NICHOLAS IONIDES / SINGAPORE
Second disaster averted after Airbus strikes electrical wires and narrowly avoids hill
A Philippine Airlines (PAL) Airbus A330-300 struck electrical wires and narrowly avoided hitting terrain while approaching Guam International Airport last month. The incident, still under investigation, bears similarities to circumstances resulting in the crash of a Korean Air (KAL) Boeing 747-300 in the same area more than five years ago.
The US Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) are investigating the 17 December incident in which the A330 came "incredibly close" to hitting a hillside while on final approach to the airport, say sources familiar with the probe. PAL confirms that disaster was averted when the cockpit crew initiated a go-around following the activation of the aircraft's ground proximity warning system (GPWS).
The A330 left Manila at 22.06 on a scheduled flight on 16 December, and on approach in the early hours of 17 December, its GPWS was activated and the crew carried out an immediate go-around manoeuvre, later landing the aircraft at 03.50.
PAL will not say how close the aircraft came to the terrain but confirms that "dents and scratches" were found on the fuselage and bulk cargo door. The damage was discovered by ground personnel in Manila after the A330 operated the return flight to the Philippine capital on the same day. PAL says the aircraft was immediately grounded and the Philippine Air Transportation Office notified.
Authorities are still attempting "to establish, among other things, when and where the damage occurred", PAL says.
The NTSB confirms the aircraft was on an instrument approach and "got very low on the approach and hit some electrical wires".
One FAA official says the aircraft made contact with electrical wires on nearby Nimitz Hill as the go-around was being performed. Nimitz Hill is where a KAL 747 crashed in August 1997, killing 229 people.
PAL claims its A330 made the approach with "bare-minimum navigational aids" as a result of damage to infrastructure caused by a typhoon. It says the typhoon "caused extensive damage to Guam's infrastructure and disabled the runway approach lighting system, middle marker, glideslope, sequenced flashing lights and the VORTAC [navigation beacon] on Nimitz Hill".
The NTSB describes the 1997 KAL crash as a "classic controlled flight into terrain accident". Investigators laid much of the blame on the cockpit crew although their final report also highlighted broader training issues and air traffic control equipment problems, specifically that the airport's instrument landing system glideslope was out of action as was air traffic control's radar-based minimum safe altitude warning system.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY BRENDAN SOBIE IN WASHINGTON DC
Source: Flight International
