Description

On 22 of January 2002, a Boeing 757-200 operated by Icelandair commenced an unstabilised approach to Oslo Gardermoen airport in instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) and in the presence of a strong tail wind. The result was a near loss of control and low altitude go-around with exceedance of speed limits and g-values exerted on the airframe.

Synopsis

The following is an extract from the official incident Report published by the Accident Investigation Board Norway (AIBN):

“[…] The change of runway, the strong tail wind and the shortened approach path resulted in the aircraft becoming high on the approach profile.

[…]As the Commander doubted that the AP [autopilot] in AUTO mode could capture the GP, he disconnected both AP’s and the Auto Throttle (AT) with the thumb-switches in order to manually capture the GP from above. The aircraft was flown manually the remainder of the approach, and the throttles were also operated manually until TOGA was initiated. Shortly there after, the Commander noticed that raw data information of the ILS on his ADI and HSI were lost. No flag warnings were observed. The Commander reduced the rate of descent because of the uncertainty. The raw data signals on his instrument panel appeared and disappeared again. The First Officer was informed, but on his instruments all indications were normal. The crew did not consider a change of controls at this time.