Eva B773 near Fukuoka on Nov 22nd 2017, turbulence injures 12

Last Update: March 15, 2019 / 17:22:25 GMT/Zulu time

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Incident Facts

Date of incident
Nov 22, 2017

Classification
Accident

Cause
Turbulence

Airline
Eva Air

Flight number
BR-56

Departure
Taipei, Taiwan

Destination
Chicago O'Hare, United States

Aircraft Registration
B-16718

Aircraft Type
Boeing 777-300

ICAO Type Designator
B773

An Eva Airways Boeing 777-300, registration B-16718 performing flight BR-56 from Taipei (Taiwan) to Chicago O'Hare,IL (USA) with 181 passengers and 18 crew, was enroute at FL310 about 180nm eastsoutheast of Fukuoka (Japan) when the aircraft encountered turbulence causing altitude deviations of +375 and -550 feet, the speed over ground varied between 600 and 568 knots. The aircraft stabilized at FL310 and continued to Chicago for a safe landing about 11 hours later. One cabin crew received serious injuries, 3 passengers and 8 cabin crew minor injuries.

Taiwan's ASC reported one cabin crew received serious, 3 passengers and 8 cabin crew received minor injuries. The ASC have opened an investigation into the occurrence.

The airline reported a passenger with medical qualification took care of the injured in flight. The injured were taken to a hospital after landing.

On Mar 15th 2019 the ASC released their final report in Chinese only and an English executive summary (Editorial note: to serve the purpose of global prevention of the repeat of causes leading to an occurrence an additional timely release of all occurrence reports in the only world spanning aviation language English would be necessary, a Chinese only release - even with a brief executive summary in English - does not achieve this purpose as set by ICAO annex 13 and just forces many aviators to waste much more time and effort each in trying to understand the circumstances leading to the occurrence. Aviators operating internationally are required to read/speak English besides their local language, investigators need to be able to read/write/speak English to communicate with their counterparts all around the globe).

The ASC concluded the probable causes of the accident were:

According to the recorded FDR data, during the cruise altitude were at 31,000 feet, the maximum magnitude of vertical acceleration was between 1.68g to -0.13g, the maxima of Eddy Diffusion cube root was over than 0.7, which indicated the aircraft was encountering severe turbulence. Since the cabin crew received the turbulence waring during the period of dinning service, they were unable to return and lock up the trollies back in the galley, then be seated. It resulted in 3 passengers and 8 cabin crew members received injuries during the turbulence, 2 were subjected serious injuries among them.

Findings related to the risks

1. There is no procedure for responding predictable turbulence during dining service in relevant the EVA Airways cabin crew manual, only be seated as soon as possible is requested. It takes time to be seated after returning the trollies back to the galley and locking it up, the current procedure is unable to lowers the risk of cabin crew subjected injury in practical.

2. There is no current procedure for turbulence encounters in cruise in EVA Airways to report the moderated or severe turbulence events to the flight dispatching department, this indicates it is not in compliance with the third element of the Advisory Circular which advises to establish an efficient pilot report and communication system for clear air turbulence (CAT) avoidance (not ATC communications), the systems of CAT avoidance were insufficient.

Others

1. There were no abnormal finding related to the flight crew and the licenses, weight and balance or system functions of the occurrence aircraft.