ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 238448
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| Date: | Thursday 9 July 2020 |
| Time: | 00:15 |
| Type: |  Beechcraft B200 Super King Air |
| Owner/operator: | Royal Flying Doctor Service |
| Registration: | VH-FDO |
| MSN: | BB-2020 |
| Year of manufacture: | 2014 |
| Fatalities: | Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 5 |
| Aircraft damage: | None |
| Category: | Incident |
| Location: | Cairns Airport, QLD -
 Australia
|
| Phase: | Landing |
| Nature: | Ambulance |
| Departure airport: | Kowanyama, QLD |
| Cairns Airport, QLD (CNS/YBCS) | |
| Investigating agency: | ATSB |
| Confidence Rating: |  Information verified through data from accident investigation authorities |
The Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) Beechcraft King Air 200 aircraft with a pilot in command under instruction, a supervisory pilot, a flight nurse and two patients on-board, landed on Cairns Airport’s runway 15 shortly after midnight. Due to on-going night runway works, runway 15’s threshold was displaced.
While the runway was closed at night for normal operations during the works, a portion of the runway was available to the RFDS with prior notice, with the runway 15 threshold temporarily displaced by 1,856 metres.
The flight crew were unaware that their aircraft had struck anything on landing with the broken temporary runway end light – which had been taped to be unidirectional to aircraft using the reciprocal runway 33 and was therefore not visible to flight crew when they landed on runway 15 – discovered later that morning by an airport safety officer. An inspection of the aircraft identified a scuff mark on the right main landing gear tyre.
During the approach, the flight crew sighted an airport safety officer’s car with its headlights directed at what appeared to be a row of lights across the runway, illuminating the displaced threshold. The aircraft passed above the row of lights and touched down beyond it. However, the aircraft had landed short of the actual displaced threshold and a tyre struck an unseen temporary runway end light.
Contributing factors
- The flight crew misidentified the aerodrome works limit line for the displaced runway threshold lights, resulting in a runway undershoot and collision with an unseen portable runway end light.
- The works and airport safety officers did not ensure the aerodrome works lighting was arranged such that the location of the displaced threshold was unambiguous to the flight crew.
- Cairns Airport procedures for temporary runway works lighting and markings were inconsistent and did not ensure lighting was not confusing to pilots
Accident investigation:
 |
|
Sources:
https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2020/aair/ao-2020-034/
Revision history:
| Date/time | Contributor | Updates |
|---|---|---|
| 21-Jul-2020 10:34 | Petropavlovsk | Added |
| 21-Jul-2020 12:17 | harro | Updated [Time, Total fatalities, Other fatalities, Destination airport, Source, Damage] |
| 21-Jul-2020 19:26 | RobertMB | Updated [Aircraft type] |
| 29-May-2023 14:54 | Ron Averes | Updated [[Aircraft type]] |
Corrections or additions? ... Edit this accident description
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