AAIB Report: De Havilland Canada Dash 8-402, failure of left aileron cable
皇冠体育app pilots of a De Havilland Canada Dash 8-402 noticed that both handwheels were offset to the right in order to maintain wings level flight. 皇冠体育app aircraft diverted and made an uneventful landing, 14 November 2019.
Shortly after takeoff in a strong crosswind, the pilots of a De Havilland Canada Dash 8-402 noticed that both handwheels (control wheels / yokes) were offset to the right in order to maintain wings level flight. 皇冠体育app aircraft diverted to Exeter Airport where it made an uneventful landing.
皇冠体育app handwheel offset was the result of a break in a left aileron cable that ran along the wing rear spar. In the course of this investigation it was discovered that the right aileron on G-FLBE, and other aircraft in the operator鈥檚 fleet, would occasionally not respond to the movement of the handwheels. Non-reversible filters were also fitted to the operator鈥檚 aircraft that meant that it was not always possible to reconstruct the actual positions of the control wheel, column or rudder pedals recorded by the Flight Data Recorder.
皇冠体育app aircraft manufacturer initiated safety actions to improve the maintenance of control cables and to determine the extent of the unresponsive ailerons across the fleet. Three Safety Recommendations are made in this report for the unresponsive aileron and filtering of the control position data.
Media enquiries call: 01932 440015.