Britannia Airways Flight 226A

Britannia Airways Flight 226A was an international passenger flight from Cardiff, Wales to Girona, Spain, operated by charter airline Britannia Airways. On 14 September 1999, the Boeing 757 aircraft suffered a crash landing and broke apart during a thunderstorm in Girona-Costa Brava Airport. Of the 236 passengers and nine crew on board, two were seriously injured and 41 sustained minor injuries. One of the passengers who had apparently sustained only minor injuries died five days later of unsuspected internal injuries. The aircraft involved in the crash, Boeing 757-204 registration G-BYAG, was damaged beyond economical repair and scrapped.

The body that was responsible for the investigation of the crash, the Civil Aviation Accident and Incident Investigation Commission (CIAIAC), concluded that the crash had been caused by destabilized approach, loss of external reference and loss of automatic height callouts while landing in Girona. The aircraft entered a high rate of descent with a nose down attitude, creating an impact that was violent enough to dislodge the nose landing gear to the back and caused it to crash onto the aircraft's main electrical unit, resulting in an electrical failure that disabled all deceleration systems and in a sudden production of unwanted forward thrust. The aircraft was unable to stop and eventually veered off the runway.

Flight

Flight 226A was a passenger flight from the Welsh capital of Cardiff to Girona, serving the popular tourist region of the Costa Brava. Operated by United Kingdom's largest charter airline Britannia Airways, the flight had been chartered by UK's travel company Thomson Travel. Passengers aboard the aircraft were part of a tour that had been organized by Thomson.

The flight was scheduled to take off on 14 September 1999 for Girona-Costa Brava Airport, with Barcelona, Reus and Toulouse in France as alternate airports. The flight took off from Cardiff Airport at 20:40 BST with 236 passengers and 9 crew members on board. Before taking off from Cardiff, the crew had been briefed on the weather forecast in Girona. The briefing concluded that thunderstorms would be present at the destination airport and all three alternate airports. The crew had taken an additional 15 minutes of fuel reserve for possible delays.

Approaching Girona, the crew asked for the updated weather information. Girona ATC indicated that the thunderstorm near the airport would prevail during the approach and landing phase. The storm was located at the southwest of the airport. The controller later advised the crew to make an ILS approach to Runway 20, but the crew elected to choose Runway 02, the same runway from the opposite direction, after considering the wet runway condition, downslope and tailwind. Captain Nolan knew that the approach to Runway 02 would be difficult so he took over control from his co-pilot.

As the approach commenced, the first officer asked the crew to prepare and announced to passengers that there would be turbulence. The weather was poor and the aircraft was shaking. During the approach, one of the cabin crew informed the pilots that the right side of the aircraft had been struck by lightning. Despite this, the aircraft continued the approach to Girona. Several preceding flights had diverted to Barcelona due to the stormy conditions.

Crash landing

The crew was monitoring their instruments when the airfield lighting suddenly failed due to a power cut. When Captain Nolan glanced back to his window, he was stunned to find that the airport runway had disappeared from his vision. With few seconds left for a landing, at an altitude between 80 and 54 feet above ground level, the GPWS blared "SINK RATE", warning the crew on the excessive rate of descent. Shortly after the warning, the radio altimeter sounded "ten", indicating that there were only 10 ft left between the aircraft and the ground. Both thrust levers were immediately put to the idle position.

The aircraft touched down hard, first with its nose gear and then with the rest of the landing gears, at a speed of 141 knots. Forces up to 3G rocked the entire aircraft. It then bounced back to the air with a slight roll to the right and went down again in a full nose down input. It struck the runway with its nose landing gear again. The second impact was a lot more powerful than the last. As a result, the nose landing gear collapsed and the aircraft skidded through the runway.

Immediately after the second hard landing, all of the aircraft lighting went off. The emergency cabin light was activated. In the cockpit, the first officer shouted that the autobrake system was not working. Captain Nolan tried to stop the aircraft by applying brakes manually, but the aircraft kept rolling down the runway. Meanwhile, the controller, who earlier had lost sight of the aircraft during the electrical failure at the airport, realized that Flight 226A had rolled down the runway with flashes and sparks coming out from the left side of the aircraft.

The Boeing 757 then veered to the right and left the runway at high speed, approximately 1000 m from the second touchdown point. It then ran 343 m across flat grassland beside the runway, before going diagonally over a substantial earth mound adjacent to the airport boundary, becoming semi-airborne as a result. Beyond the mound it hit a number of medium-sized trees and the right engine struck the boundary fence. The aircraft then passed through the fence, re-landed in a field and both main landing gears collapsed. It finally stopped after a 244 m slide across the field, 1900 m from the second touchdown. During the crash, Captain Nolan was thrown from his seat, causing him to strike his head against the left windscreen, knocking him unconscious.