On Tuesday morning, Luxair held a press conference at the Hotel Légère in Munsbach to announce details of the investigation into the incident at Saarbrucken airport on 30 September 2015 involving one of their Bombardier Q400 planes.
The LG 9562 flight involving a Bombardier DHC8-492 turbo-prop was taking off for Luxembourg with 16 passengers and 4 crew when the undercarraige hit the runway.
While the official investigation by the relevant authorities in Germany is currently underway and an official report is not expected for a few weeks, the internal Luxair review has concluded. It confirms that human error is to blame with the Co-pilot (who is currently suspended from flying) who performed an unintentional action by actioning a gear-up lever while all wheels were still on the ground during take-off, causing the rear wheels to retract and the tail to hit the runway and two further impacts, resulting in the aircraft sliding down the runway to a stop; no fire was reported and no passengers nor crew were injured. The aircraft stopped on the runway, 400m before the end.
While the captain had no opportunity to correct the error, he managed to avoid a worse scenario by acting "quickly and professionally". The cabin crew evacuated the plane in a fast, effective and professional way.
No technical defects were identified which could have led to cause the accident, with the Q400 plane's landing gear certified by the authorities as working as designed.
Luxair us now integrating the scenario into training to raise crews' awareness and is drafting a recommendation to improve landing gear behaviour in case of human error, as a preventative safety barrier.
Following a period off-duty, the cabin crew members have resumed flight duties; the captain will resume duty shortly while the co-pilot is suspended from flying; he will be offered another (non-flying) position within the Luxair Group.
The aircraft received damage to the hull, the propellor, the centre wig section and components in the underfloor section. A complete repair - if possible - will take 6 months from the start of the repair, with a decision expected mid-December.
Until autumn 2016, Luxair is therefore lacking one aircraft in its fleet. 89 flights were affected up to 23 October with 28 return flights cancelled and another 53 changed, affecting 1,500 passengers. The winter season is not affected. Next summer season will see the extension of use of one of the Embraer jets to avoid affecting passengers.
The airline granted all passengers on the affected flight both moral compensation as well as reimbursement of all expenses in relation to the incident.
Photo by Geoff Geoff Thompson (L-R): Captain Daniel Colling, Head of Flight Operations; Martin Isler, Responsible for Safety at Luxair; Adrien Rey, CEO; Captain Pascal Kremer
