Description

On 27 February 2001, a Shorts SD3-60 (G-BNMT) being operated by Loganair on a scheduled domestic cargo flight from Edinburgh to Belfast Aldergrove with just the flight crew on board suffered a simultaneous and complete loss of power on both engines in day VMC shortly after take-off from Edinburgh. A MAYDAY was declared and a ditching into a rough sea state was attempted near the shoreline of the Firth of Forth but was not successful and the aircraft became submerged and neither pilot survived.

Investigation

An Investigation was carried out by the UK Aircraft Accident Investigation Branch (UK) (AAIB). The FDR and CVR were recovered and successfully downloaded and the wreckage was recovered and transported the AAIB for further examination. It was found that the 58 year-old Line Training Captain who had been in command and acting as PF had accumulated 13,569 total flying hours on both rotary and fixed wing types including 972 hours on type since joining Loganair almost two years prior to the accident. The 29 year-old First Officer had joined Loganair 11 weeks prior to the accident and had been cleared for line flying 4 weeks prior to the accident. He had accumulated 438 total flying hours of which 72 hours were on type.

It was established that prior to the accident flight, the aircraft had been parked outside for 17 hours facing into strong surface winds in near freezing conditions. During this time, light to moderate snowfall had prevailed for between nine and ten hours. It was concluded that this had made it likely that a significant amount of snow had entered the engine air intakes.