Description

On 24 April 2010, a Bombardier DHC8-100 operated by Olympic Airways which had, some weeks earlier, been flown to the UK for heavy maintenance at Exeter was positioning from East Midlands to Exeter in day Visual Meteorological Conditions (VMC) with just the two flight crew on board when it experienced a significant oil loss from one engine en route and responded by shutting it down and declaring a ‘PAN’ to ATC for radar vectors direct to destination. The remaining engine was then found to be losing oil, and the declared status was upgraded to a MAYDAY and a successful diversion to the nearest suitable airfield, Bristol, was made.

Investigation

An Investigation was carried out by the UK AAIB. It was established that the aircraft had not flown between July 2009 and March 2010 and early in 2010, two new engines had been fitted to the aircraft and it had been flown from Athens to Exeter on 18 March 2010 for a ‘C’ Check by Flybe Engineering during which both engine oil coolers had been removed and refitted.

The previous (uneventful) flight to the incident one had been a non-revenue positioning flight eight days earlier from Exeter to East Midlands after completion of the ‘C’ Check and was to enable re-painting at East Midlands.