FlyMontserrat aircraft resting spot after rolling off the runway
New airport manager, Denzil Jones closed the John A. Osborne airport for at least two hours on Sunday, April 17, 2011 shortly after 3.00 p.m. after FlyMontserrat flight 105 from Antigua landed.
Early reports said, the landing was observed by Air Traffic as being normal, but after touchdown the aircraft rolled left off the runway. The airport authority cordoned off the section of runaway near the aircraft, which reduced the length of the available landing space.
No passengers appeared to have sustained any injuries from the incident, however the aircraft was damaged.
FlyMontserrat resumed normal flights two hours after the incident. The aircraft was removed from the runway area whilst the airport was closed overnight.
Sizeable crowd gathered soon after to see one of FlyMontserrat’s aircraft which had rolled off the the runway and came to rest on the grass verge, in a very shallow ditch.
Both Fly Montserrat and SVG Air resumed flights around 5:00 p.m but with a reduced payload of passengers.
There were seven passengers on board the aircraft and no one suffered injuries following the mishap.
Crane operation to remove aircraft from field extends into the night- Photo: Courtesy - Wayne Fento
Manager, Capt. Nigel Harris of Montserrat Airways Ltd. later confirmed that the FlyMontserrat aircraft sustained damage to its landing gear. “We obviously have a nose gear collapse on the aircraft we have a little bit of damage to wing tips,” he confirmed.
Harris attributed the cause of what he referred as the quick and professional handling by pilot Capt. Paul Girling to be brakes failure. “I’m almost certain that it was a right hand brake failure,” adding that they were in the process of carrying out all the necessary investigations to ascertain the problems.
He said, “We have a team down from a maintenance company in Anguilla,” as well as insurance adjusters coming from Miami to carry out relative investigations.
Harris said that he expects that within ten or 14 days, the Civil Aviation Authority who have already been made aware of the accident, will carry out their own independent investigation. On Monday he said: “our own engineering team will be here on Wednesday and they will start doing a detailed survey on the aircraft for parts we actually have to go out and source,” and that there were three different independent investigations taking palace. “Of course the airport here carried out their own investigation as well, so everybody is trying to get to the bottom of what actually happened.”
Harris said further as he undertook the sensitive task to restore any lost confidence from the accident, “obviously we’ll put things in place to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
The aircraft was removed from the runway area whilst the airport was closed overnight.
Meantime, Captain Nigel Harris, Managing Director of FlyMontserrat, said he had thanked Captain Paula Girling’ on her professional handling of the incident, which reflects the training that FlyMontserrat provides. He also praised the response from the emergency services, and thanks the airport authorities for the way the incident was handled.
