Alliance E190 at Honiara on Feb 23rd 2024, low speed on departure

Last Update: April 4, 2025 / 13:03:22 GMT/Zulu time

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Incident Facts

Date of incident
Feb 23, 2024

Classification
Report

Airline
Alliance Air

Flight number
IE-700

Departure
Honiara, Solomon Islands

Destination
Brisbane, Australia

Aircraft Registration
VH-UYI

Aircraft Type
Embraer ERJ-190

ICAO Type Designator
E190

An Alliance Air Embraer ERJ-190 on behalf of Solomon Airlines, registration VH-UYI performing flight IE-700 from Honiara (Solomon Islands) to Brisbane,QL (Australia) with 66 passengers and 4 crew, was climbing out of Honiara when the aircraft did not accelerate. The crew reduced the flaps resulting in a visual low speed alert. The crew subsequently discovered that the speed mode had been incorrectly set. The aircraft continued to Brisbane without further incident.

On Apr 4th 2025 the ATSB released their final report concluding the probable causes of the incident were:

Contributing factors

- During the Before start procedure, the captain unintentionally left the speed selector knob in manual mode instead of flight management system mode, with no manual speed set. The manual speed mode selection was not detected by either flight crewmember, resulting in the aircraft decelerating after vertical flight level change mode was engaged.

- While the captain was monitoring traffic, weather and making a radio broadcast, the first officer was not effectively monitoring the airspeed and, as a result, did not initially detect the aircraft decelerating.

- Having assessed that the low airspeed was due to excessive drag, the captain retracted one stage of flap while below the minimum flap target speed, resulting in the aircraft entering a low-speed state.

- Embraer's airplane operations manual was inconsistent with its standard operating procedures manual in relation to speed mode selection. This increased the risk of flight crews departing with the manual speed mode unintentionally selected. (Safety issue)

- Consistent with Embraer’s airplane operations manual, the Alliance Airline's pre-flight procedure required flight crew to unnecessarily initially set the speed knob to ‘manual’. This increased the risk of the aircraft departing with the incorrect speed mode selected. (Safety issue)

- Likely due to a training deficiency, Alliance Airlines flight crews' conduct of the Before start procedures and Pre-take-off brief review were not being performed effectively to ensure the speed selector knob was correctly set and checked, which increased the risk of a low-speed event after take-off. (Safety issue)

Other factors that increased risk

- Alliance Airlines’ right seat pilot shutdown flow was undocumented and not in accordance with the manufacturer’s guidance.

- Alliance Airlines flight crews were regularly changing the speed selector knob setting during the take-off run. This was contrary to Embraer's guidance, and Alliance Airline’s own standard operating procedures manual. This increased the risk of distraction during a critical phase of flight. (Safety issue)
Incident Facts

Date of incident
Feb 23, 2024

Classification
Report

Airline
Alliance Air

Flight number
IE-700

Departure
Honiara, Solomon Islands

Destination
Brisbane, Australia

Aircraft Registration
VH-UYI

Aircraft Type
Embraer ERJ-190

ICAO Type Designator
E190

This article is published under license from Avherald.com. © of text by Avherald.com.
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