer who had been travelling as a passenger in the cabin on the flight after arrival in Stansted prior to the arrival of the AAIB inspectors in respect of the No 2 engine thrust reverser system was also noted to have resulted in the loss of valuable evidence and hampered the conduct of the Investigation.