Description

On 30 January 2003, an Embraer 135 being operated by Swedish company City Airline on a scheduled night passenger flight from Aberdeen to Norwich overran the slush-covered landing runway following a late touchdown in normal visibility. There were no injuries to any of the 25 occupants and with no signs of fire, the passengers subsequently disembarked via the aircraft integral airstairs. There was only minor damage to the aircraft landing gear which required wheel replacement.

Investigation

An Investigation was carried out by the UK AAIB. It was established that the First Officer as PF and that at the time the flight crew briefed for their approach they based it on the Automatic Terminal Information Service (ATIS) current at the time, which had given a wind velocity of 360° /11 knots, a temperature of PS01 and the runway state as wet. They were only made aware of the possible surface contamination when on base leg for the ILS when ATC APP advised that the runway was now covered in “slush mixed with hail to a depth of 2-3mm.... you can still see the white lines through the slush.” Although the flight crew had acknowledged this, they had no recollection after the event of receiving this information.