MA60, vicinity Kaimana West Papua Indonesia, 2011

MA60, vicinity Kaimana West Papua Indonesia, 2011

Summary

On 7 May 2011, the crew of a Xian MA60 lost control of their aircraft during an attempted go around at Kaimana after failing to obtain sufficient visual reference to complete the approach despite a significant violation of the minima for the required visual-only approach. The aircraft was destroyed by the high speed impact and all occupants were killed. The Investigation found that the crew had comprehensively failed to conduct the go around procedure as prescribed and it was suspected that the new-to-type Captain may have reverted to procedures for his previous jet aircraft type after ineffective type conversion training.

Description

On 7 May 2011, a Xian MA60 being operated by Merpati Nusantara AL on a scheduled passenger flight from Sorong to Kaimana failed to complete an attempted day visual approach to runway 01 at destination when control was lost shortly after an attempted transition to a go around due to lack of sufficient visual reference. The aircraft was destroyed on impact with the sea surface 800 metres south west of the runway threshold at a high rate of descent and all 25 occupants were killed.

Investigation

An Investigation was carried out by the Indonesian NTSC. The Flight Data Recorder (FDR) and Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) were recovered and the data from them was successfully downloaded. It was established that the First Officer, an inexperienced pilot with limited time (234 hours) on the MA60, his first multi engine type, had been designated as PF for the flight and that while the aircraft commander, who was a long term employee of the airline, had extensive experience on other aircraft types operated by the airline all of which were Fokker types, he had only 199 hours on the MA60.

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