Description

On 16 March 2016, an engine fire occurred to an ATR 72-200 departing Budapest and after declaring a MAYDAY, it was landed in the reciprocal direction on the departure runway without further event. The Investigation found that the failure had been initiated by the fatigue-induced failure of a single blade in the power turbine assembly but with insufficient evidence to ascribe a cause for this. A number of almost identical instances of engine failure initiated by failure of a single turbine blade were noted. Opportunities for both ATC procedures and flight crew response to mandatory emergency procedures were also identified.

Investigation

An Investigation was carried out by the Hungarian Transportation Safety Bureau. Relevant data was recovered from both the CVR and FDR.

It was noted that the 28 year-old Captain, who had been PF for the investigated flight, had a total of 3,083 hours flying experience which included 816 hours on type and 2,123 hours on the ATR42. The 48 year-old First Officer had a total of 4,482 hours flying experience which included 890 hours on type and 3,592 hours on the ATR 42.