2009 Pel-Air Westwind ditching

The 2009 Pel-Air Westwind ditching or Norfolk Island ditching was an aircraft accident on 18 November 2009 near Norfolk Island, Australia. A Westwind II jet operated by Pel-Air was conducting an air ambulance flight for CareFlight when it was forced to ditch after being unable to land in bad weather and not having sufficient fuel to divert to an alternate destination.

The official accident report issued 2½ years later by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) attracted wide criticism, and resulted in an Australian Senate Enquiry that found both the ATSB and the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) had failed to carry out their responsibilities with respect to the accident investigation. In response to the criticism, the ATSB requested that the Transportation Safety Board of Canada review the ATSB's investigation methodologies and processes, and subsequently reopened the investigation on 8 December 2014. The final report of the reopened investigation was released on 23 November 2017, and contained 531 pages and 36 safety factors.

Flight details

On 18 November 2009, an IAI 1124A Westwind II conducted an air ambulance flight from Apia, Samoa to Melbourne on behalf of CareFlight. The aircraft was scheduled to land at Norfolk Island to refuel, but weather conditions deteriorated while it was en route. The aircraft did not carry enough fuel to divert to an alternate destination.

After not being able to make visual observation of the runway after four instrument approaches, the crew ditched the aircraft in open sea 6 km west of Norfolk Island in darkness and bad weather. A pocket torch that the captain had in his possession and used as a distress signal was spotted from land in an area of the sea where the search and rescue effort was initially not concentrated; all six occupants were rescued by local fishermen after 90 minutes in the water.