AO-2009-006 Cessna 207, ZK-DEW aircraft starting incident resulting in runway incursion, Queenstown Aerodrome. 5 September 2009

On Saturday 5 September 2009 the Cessna 207 aircraft had been loaded with 5 passengers for a trip from Queenstown to Milford Sound. Owing to a faulty battery the aircraft would not start using the conventional key-start system.
The pilot placed another company employee, who was not a pilot or an engineer, in the left-hand seat, set the handbrake and set the ignition and engine controls for a hand-start procedure. The pilot succeeded in starting the engine by swinging the propeller, but as the employee sitting in the left-hand seat did not understand how to operate the foot brakes, and had inadvertently disengaged the handbrake, the aircraft started moving forward at a speed that the pilot could just match.
The aircraft left the apron area and entered the grassed Zone 2 protection area adjacent to the main runway before stopping. It was therefore classed as a runway incursion because permission from air traffic control was required before entering the Zone.
The operator had established a procedure for hand-starting aircraft in exceptional circumstances; however the procedure did not meet the standards recommended by the Civil Aviation Authority in a published article in its monthly magazine, and the pilot did not follow the procedure anyway.
Nobody was injured and the aircraft was not damaged. A safety recommendation was made to the Director of Civil Aviation to promote further awareness of the risks involved in hand-starting aircraft.