Civil Aviation DG awaits info on UL 503’s cracked windshield

The Director General of Civil Aviation was not provided with sufficient information about what happened on Wednesday’s Londonbound SriLankan Airlines flight which returned to Katunayake after pilots observed a crack on the plane’s left windshield.

“The Mandatory Occurrence Report had very little information,” said Civil Aviation Director General H.M.C. Nimalsiri. “It only said there was a windshield crack on the left side. This was a major incident and some sort of emergency had been declared as the aircraft landed. It had descended to 10,000 feet.”

“I wrote to them on Thursday, asking them to advise the pilots to

SriLankan said the flight returned to Bandaranaike International Airport at 16.30 hrs without incident, and that, it was standard procedure for any aircraft to descend to 10, 000 ft. to minimise the differential pressure on the windshield.

give us adequate information,” he said. “The Mandatory Occurrence Report is part of the data process. We need full details as to what happened.”

A spokesman for the Airline Pi- lots Guild of Sri Lanka said pilots do not write every detail of an incident on a Mandatory Occurrence Report and that they will submit the requisite information to the SriLankan Flight Operations Department. The Departmentis now inquiring into what happened.

SriLankan Airlines said in a statement that UL503 had departed Colombo for London Heathrow Airport on January 1, 2014. Approximately 45 minutes after takeoff, the cockpit crew observed a crack in the windshield. The windshield of the aircraft has three layers of glass and it was the centrelayer which had developed the crack.

“As per the manufacturers’ rec- ommended procedure, the pilots descended the aircraft to 10,000 ft. as a precautionary measure to minimise the differential pressure on the windshield,” it said. “Therefore, in the interest of the passengers’ safety and the aircraft, the pilots decided to return to Colombo for the replacement of the windshield.”

SriLankan said the flight returned to Bandaranaike International Airport at 16.30 hrs without incident, and that, it was standard procedure for any aircraft to descend to 10, 000 ft. to minimise the differential pressure on the windshield. It said that, at no stage was the aircraft’s or the passengers’ safety compromised.