Description

On 26 May 1993, a Cessna Citation II being operated by a UK Air Taxi Company on a positioning flight from Oxford to Southampton to collect passengers with just the flight crew on board overran the ‘very wet’ landing runway at the destination in normal daylight visibility and ended up on an adjacent motorway where it collided with traffic, caught fire and was destroyed. The aircraft occupants and three people in cars received minor injuries.

Investigation

An Investigation was carried out by the UK AAIB. It was noted that the presence of a second pilot was only required because the aircraft was being operated for the purposes of public transport and that the second pilot was not require to be type rated. It was also noted that this particular positioning flight occurred every week and there was agreement with the destination airport ATC that the flight could operate outside of normal operating hours at the airport but that fire cover would not be available.

It was established that the landing had taken place with the crew aware that the prevailing tailwind component was in excess of the maximum limit given in both the Aircraft Flight Manual (AFM) and the Company Operations Manual. ATC had also reminded the crew of both the indicated tailwind component and the fact that the runway direction the crew proposed to land on (which was the opposite direction to that expected and offered by ATC) was (still) “very wet”. The crew had been advised earlier of the presence of a thunderstorm over / in the vicinity of the airfield and of associated heavy rain and a “very wet” runway.