Description

On 24 December 2002, a SA 227 Metroliner III being operated by Danish freight and passenger charter operator Benair on a positioning flight from Aberdeen to Aalborg with just the two pilots on board crashed just after take off in marginal VMC at night following a loss of control. It collided with a car which caught fire and both aircraft and car were destroyed although only one person, one of the flight crew, sustained any injury, which was minor.

Investigation

An Investigation was carried out by the UK AAIB. It was established that the First Officer had been PF and that the crew had believed that there had been a right hand engine failure shortly after takeoff from Runway 16 and in response, the aircraft commander had feathered that engine but had not raised the landing gear. After reaching approximately 100 feet aal, the aircraft had descended in a right turn with the PF stating that he "couldn't control the aircraft" and came to rest approximately 500 metres to the right of Runway 16 and approximately abeam the end of the runway having turned to the right by around 95° relative to the runway heading before impacting the ground. The plan and figures below showing the re-constructed aircraft trajectory is taken from the official report.