The pilot had just taken off from England’s Bournemouth Airport in his recently purchased Cessna Citation CJ1+ when the airplane rolled sharply left and began descending.
Applying full right aileron and full right rudder failed to stop the roll, and moving the throttles to idle and pulling back with both hands on the control column failed to stop the descent, but the airline transport pilot maneuvered the airplane onto the left downwind leg to Runway 08, as advised by air traffic control, and safely landed.
An investigation by the U.K. Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) found that the airplane had been modified with a system – the Active Technology Load Alleviation System (ATLAS) – that included wing extensions and winglets as “supplementary control surfaces designed to deflect symmetrically and automatically to alleviate gust loads,” the report said. An electrical failure in the ATLAS after takeoff caused one of the control surfaces to deploy, and t…
