A training plane crash at Aviation School of New Zealand Company Limited in central Quang Nam Province in January was attributed to the trainee’s poor touch-and-go skills, the Vietnamese aviation authorities concluded.
After three months of investigation, the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) recently released a conclusion about the accident that happened during a pilot training flight at the province’s Chu Lai Airport on January 12, 2022.
According to the conclusion, after successfully performing the first touch-and-go on Runway No. 32 with a VN-C869 plane, a Diamond DA20-C1 model, the trainee, a 23-year-old Vietnamese trainee, had difficulty in the second.
The plane bounced on landing, and the trainee decided to cancel the landing and make a go-around, but due to a pilot error, the plane tilted left, crossed the runway edge and crashed into the adjacent grassland, about 80 meters from where it first touched the runway.
This image shows (1) the touchdown point, (2) the runway edge where the plane crossed, and (3) the location on the grass where the plane stopped. Photo: CAAV |
The trainee fortunately managed to get out of the plane on his own and suffered no injuries, while the plane was damaged beyond repair.
Pilot trainers of the aviation school and Chu Lai air traffic control forces activated the emergency alarm right after the accident and informed relevant parties at the airport to approach the scene of the plane crash at 2:00 pm.
The trainee was not qualified to perform a standard touch-and-go, the CAAV said in the conclusion.
Specially, he had not been fully trained in go-around performances at different altitudes, especially at low ones, or when the aircraft touched the runway.
As shown in his training records, he failed in all four go-arounds during the training, with many shortcomings needed to be overcome.
Besides, processes for performance of practice exercises prepared by the aviation school have yet to be fully standardized in the company’s training materials and standard operation procedure (SOP).
The CAAV requested that the company set up a process for appraisal of trainees’ training records to improve training quality and that its flight manuals must be standardized and included in its SOP.
The agency assigned its Flight Safety Standards Department to monitor and supervise the remedies as well as flight training performed by the company.
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