Air Vanuatu Flight 241
ATR 72-500 and Unity Airlines Britten-Norman Islander and 1 more aircraft · Runway excursion during emergency landing due to pilot error and loss of situational awareness
Event
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- Event fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 43
- Survivors
- 43
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 13
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
Aircraft 1 · ATR 72-500
- Aircraft type
- ATR 72
- Category
- Airplane · from aircraft type
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- YJ-AV71
- Operator
- Air Vanuatu
- Onboard fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 43
- Survivors
- 43
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 13
- Route
- From Whitegrass Airport, Tanna VanuatuTo Bauerfield International Airport, Port Vila, Vanuatu
Aircraft 2 · Britten-Norman Islander
- Aircraft type
- Britten Norman ISLANDER
- Category
- Airplane · from aircraft type
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- YJ-OO9
- Operator
- Unity Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 0
- Survivors
- Not stated
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- Not stated
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
Aircraft 3 · Britten-Norman Islander
- Aircraft type
- Britten Norman ISLANDER
- Category
- Airplane · from aircraft type
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- YJ-AL2
- Operator
- Air Taxi
- Onboard fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 0
- Survivors
- Not stated
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- Not stated
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Miscellaneous
- Personnel issues › Experience/knowledge
- Organizational issues › Development
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Estimated position: Bauerfield International Airport, the airport the Wikipedia article names as the site. Where on or near it is not known.
From the Wikipedia article
Air Vanuatu Flight 241 was a regularly scheduled domestic passenger flight between Whitegrass Airport, Tanna and Bauerfield International Airport, Port Vila, Vanuatu. On 28 July 2018, over Erromango, a fire broke out in the right engine of the ATR 72-500 operating the flight. While the pilots were able to regain control, the pilots botched their response after shutting the engine down. After landing in Port Vila, the pilots tried to use reverse-thrust to taxi and collided with two Britten-Norman Islanders. Thirteen of 43 people on board were injured due to the prior engine fire.
Flight
Flight 241 was a domestic scheduled passenger flight from Whitegrass Airport, Tanna to Bauerfield International Airport, Port Vila Vanuatu. On 28 July 2018, the ATR 72 suffered an engine fire in the right engine while over the island of Erromango. Passengers witnessed a fire in the engine and reported smoke in the cabin. The aircraft temporarily went into an uncontrolled roll before the crew regained control and shut the engine down.
Upon landing in Port Villa, the aircraft departed the runway and collided with two Britten-Norman Islander aircraft belonging to Air Taxi and Unity Airlines. The Air Taxi aircraft was severely damaged, with its vertical stabilizer ripped off. It was damaged beyond repair. The Unity Airlines plane was also damaged beyond repair. Although nobody was injured in the collision, thirteen passengers were treated for smoke inhalation due to the prior fire.
All four crew and 39 passengers on board evacuated the aircraft without injury. The pilots of the ATR 72 reported that they had no brakes or nose wheel steering, which they gave as the reason for the runway excursion and subsequent collision.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The Civil Aviation Authority of Vanuatu requested Papua New Guinea's Accident Investigation Commission to investigate the accident. Canada's Transportation Safety Board also assisted the investigation.
The preliminary report was released by the commission on August 10, 2018, which discarded several potential causes, such as weather conditions. The report also revealed no signs of a fire occurring before or after the crash. Survival factors were also analyzed, such as how well the evacuation was executed.
According to the preliminary report, the aircraft suffered substantial damage to the propellers and right landing gear after it struck and tore off the vertical stabilizer and rudder of the first Britten Norman Islander. The ATR-72's right landing gear then crushed the fuselage of another Islander, destroying it.
Causes
The Papua New Guinea Accident Investigation Commission released their final report on October 29, 2019. The report stated that the engine failure was not the direct cause of the accident.
Following the engine fire, smoke inside the cabin led the pilots to declare an emergency and begin immediate descent. The smoke activated the "ELEC SMK" (electric smoke) warning, an ambiguous system to the two pilots. The pilot in command (PIC) became distracted in trying to identify and correct the warning.
The co-pilot attempted to rectify the warning by going through the "Electrical Smoke" checklist. His inexperience and introverted personality left the PIC to manage most of the emergency in a blatant failure of crew resource management.
A part of the "Electrical Smoke" checklist was another checklist known as "QRH SMOKE" which lacked information. The lack of information and the burden falling to one person caused the pilots to not consider other issues and instead followed the checklist.
As part of the QRH checklist, the generator powering the Alternating Current Wild was shut down. This isolated the direct current bus tie contractor, triggering a loss of power in hydraulic systems, including the brakes, and activation of further warning lights. This further distracted the crew, who then started the wrong pre-landing checklist.
The isolation of the DC bus and the still shut-down right engine caused all systems powered by the right DC to shut down due to a lack of power. This then further activated more warnings, reducing situational awareness as pilots attempted to address these further problems
This lack of situational awareness led the pilots to use reverse thrust while on the ground, despite both the aircraft's brakes and ground control being unavailable. The pilots were not aware of their lack of brakes, and quickly lost control before striking the two Britten-Norman Islanders.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Air Vanuatu Flight 241” (revision 1364692620, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
Sources
Wikipedia article: Air Vanuatu Flight 241
- Article
- Air Vanuatu Flight 241
- Revision
- 1364692620 · 2026-07-18 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q56275150
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Air Vanuatu Flight 241" (page 58017696, revision 1364692620)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- airport the Wikipedia infobox site links (Wikidata code, OurAirports)
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- flight number in the article title
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: total_fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the Wikipedia article's infobox and coordinates, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.