AO-2005-010

On Wednesday 5 October 2005, at 1441, ZK-MCJ, an Aerospatiale Alenia ATR 72-212A, landed at Queenstown Aerodrome, where it inadvertently left the runway. On board were 47 passengers and 2 cabin crew, and 2 pilots and a maintenance engineer on the flight deck. There were no injuries, and no damage to the aeroplane.

Shortly after the captain had landed the aeroplane it was struck by a strong gust, which weathercocked the aeroplane forcefully towards the runway edge. The gust probably exceeded the aeroplane crosswind limit and prevented the captain correcting the weathercock. Consequently, the aeroplane went onto the grass area beside the runway, where it paralleled the runway for about 630 metres before re-entering the runway.

A contributing factor was the reduced effectiveness of the nose wheel steering, because the first officer had not moved the control column far enough forward to ensure there was sufficient weight on the nose wheels.

Safety issues identified were the need for the operator to enhance its ATR 72 training programmes to ensure that pilots were adequately trained for operations in strong crosswind conditions, and for the pilot flying to remind the pilot not flying about the correct landing technique before each landing in strong crosswinds. Two safety recommendations were made to the operator to address these issues.