AirAsia’s bird degree
Plover cut short KL flight
A ROGUE plover caused a terrifying midair emergency for 345 passengers on an AirAsia X flight from the Gold Coast to Kuala Lumpur, a 10month investigation by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has found.
Australia’s peak transport safety body yesterday revealed a plover was sucked into the engine of the D7207 AirAsia 330 aircraft as it took off from Gold Coast Airport just before 11pm on July 3, 2017.
It caused the engine to explode into flames and fail, forcing flight crew to issue a mayday call and make an emergency landing at Brisbane Airport about 10 minutes into the flight.
There were 345 passengers and 12 cabin crew on-board.
Flight data showed Engine 2 vibrations increased as the plane approached its takeoff rotation speed, investigators found. However, as the plane reached 2300ft the engine stalled. It failed as the plane reached 4000ft. An AirAsia pilot, who was travelling as a passenger, saw the engine on fire from their seat.
Another passenger, Tim Jago, said he saw flames coming from the engine and heard five “pops” as the aircraft shuddered.
The flight crew shut down Engine 2 and made a mayday distress call to air traffic control before the plane landed safely at Brisbane Airport at 11.10pm.
Video recordings from the Gold Coast Airport runway found “flashes of flame” emitted from the rear of Engine 2 during take off. A complete plover carcass and debris from another plover were also found in the same area.
The ATSB found 480 birdstrikes (an average of 48 per year) were recorded at Gold Coast Airport during the 10year period between 2006-2015.
In the previous 12 months, Gold Coast Airport had “dispersed” 237 plovers from the runway area and culled 34. However, in the four days before the AirAsia flight emergency, no plovers had been dispersed. The airport stepped up its plover eradication in the weeks after the flight drama, dispersing 35 plovers and culling 45 across the remainder of July 2017, the investigation found.
Rolls Royce is reviewing the design of the fan rear seal which scattered throughout the bypass areas of the engine after the birdstrike.
AirAsia spokesman Kris Taute said the findings “underline the calm, skilful actions of the crew”.