A US Airways crew whose nose-gear collapsed during an aborted takeoff in Philadelphia entered the wrong information into the flight computer and then reacted incorrectly to the mistake, federal investigators said Thursday.
The National Transportation Safety Board concluded that the incident March 13, 2014, resulted from the captain’s decision to reject the takeoff until the Airbus A320 was going fast enough to fly and briefly became airborne.
The mistake came after the co-pilot had entered the wrong information into the plane’s flight computer, which prompted an audio alarm in the cockpit and made the takeoff more difficult, the board found.
“This investigation ultimately reveals a crew that made decisions which resulted in minor injuries to passengers and substantial damage to what was otherwise a perfectly sound plane,” board member Earl Weener said in a statement accompanying the board’s findings.
The 149 passengers and five crew members on board flight 1702 to Fort Lauderdale had to leave by emergency slides.
Investigators found that the co-pilot entered the wrong runway into the flight computer after backing away from the gate. When the captain noticed, the co-pilot changed the information, but didn’t also change the thrust and speed anticipated for the new runway.
When the plane was moving faster than 92 mph, an audio alert in the cockpit announced “retard” repeatedly, as if directing pilots to slow down the plane. The plane reached 188 mph and it briefly bounced 15 feet in the air, investigators said.
Neither pilot understood what the “retard’ warning meant during a takeoff because it was designed for a landing. But the captain decided the plane was unsafe to fly, so he aborted the takeoff, investigators said.
The plane’s tail struck the runway and then the nose-gear collapsed as it hit the ground and the plane skidded to a halt. But the plane could have taken off safely, investigators said.
“It remains unclear why the pilot became convinced that an otherwise sound airplane was not safe to fly,” Weener said.
Airbus said in a statement that because the takeoff thrust wasn’t set, the automated system reverted to landing mode, with the “retard” warning. But Airbus said standard operating procedure called for the pilots to continue with the takeoff because the plane was going too fast to stop on the runway.
The Allied Pilots Association submitted a statement that urged Airbus to make equipment such as the auto-thrust system and the flight-warning computer more intuitive to pilots.
CULLED FROM USA TODAY
