The Transportation Safety Board of Canada has found that inadequate training of maintenance personnel contributed to a nose gear landing incident in July 2016.
The incident involved an Air Georgian Beechcraft 1900D turboprop on approach to Calgary International Airport. The crew had not received a gear-safe indication and circled for an hour attempting unsuccessfully to fix the problem, including seeking advice from the Air Georgian maintenance base.
The aircraft landed successfully with the nose gear only partially extended. There were no injuries and only minor damage to the aircraft.
The TSB found that there had been a failure of the retract-and-extend mechanism of the nose gear, initiated by a yoke lubrication problem. Maintenance personnel had not been adequately trained on lubrication techniques and the use of lubrication equipment.
‘The knowledge, rules and skills required for teaching, demonstrating and assessing the lubrication and inspection tasks were not detailed in any Air Georgian documentation or taught as part of any Air Georgian instructor-based training syllabus,’ the TSB investigation report said.
After the incident, the operator found five more Beechcraft 1900D aircraft with non-airworthy landing gear yoke pivot/stop bolts.
