Air Accident Investigations Branch’s Damning Report over Safety Issues

A damning report by the Air Accidents Investigations Branch (or AAIB) has found that safety work was not properly completed on a plane whose landing gear collapsed.

According to the BBC, the British Airways Avro 146 flight, which was carrying 67 passengers, filled with smoke as it landed in February 2009. The incident occurred at London City Airport and was the result of a fatigue crack in the landing gear.

Although records showed that improvement work had been undertaken on the plane by its manufacturer, it clearly had not been completed.

The AAIB also stated in their report that there had been “poor surface finish during manufacture” of the aircraft, which had necessitated the safety improvements which were not completed.

Fortunately, following the accident only two people suffered minor injuries, although the airport was shut for several hours.

The report did not however highlight any further safety recommendations as, since the date of the crash, inspections and maintenance standards have been improved.

British Airways welcomed the report by the AAIB, stating that “There are no specific safety recommendations for BA, but we have worked with the relevant authorities and manufacturers to ensure that the highest safety levels are maintained.”

This raises considerable questions about the procedures which were being adopted for inspections prior to the report. Fortunately this incident only resulted in minor injuries for two individuals but it could have been a whole lot worse. Manufacturers have a duty to exercise reasonable care to ensure that defective products are corrected within the manufacturing process, or else they risk being found negligent should that defect cause injury to someone, whether they were the purchaser of the product or not.