The Metroliner pilot involved in Australia’s worst air disaster since 1968 was engaged in a “scary” descent – coming in too fast, too low and too steep – when his plane slammed into a mountain.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s final report into the disaster says Captain Brett Hotchkins had a history of flying too fast and had been surprised by high terrain on an approach to Lockhart River 10 days before the accident at the same location that claimed 15 lives.
The report reveals that several co-pilots had expressed concern about the 40-year-old failing to follow company procedures, including exceeding speed limits.
He also broke the rules by conducting approaches for which his co-pilots were not endorsed and had a history of “fast flying” – two factors investigators say contributed to the fatal crash on May 7, 2005.
The pilots failed to notice that they were flying too fast, too low and descending too quickly.
They broke through the safe minimum altitude level of 2060ft about 28 seconds before the crash and were more than 800ft below it when they hit South Pap.
“Instead of a final approach speed of 117 to 130 knots, the aircraft was averaging about 175 knots,” ATSB executive director Kym Bills said.
“Instead of descending at 1000ft per minute, the aircraft was descending at about 1700ft per minute. This did not meet the recommended criteria for a stabilised approach.”
CASA chief executive Bruce Byron said the plane’s excessive speed would have given the pilots less time to configure the aircraft, follow required approach procedures and maintain an awareness of their true position.
“As an air-transport pilot, with more than 40 years’ flying experience, I believe the way the aircraft was flying in its last few minutes was scary,” he said.
“I have never seen rates of descent that high during an instrument approach when so close to the ground.”
Mr Byron said there were a range of scenarios to explain why the aircraft crashed, but it came down to mistakes on the flight deck.
“Regardless of which scenario is chosen, the fact is the pilots were not following the standard, published approach and were not adhering to company procedures,” he said.
Investigators say poor communication and co-ordination between the plane’s two pilots could have played a role.
As the twin-engine Metroliner and its 13 passengers slammed into the South Pap Ridge, 11km northwest of Lockhart River Aerodrome, Captain Hotchkins would have been relying on his relatively inexperienced 21-year-old co-pilot to help him handle the high workload associated with complex approach.
By: steve rowell - 20th June 2007 at 04:10
The Australian
THE airline involved in the Lockhart River plane crash deceived the Civil Aviation Safety Authority by fabricating forms about the performance of its pilots, an inquest into the disaster heard yesterday.
Peter McGee, who worked as a senior pilot with Transair for almost 10 years until the airline was grounded last year, said the crash that claimed 15 lives could have been avoided if the airline had subjected its pilots to proper checks.
Mr McGee told the coronial inquiry into one of Australia’s worst air disasters that the North Queensland airline that operated the doomed aircraft required pilots to sign blank proficiency forms and send them to head office in Brisbane.
He said the forms were requested by the airline’s operations manager in Brisbane, Dianne Kelly, under the direction of Transair director and chief pilot Les Wright.
Mr McGee said that when CASA planned to audit an airline, it would usually give thecompany about a month’s notice. It was common practice at all airlines to “run around and get their files in order” when they received notice of an audit. In Transair’s case, notice of an audit was usually a trigger for Ms Kelly to ring the company’s pilots and ask them to sign and send the blank proficiency forms, Mr McGee said.
Under CASA rules, pilots were required to undergo two “check” flights a year under supervision to assess their proficiency. Mr McGee said it was the standard practice at Transair for details of a routine flight to be retrospectively regarded as a check flight and recorded on the proficiency form.
Senior pilot Brett Hotchin, 40, and co-pilot Timothy Down, 21, were among those killed when a Transair Metroliner crashed near Lockhart River in far north Queensland on May 7, 2005. It was Australia’s worst airline disaster in 40 years.
A report by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, released in April, blamed pilot error and poor maintenance for the crash.
Mr McGee said he believed that if the company’s pilots had been properly assessed, Hotchin and Down might not have been rostered together for the ill-fated flight and the accident might not have happened.
Mr McGee said that while Down was relatively inexperienced, Hotchin was not from an instruction or training background. “He was very definite in the way the aircraft was flown. It wasn’t an ideal training environment for Flight Officer Down,” he said.
The inquest, in Brisbane, continues today
By: steve rowell - 6th June 2007 at 03:24
THE senior pilot in Australia’s worst aviation disaster in 40 years was a bully who should never have been flying on the day 15 people lost their lives at Lockhart River, Cape York.
Brett Hotchin had a history of speeding, had difficulty in accepting criticism from co-pilots, and intimidated fellow staff, an inquest into the May 7, 2005, crash heard yesterday.
Australian Transport Safety Bureau investigator Greg Madden said failures by the air safety watchdog allowed Hotchin to remain in charge of the twin-engined Fairchild Metroliner II.
Mr Madden said that on the day of the crash, Hotchin might have been rushing back to Cairns to go motorcycling, a factor that could have contributed to the aircraft ploughing into South Pap mountain, killing all on board.
The Civil Aviation Safety Authority had failed to identify serious deficiencies in the safety management of Transair, the operators of the flight, and allowed a poor culture at the airline to go unchecked.
CASA did not identify fundamental problems with Transair and the way it was being managed, Mr Madden said. Had they been detected earlier, it was reasonable to conclude the accident would not have occurred, and possibly different pilots would have been on duty on May 7, 2005.
Mr Madden said CASA had failed to recognise management failures at Transair, and the fact the airline had poor training procedures, with even co-pilot Tim Downs forced to train himself by reading books.
Downs had told his father months before the fatal crash he felt intimidated by Hotchin.
It also emerged yesterday that Transair began flying the Cairns-Bamaga route without proper accreditation and used planes that had not been certified – serious breaches that CASA audits failed to notice.
By: steve rowell - 6th April 2007 at 05:11
Crash report
http://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2005/AAIR/aair200501977.aspx
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April 5, 2007 at 6:41 am