An Air Chathams flight over the weekend got caught in wake turbulence prompting an investigation. Photo / Bevan Conley
An Air Chathams flight over the weekend got caught in wake turbulence prompting an investigation. Photo / Bevan Conley
Air Chathams is investigating how one of its aircraft got caught in wake turbulence causing a "severe roll to the right" shortly before landing at Auckland airport.
Customers on flight 3C-703 from Whanganui to Auckland on March 7 have received a letter detailing what occurred and what action is beingtaken following what the airline called an "extremely rare" event.
The wake turbulence was caused by a Boeing 787 in front of Air Chathams' saab on approach to Auckland.
Air Chathams general manager Duane Emeny told the Chronicle that due to the wind conditions, as the 787 came through the air it displaced a lot of air around it creating vortices that then created wake turbulence between the two aircrafts.
"If you ever find yourself in that situation you can find yourself quite abrupt and severe for a very short period of time when you fly through it," Emeny said.
"It affects everything around it and can push and pull in all sorts of directions.
"The result of that was quite a severe roll to the right and because the aircraft was being flown with the autopilot it required the pilot to manually disengage the autopilot and carry out a climb to exit that area and turbulence."
On landing the pilot advised passengers of what happened.
Air Chathams general manager Duane Emeny sent all customers on board the 3C-703 flight a letter detailing the action they would be taking to investigate what happened. Photo / Bevan Conley
"It's something extremely rare to have that, it's quite alarming because if you're in it you don't know quite what's going on."
Emeny said the flight crew operated in standard operating procedures and could not find any fault with the actions taken.
The investigation is still ongoing with the airline safety team still working on both events to provide further internal guidance and recommendations to their flight crews.
A report of the events will also be made to the Civil Aviation Authority to ensure that there can be lessons and mitigation to prevent further events, Emeny said.
Earlier in the flight the take-off from Whanganui Airport had to be aborted after warning horn required the flight crew to stop the aircraft on the runway.
The warning was to do with the setting of the electric trim required for take-off.
Emeny said the investigation deemed that the trim was set correctly but due to the disturbance on the take-off roll, it triggered the automatic horn.
