A passenger plane with 178 people on board plunged down hundreds of feet before the pilots noticed.
The flight, thought to be Ryanair according to Flightradar24 information, was on its way from Poland’s Szczecin Airport to London Stansted on March 8 when the mid-air incident happened.
To make matters worse, the £93,000,000 Boeing 737 aircraft came close to a helicopter on its way to the airport.
Now, the details of the incident have been revealed after the Air Accident Investigation Branch concluded its investigation.
After a manual go-around and missed approach procedure, the co-pilot gave the controls back to the commander so that the co-pilot could set the computer for the next approach.
‘However, the commander did not realise that the autopilot and
autothrust were not engaged’ – meaning the plane needed to be flown manually, the investigators found.
‘The aircraft subsequently started a descent which was not
noticed by either member of the crew.’
The Boeing descended for around 550ft before ‘this was noticed and action taken to correct it,’ the AAIB said.
As a result, the plane came more than 200ft from the altitude it was cleared to fly in, known as a level bust.
The aircraft descended around 600ft in total by the time the commander ‘promptly took control and climbed the aircraft back to 3,000ft,’ the report said.
The sudden descent was caused by an ‘incorrect procedure being used during the handover’ and because the commander was ‘monitoring the co-pilot’s actions, rather than the aircraft,’ the report noted.
The air traffic control officers (ATCO) did not notice the ‘short duration’ level bust as they were focused on ‘co-ordinatingthe next departure with a colleague.’
When the sudden descent happened, a helicopter was flying outside the Stansted airspace and solely by visual reference to the ground and other aircraft at 2,000 ft. It was cleared to enter the Stansted traffic region, but not above 2,000ft, the investigators found.
The AAIB found: ‘This incident also shows that distractions and quick decisions can lead to a loss of control of an aircraft, even for a small period of time.
‘In this case, 600 ft of height was lost and it came within 300 ft and 1.7 nm of VFR helicopter traffic that was routing to Stansted, with both aircraft maintaining the correct safety margins.
‘The short-duration level bust was not noticed by the ATCO at the time as they had their attention focused on co-ordinating the next departure with a colleague.’
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The incident was reported to the watchdog by the 43-year-old commander, who had 3,270 hours of flying experience.
While the incident, which didn’t cause any injuries, was not classed as an accident or serious, the chief inspector launched a probe to ‘highlight the safety benefits from the safety actions taken by the operator by amending its handover procedure in its operating manual.’
The plane is believed to have been a Ryanair flight as it is the only commercial operator with planes of this size on the route between Szczecin Airport and Stansted on March 8.
Metro approached Ryanair for a comment.
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