SF34, Moruya NSW Australia, 2015

SF34, Moruya NSW Australia, 2015

Summary

On 9 January 2015, a Saab 340B encountered a flock of medium-sized birds soon after decelerating through 80 knots during its landing roll at Moruya. A subsequent flight crew inspection in accordance with the prevailing operator procedures concluded that the aircraft could continue in service but after completion of the next flight, a propeller blade tip was found to be missing. The Investigation concluded that the blade failure was a result of the earlier bird impact and found that airline procedures allowing pilots to determine continued airworthiness after a significant birdstrike had unknowingly been invalid.

Description

On 9 January 2015, a Saab 340B (VH-OLM) being operated by Regional Express on a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Sydney to Moruya had just touched down on runway 18 at its destination in day VMC and was decelerating during its landing roll when it encountered a flock of medium-sized birds and hit several of them. Having not detected any consequent damage on inspection during the subsequent turn round, the crew continued their next scheduled sector to Merimbula where damage to one of the propeller blades was noticed and the aircraft was grounded.

The runway at Moruya showing the direction of movement of the flock of Galahs. [Reproduced from the Official Report]

Investigation

A Serious Incident Investigation was carried out by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) and relevant data was obtained from the aircraft FDR. It was noted that the Captain had 6,999 hours total flying experience which included 4,264 hours on type and that the First Officer had 5,399 hours total flying experience which included 4,235 hours on type.

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