A 12,000-hour captain’s “lack of practice or experience” in a de Havilland Canada DHC-6-300 Twin Otter floatplane – partly because of limited flying during the COVID-19 pandemic – was among the contributing factors to an Oct. 5, 2020, accident in the floatplane landing area at Velana International Airport in the Maldives, accident investigators say.
Two of the seven people in the airplane received minor injuries in the accident, which damaged the airplanes wings and left propeller blades.
The Maldives Accident Investigation Coordinating Committee (AICC) said in its final report that the accident’s causes and contributing factors were the loss of control on landing, the varying crosswinds encountered during landing and the captain’s “lack of practice or experience (change of motor skills) … for landing floatplanes.”
The accident airplane, operated by Trans Maldivian Airways (TMA), left Vommuli water airport on the second day of a multi-sect…
