The pilots of a Bombardier Challenger 604 have told accident investigators how they lost control of the aircraft in a January encounter with wake turbulence from an Airbus 380 that caused the CL604 to drop 9,000 ft and roll through “several rotations,” according to an interim report from the German Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation.
The report said the temporary loss of control occurred about one minute after the A380 passed overhead, headed in the opposite direction, about 1,000 ft above the CL604, in Indian airspace over the Arabian Sea.
As the CL604 rolled left, its autopilot and a number of instruments and cockpit displays failed, including the inertial reference systems, the flight management system and the attitude indication, the report said.
The pilot-in-command told accident investigators that, “since the sky had been blue and the ocean’s surface almost the same colour, he had been able to recognize the aircraft’s flight attitude with the hel…
