The pilots of a British Aerospace BAE 146 each had about five hours of sleep before an overnight cargo flight in Queensland, Australia, that culminated in two missed approaches because of low clouds, two descents below the segment minimum safe altitude (SMSA) and a diversion to another airport, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) says.
No one was injured in the Jan. 5, 2023, serious incident, and the airplane was not damaged.
In its final report, the ATSB said that factors contributing to the incident were that the second approach was begun when the captain “applied their regular descent technique but from a lower altitude, while the first officer did not identify the early descent due to an incorrect mental model of the aircraft’s position along the approach.”
In addition, because of the time of the approaches — between about 0330 and 0400 local time — both pilots “were likely experiencing a level of fatigue known to adversely affect perfo…
