Catastrophic incident avoided at Birmingham Airport

Emily Cole

15 May 2008

A "CATASTROPHIC INCIDENT" was narrowly avoided after a plane was forced to carry out an emergency landing at Birmingham International Airport (BIA) two years ago.
A report by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) said that the incident, in which a TNT Airways cargo plane landed at BIA in June 2006 with a missing set of wheels, its flaps jammed and an engine dragging along the runway, was caused by a string of failures.
The Belgian Boeing 737 finally came to a stop in a shower of sparks with part of its undercarriage missing and whilst the plane was removed from the runway approximately 200 flights were cancelled or delayed, with passengers either facing long delays or transfers to other airports.
The report stated that during a critical moment on its approach to East Midlands Airport air traffic control passed a message to the pilot from his company, a move which confused him and led him to inadvertently turn off the autopilot, in turn causing the plane to lose height.
The cargo flight from Liege in Belgium failed to abort the landing in time, causing the plane to land on grass alongside the East Midlands runway.
Despite breaking off the right landing gear the pilot decided to take off again in the direction of BIA.
The report by the AAIB said: "Actions by individuals which contributed to the accident were either inappropriate or were not in compliance with existing procedures."
None of the crew were hurt in the incident but TNT later fired the Belgian pilot, claiming that despite the skill he demonstrated during the situation the incident was largely down to human error.

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