Air Corps crew has lucky escape after plane suffers loss of power 

Members of the Irish Air Corp during a fly past on the River Liffey, Dublin.

The crew of an Air Corps plane had a lucky escape after it suffered a loss of engine power while getting ready for take-off at Baldonnel.

An investigation report said it was only good fortune that the aircraft had been carrying out taxiing practice or else the engine failure could have occurred during take-off or shortly after leaving the ground.

The report said the incident was considered of the highest category of seriousness and had revealed significant shortcomings in the maintenance of the airplane.

The aircraft was a Britten Norman Defender, which entered service in 1997, and is operated along with the Department of Justice for garda operations.

The report said: “Prior to reaching the holding point for Runway 05, the crew elected to conduct taxiing practice prior to take-off.

“It is likely that had this not been conducted, the aircraft would have experienced the loss of power on the number 2 engine while lining up on the runway, during the take-off roll, or shortly after becoming airborne.” 

'Starved the engine of fuel'

As the engine lost power, the pilot shut down the plane and it had to be towed back to a hangar for immediate inspection.

Investigators found that a filter tube had not been serviced correctly and had subsequently come loose, which “starved the engine of fuel”.

The examination also discovered the same issue with the aircraft’s other engine, which it said during the “course of successive engine runs and or flights” would likely have caused a similar loss of power.

An investigation report scored the incident at 2,500 on an Event Risk Classification scale.

It said: “This is the highest possible risk value [we] can assign a safety report and as such this serious incident is also categorised as a near miss event.” 

The report into the incident last February said there had been inadequate supervision of critical maintenance tasks and that procedures for removal and refitting of the filter tube that came loose had not been adhered to.

Second incident

It was one of two reports completed by the Air Corps Flight Safety Section that were categorised as “serious incidents” in 2023.

A second from October last year involved the garda helicopter and an Orbiter drone that was being operated at the same time.

The report said: “A short time after the Orbiter 2B had landed, the drone operators noticed the [garda helicopter] operating in the area.

“It was estimated that had the Orbiter 2B continued to operate in accordance with its cleared operations, a loss of separation could have occurred between the [two aircraft].” 

Again, the report said there had been an element of luck involved with the “final sortie” of the drone cancelled.

Otherwise, it said the two aircraft would probably have “come within close proximity to one another”.

It added: “This represents a serious incident and had the potential to have become an aircraft accident.” 

A statement from the Defence Forces said: “The primary objective of these investigations is to find out what went wrong and then to make recommendations to put in place procedures to prevent a reoccurrence.

“These investigations are conducted with a ‘Just Culture’ policy in mind, and it is not the purpose of such investigations to apportion blame or liability. The Irish Air Corps encourages all personnel at all levels to submit safety reports in order to improve the overall safety system within the organisation.”