Canadian accident investigators say a blown tyre caused a 28 December incident at Halifax led to involved the collapse of a De Havilland Canada Dash 8-400 turboprop’s main landing gear.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) has also released photographs showing the badly damaged aircraft (C-GPNA) on the ground at Halifax Stanfield International airport.
The accident involved a flight from St John’s International to Halifax operated by St John’s-based regional carrier PAL Airlines.
In an investigation update, the TSB says an outboard tyre on the left-hand main gear failed as the aircraft took off from St John’s.
“Neither the blown tyre condition nor the tyre debris on the runway in St John’s was noticed during the flight, and the aircraft continued to its destination,” says the agency.
The problem became evident when the pilots landed the turboprop on Halifax’s runway 23.
During landing, an “imbalance” due to the blown tyre “caused the left main landing gear stabiliser brace to become unlocked and allowed the left main landing gear to collapse”.
The gear failure also caused the Dash 8’s port-side propeller to strike the runway and led to a fire in the Pratt & Whitney Canada PW123 engine to which it was attached. The crew subsequently activated the fire extinguishing system.
All 73 passengers and four crew on the aircraft evacuated and no injuries were reported, the TSB says. The agency deployed a team to Halifax for the investigation.
PAL’s network of regional flights stretches from Montreal east to St John’s.
