The Australian Transport Safety Board (ATSB) has released the investigation report into the crash of Piper Mojave VH-PGW in Canley Vale, NSW in June 2010.
The aircraft was on an aeromedical flight from Bankstown to Archerfield and then Albury with a pilot and flight nurse on board, when the pilot experienced surging on the right engine.
He shut down the right engine and returned to Bankstown, but the aircraft did not maintain sufficient height and crashed as the pilot attempted to land near or on Canley Vale Road. The crash was not survivable.
According to the ATSB report, the Mojave should have been able to maintain height on one engine only under the conditions prevalent at the time of the accident. The report included the following as contributing factors:
- While the aircraft was climbing to 9000 ft, the right engine sustained a power problem and the pilot subsequently shut down that engine [the reason for the power surge was not found]
- Following the shutdown of the right engine, the aircraft's descent profile was not optimised for one engine inoperative flight
- The pilot conducted a descent towards Bankstown that was consistent with a normal arrival profile without first verifying that the aircraft was capable of achieving adequate performance with one engine inoperative
- Following the engine problem, the aircraft's flightpath and the pilot's communication with air traffic control indicated that the pilots situation awareness was less than optimal.
Also, the ATSB found that it was unlikely that deficiencies in the pilot's endorsement training contributed to the accident.
The full investigation report can be downloaded from the ATSB website here.