B738, Christchurch New Zealand, 2015

B738, Christchurch New Zealand, 2015

Summary

On 11 May 2015, a Boeing 737-800 crew making a night landing at Christchurch had to react quickly when braking action deteriorated and only just succeeded in preventing an overrun. The Investigation found that a damp rather than wet runway had been assumed despite recent rain and that the aircraft operator had recently changed their procedures so that a damp runway should be considered as dry rather than wet for runway performance purposes. The questionable determination of the crew that the runway was likely to be damp, not wet, was attributed to a relatively high workload prior to final approach.

Description

On 11 May 2015, a Boeing 737-800 (VH-VOP) being operated by Virgin Australia on a scheduled international passenger flight from Sydney to Christchurch using callsign Velocity134 failed to decelerate as expected on destination landing runway 29 after making a night visual approach as cleared. It was only just possible to stop the aircraft before the end of runway which, due to work in progress on the main runway, was shorter and was reported by the crew as having been wet rather than, as they had assumed, damp.

Investigation

An Investigation was carried out by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB). Data relevant to the Investigation was obtained from the aircraft FDR and analysed by both the ATSB and Boeing.

It was noted that the Captain had a total of 8912 flying hours which included 4987 hours on type and that the First Officer, who had been acting as PF for the investigated flight had a total of 8229 flying hours which included 2786 hours on type. The Captain had been operating from Christchurch for 7 years and the First Officer had been operating from there for 5 years. Neither was affected by fatigue.

The full content of this page is available to registered users only.
Please Log in or Register

SKYbrary Partners:

Safety knowledge contributed by: