Minna incident: Max Air had no approved safety management system-Report

A report into a serious incident involving a Max Air Boeing 747-400 at the Minna airport on 7th September 2019 has revealed that the airline does not have the approved Safety Management System as required by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Regulations 18 as at the time of the incident.

The preliminary reports, made available by the Accident Investigation Bureau, Nigeria (AIB-N) in Lagos said the aircraft with nationality and registration marks 5N-DBK had left the King Abdul Aziz International Airport Jeddah, Saudi Arabia with 2 cockpit crew, 14 cabin crew and 2 engineers with 560 passengers before the incident occurred on Runway 05 of the Minna airport.

The document noted that the take-off, climb, cruise and descent phases of the flight were normal as it established communication with Minna Tower while descending to FL220 as cleared by Kano control tower.

“Minna tower acknowledged and cleared NGL2092 to Minna VOR (MNA) for ILS approach to Runway (RWY) 05 also requested NGL2092 to report release by Kano.

“During the post incident witness interview, the Pilot Monitoring mentioned that at a point before 20 NM he complained to Minna Tower about the possibility of the presence of birds’ activities at Minna airport.”

The report disclosed that the crew reported an accumulation of storms on the final approach path, therefore requested to deviate left and extend the downwind of runway 05 for which the Minna tower acknowledged and instructed it to report when clear of weather.

“The Pilot Flying stated that during the final approach while passing 2000 ft, the ILS signal was erratic on glide slope and localizer. At that point, the autopilot was disengaged and aircraft was hand flown on visual cues to landing. He further reported that, at touchdown the aircraft drifted slightly right of centerline and while making correction to bring the aircraft to the centerline it over banked. As a result, the number one engine impacted was dragged along the runway surface, causing damage to the engine cowl and thrust reverser (T/R) cowls. The PM corroborated this in his statement.” The AIB-N reported stated further.

All the passengers disembarked the aircraft normally.

However, AIB said preliminary reports are not the final reports as they only contain details of the initial facts, discussions and findings surrounding the occurrences; which include information gathered from witness statements, flight recorders, Health and Usage Monitoring System (HUMS) Data, Flight Data Monitoring (FDM) data, and preliminary inspection of the accident sites and the wreckages.

“Therefore, investigation on this occurrence is still ongoing and final report on the incident will be released at the conclusion of the investigation” the agency said.

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