Description

On 15 March 2011, an ATR 72-200 on a non revenue positioning flight from Edinburgh to Paris CDG in night Visual Meteorological Conditions (VMC) with just the two pilots on board began to experience roll and directional control difficulties as the aircraft accelerated upon reaching the planned cruise altitude of FL230. A ‘PAN’ call was made to ATC and a return to Edinburgh was made with successful containment of the malfunctioning flying controls.

Investigation

A Field Investigation was carried out by the UK AAIB. It was established that the incident flight was the first one after completion of a scheduled base “2 year Check" at a Part 145 maintenance facility which was within the same beneficial ownership as the aircraft operator. It was found that the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) data was “of such poor quality that the data was unreliable and therefore unusable” but the QAR also fitted was downloaded successfully. Since the 30 minute Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) had continued to run following the onset of problems, later recording had overwritten the initial part of the incident. It was noted that First Officer had been acting as PF for the incident flight and that the aircraft commander had accumulated the majority of his total flying experience on the ATR72.