Description

On 24 October 2011, the crew of a Boeing 737-800 (EI-DPA) being operated by Ryanair on a scheduled passenger flight from Faro, Portugal to Beauvais France experienced difficulty in maintaining directional control after take off and during the climb in day Visual Meteorological Conditions (VMC). It was decided to return to land where evidence that the rudder assembly was damaged was found and the aircraft was withdrawn from service.

Investigation

When notified of the occurrence by the AAIU, the GPIAA decided to delegate the Investigation to Ireland as State of Registry and State of the Operator. The aircraft DFDR was downloaded by the Operator and a copy of the data was provided to the Investigation. The CB of the 2 hour Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) was tripped by the aircraft commander approximately 55 minutes after landing and was successfully downloaded. Good data was available from approximately 40 minutes prior to take-off.

It was established that the aircraft had been parked overnight on the ramp at Faro with a number of other Ryanair aircraft of the same type. At around 0400 hrs, a particularly violent storm affected the airport during which it was subsequently established that wind speeds up to 85 knots were recorded at one of the airport automatic weather stations. The incident aircraft was found afterwards to have jumped its chocks and pivoted nose left such that the nose landing gear had moved approximately 5 metres from its original position.

The engineer responsible for checking the aircraft signed off the required Check about an hour later. No Technical Log entry was made about the exposure to extreme winds or to the fact that the aircraft had jumped its chocks and moved.