Pilot error blamed for Metroliner crash

PILOT error is emerging as the most likely cause of Australia’s worst plane crash in more than 40 years.

Industry sources believe the pilot of the doomed Metroliner may have been trying to get below cloud cover to get a visual fix on the Lockhart River airport runway when the plane slammed into the South Pap Ridge in far north Queensland. Fifteen people died in the tragedy.

The cloud ceiling in the area at the time has been estimated at about 900ft but the aircraft hit the 1300ft-high hill about 100ft below the top, or at 1200ft.

Airservices procedures dictate that the aircraft should have been flying between 2860ft and 2115ft and observing a minimum safe altitude of 2060ft. Sources say the pilot may have believed the Metroliner had already cleared the ridge.

Australian Transport Safety Bureau investigators now have a good chance of reconstructing the flight after retrieving more than 100 hours of recorded aircraft operations from the flight data recorder.

Parameters recorded by the FDR include pressure altitude, indicated airspeed, magnetic heading and data about the flaps, engines, propellers and vertical stabiliser.

ATSB deputy director Alan Stray said: “We have already some pointers that will help with ongoing investigations. But until it’s analysed and verified, we will not be able to make that public.”

However, the cockpit voice recorder, which should have taped the last 30 minutes of conversation between Captain Brett Hotchin and co-pilot Tim Downs, appears to have malfunctioned.

Preliminary analysis of the CVR indicated it contained a mixture of electrical pulses and fragments of conversations, some from previous flights. “These are machines and until we can further analyse it we really don’t know why this information was not recorded for this flight,” Mr Stray said.

The CVR failure means investigators must now rely on interviews with pilots who were in the area and heard radio transmissions from the Metroliner.

The crew is understood to have sought weather details from another aircraft in the area but The Australian understands the conversation was routine in nature.

An automatic device at the Lockhart airstrip also recorded some information but this may be limited.