DH8C, Schefferville QC Canada, 2020

DH8C, Schefferville QC Canada, 2020

Summary

On 20 January 2020, a Bombardier DHC8-300 crew opted for a visual approach into Schefferville and after the First Officer significantly misjudged the approach, it was continued to a landing despite being well outside the operator’s stabilised approach criteria with the high rate of descent and excessive nose-up attitude resulting in structural damage to the aircraft. The Investigation noted the context for the event was inadequate operator procedures, pilot training and monitoring of procedural compliance in the presence of systemically ineffective regulatory oversight and observed that it appeared that unstabilised approaches at the operator may be occurring with unacceptable regularity.

Description

On 20 January 2020, a Bombardier DHC8-300 (C-GXAI) being operated by Air Inuit on a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Québec to Schefferville as AIE620 continued a comprehensively unstable visual approach at destination and ineffective control of the aircraft at touchdown resulted in a hard landing with significant structural damage to the aft lower fuselage. No injuries were sustained by the 45 occupants.

Investigation

Following a delay in notification, an Investigation was carried out by the Canadian Transportation Safety Board (TSB) assisted by data downloaded from the FDR and the 30 minute CVR of the aircraft involved. It was noted that although the CVR had not been secured, the aircraft had been shut down immediately after completion of the flight and had remained electrically unpowered thereafter thus protecting the relevant data. Also, since the parameters recorded in the FDR did not include GPS position, the Investigation compared radio altimeter data with the topography of the approach terrain to establish an approximate approach flight path.  

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