Bad weather, air crew inexperience and ATC failings cited

Exercise 8.1 Read and translate the text.

Polish defense minister Bogdan Klich has dismissed five air force personnel after an accident investigation concluded that multiple failings contributed to the 23 January crash of an EADS Casa C-295 transport which killed 20 people.

The investigation found that the aircraft – one of the air force’s two newest C-295s assigned to its 13^th Air Transport Squadron – was fully serviceable at the time of the accident, and that a mix of bad weather, air crew inexperience and air traffic control failings led to its loss.

As a result of the investigation, the airport commander at Miroslawiec air base, two air traffic controllers and an officer from the Air Operations Centre have been dismissed, along with 13 Sqn’s commanding officer.

The C-295 crew reported in to Miroslaviec control and descended to 8, 000 (2,440m), but received inaccurate information about weather conditions, which included a cloud base of 196-295ft, a crosswind and haze restricting visibility to 3 km (1.6nm). Controllers at the base – who were not trained to handle types other than the Sukhoi Su-22 – also gave altitude information in metres, rather than feet, while the base’s instrument landing system was inoperative.

The crew aborted their first landing attempt, reporting: “We can’t see runway lights”. During the second approach, controllers gave six commands to come left onto the correct glide paths, but failed to give height indications. The crew disconnected the autopilot and made a 7◦ bank to the left, 2.8km from the runway, with this increasing to 19◦ after an ATC command to change heading. The pilot changed flap position to 4◦ – insufficient to correct a now uncontrolled rate of bank, which rapidly increased to 5-6◦/s. The report says the crew lost spatial orientation while looking for runway lights, and a ground proximity warning system, which should have provided an aural warning as bank exceeded 40◦, was switched off. The aircraft’s left wing stuck the ground 1,300m short of the runway.

The investigation found that the pilot was performing his first flight in the latest version of the C-295, while his co-pilot was not fully trained to operate under instrument flight conditions.