The cargo plane was forced to divert from EMA due to a wiring fault

A cargo plane was forced to divert from East Midlands Airport (EMA) after an electrical fault “triggered a series of warnings and cautions” and caused the co-pilot to lose instrument displays, a report published today (Thursday May 16) by Air. The Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) revealed.

The AAIB said a wiring fault “probably caused by the incorrect use of mechanical wire stripping tools” led to the incident. The report states that a malfunction caused the crew of two pilots to perform a “turn around” and that they manually flew the aircraft to Birmingham Airport where it landed without further incident.

The report states that the two pilots temporarily lost communications with air traffic control during this diversion and completely lost “automatic flight capability.” It said the action was proposed by the equipment manufacturer and taken by the third-party maintenance organization to promote the use of various tools to prevent the failure from recurring.

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The incident happened on Tuesday January 17 last year at around 4.25am while the aircraft was in low cloud on approach to landing at EMA at Belfast International Airport. As the failure occurred below 1000ft, the crew initiated an operation “in accordance with the company’s operations manual”, the report said.

It said that during this run the pilots were “presented with a significant loss of flight instruments and multiple visual and audible alerts, including ground proximity warnings.

“They established the aircraft in climb and followed standard published procedure. Because of the possible distraction caused by the numerous warnings, the crew did not initially retract the flaps.

“Once at 3,000 feet, the crew recognized the faulty flaps and retracted them.” The report stated that “throttle limiting speed was not exceeded.

“At this time, the co-pilot did not have reliable flight instruments, and this disrupted the normal management of crew resources, as his ability to monitor the aircraft’s flight path was significantly degraded,” the statement said. “In view of a manual flight diversion, using degraded flight instruments and no radio communications, the workload of the crew was high.

“They made a MAYDAY call to EMA Tower and in the static they thought they heard a response directing them to contact EMA Approach. They did so and on that frequency re-established clear communications and requested vectors to Birmingham.”

The report pointed out that “partially connected, damaged wiring” led to an electrical system that believed there was a fault. It said that “the starter generator manufacturer has previously identified the risk of mechanical damage from mechanical insulation stripping tools and uses thermal wire strippers in its own manufacturing and overhaul facility.

“However, the use of these tools was not specified in the product maintenance documentation.” The manufacturer will now change the unit’s maintenance procedure to “highly recommend” the use of thermal demounters.

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