Substance obscuring plane windscreen hampered bid to land

An Aer Arann flight with 50 crew and passengers on board had to fly into a rain belt after sea salt obscured the windscreen and prevented the pilot from seeing the runway at Cork Airport.

The incident, which occurred on January 2nd, 2014, on a flight from Manchester to Cork, led to the flight having to execute two go-arounds before it was able to land safely at the airport.

The incident was investigated by the Air Accident Investigation Unit (AAIU) which said it was highly unusual, and commended the crew for the way in which they dealt with it.

The ATR 72, with 46 passengers and four crew on board, was about to land at Cork Airport at 10.29pm on that date when gusts of winds hitting over 40 knots forced the crew to execute a go-around.

In the course of doing this, close to the coast and at times over the sea, the pilot reported experiencing “a problem with the windscreens”.

Unidentified substance

The pilot felt the aircraft may have flown through some unidentified substance since the first approach, and she inquired of Air Traffic Control at Cork Airport whether there had been a fire in the area.

“It seems to be like smoke on the front of the windscreen that’s sealed and dried in - the wipers aren’t taking it off,” the pilot reported to ATC.

“The problem is that I can’t see out the windscreen,” said the pilot, before informing ATC she was going to fly into a weather cell in the hope “the rain ... might help clear it”.

Later, in a statement to the AAIU, the pilot said “it looked like a frosted glass windscreen” and reiterated the wipers had no effect in clearing the residue as it was so dry.

After flying into the rain, the pilot was able to clear a small patch of windscreen some three inches by one inch, through which she could see the runway for a third approach.

At that point, a shower passed over the airport and the rain began to clear the windscreen. The third approach then resulted in a normal and safe landing.

The AAIU report noted the crew had used a mobile phone to contact the airline’s engineering staff to try to resolve the problem, and they were commended for their actions.

“The flight crew exercised good airmanship and crew resource management in approaching shower activity visible on their radar with a view to clearing the salt residue,” it stated.