BY BARNABAS MANEBONA
THE Dash-8’s recent incident at Lata in which its tyres could not be engaged for landing has been blamed on ‘isolated electrical malfunction’.
Civil Aviation Authority of Solomon Islands (CAASI) Acting Director Brian Halisanau told Island Sun that the tyre fault is an isolated electrical indicator malfunction issue caused by an intermittent micro switch on the loose landing gear door.
He said the pilot’s report stated that the green light was intermittent.
According to the CAASI Acting Director, the flight crew have correctly acted in accordance with their approved Standard Operating Procedures (SOP), and this is what is expected of them.
“There are no safety concerns from what we are seeing from the regulatory side but we will be waiting for the airline to send us their report and corrective or preventive action plan so we can close our incident report,” said the CAASI Acting Director when asked if there is any assurance for the general public over concern of safety.
More than 20 passengers on board the Solomon Airlines Dash-8 aircraft flight destined for Lata were relieved after landing safely back to Honiara this week on Tuesday when the aircraft’s attempt to land three times failed because its tyres were facing a technical situation of not working for landing.
The pilots then according to passengers decided to fly the aircraft back to Honiara after the third attempt; luckily, the tyres worked when approaching Henderson Airport enabling the aircraft to land.
“It could have been a different story if the tyres did not work on our return,” said relieved passengers after landing back at Henderson Airport around 2.30pm.
Island Sun is still yet waiting for response from Solomon Airlines Limited (SAL) on its query into the incident.
