On 10 October 2018, Yakutia Airlines flight 414, a Sukhoi Superjet, suffered a collapse of the main landing gear in a landing accident at Yakutsk Airport, Russia.
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Yakutsk Airport's runway 05R threshold was displaced by 1150 meters due to reconstruction. Runway 23L was available for landing only with a Landing Distance Available (LDA) of 2248 meters. Additionaly, the touchdown zone lights of runway 23L and runway centreline lights were unserviceable.
Flight 414 touched down on runway 23L following an NDB approach. Wind was reported to be from 060° at 2 m/s, resulting in a 4 knot tailwind component. A runway friction coefficient of 0.45 was communicated to the flight.
The aircraft failed to stop on the remaining runway and overran onto the area that was under reconstruction, stopping after 250 meters. This caused damage to the forward fuselage, separation of both main landing gear bogies and a fuel tank leak. After the accident, a measurement showed friction coefficients of 0.25, 0.32, and 0.25 on the runway.
The aircraft was dispatched with a deactivated thrust reverser on engine no.2. According to the limitations of the minimum equipment list (MEL), landing with deactivated engine reversers is allowed at a friction coefficient of not less than 0.4.
The cause of the aviation accident with the RRJ 95B RA-89011 aircraft when landing at night with one deactivated thrust reverser was the transfer to the crew of incorrect information about the value of the friction coefficient, which led to the landing on an icy runway, the average normative friction coefficient which was less than 0.3, which did not allow landing in accordance with current regulations.
This led to a significant increase in landing distance, rolling the aircraft out of the runway and collision with the junction of the reconstructed section of the runway with a height of about 0.4 m, which led to the destruction of the main landing gear supports and damage to the engines with fuel leakage without causing a fire.
The contributing factors were the following:
- Absence of a connecting ramp (which was not envisaged by the reconstruction project) between the current and the part of the runway being reconstructed;
- inefficiency of the SMS of Yakutsk Airport JSC in terms of identification and control of risks associated with the possibility of ice formation at the runway, and insufficient control over the implementation of the SMS by aviation authorities;
- erroneous determination of the Xc value at the last measurement;
- inefficiency of ice removal procedure during runway cleaning due to lack of chemical reagents for ice removal and/or thermal machines at the airfield;
- lack of information from the RRJ-95LR-100 RA 89038 aircraft crew about actual rolling out of the runway, which was an aviation incident and was subject to investigation;
- failure by airport and ATC officials to take appropriate action after receiving the RRJ-95LR-100 RA-89038 low friction report from the aircraft crew. ■
A strong storm that originated over the Pacific has tracked through the Great Basin and is currently transitioning across the Rockies to redevelop across the central High Plains later today into early Saturday morning.