Chalair AT42 at Limoges on Jul 19th 2015, problem with seat belt

Last Update: September 17, 2015 / 10:04:34 GMT/Zulu time

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Incident Facts

Date of incident
Jul 19, 2015

Classification
Incident

Airline
Chalair

Flight number
CE-503

Destination
Nice, France

Aircraft Registration
CS-DVL

Aircraft Type
ATR ATR-42

ICAO Type Designator
AT42

A Chalair Avions de Transport Regional ATR-42-300, registration CS-DVL performing flight CE-503 from Limoges to Nice (France), was backtracking runway 21 for departure when during turning around to align with the runway for departure the crew reported a problem and returned the aircraft to the apron.

A listener on frequency told The Aviation Herald the crew mentioned an engine problem (PW120).

A ground observer reported the #1 propeller was spinning at very low speed while the aircraft returned to the apron.

The aircraft was able to depart about 40 minutes later and reached Nice with a delay of 30 minutes.

On Jul 31st 2015 Jose Mosczytz Madeira of Leasefly aggressively denied an engine problem but said: "The problem we had was a first officer seat belt stuck in lock position".

On Aug 3rd 2015 Jose Mosczytz Madeira wrote to The Aviation Herald (with carbon copy to the lawyer representing Leasefly): "Since the information you are passing is wrong and inaccurate and you are doing a miserable and amateur work I will study my options in choosing a way to unmask your lousy job."

On Aug 6th 2015 the lawyer representing Leasefly contacted The Aviation Herald stating: "Being involved with aviation law and being also a pilot for almost 20 years, I was already aware of your website and found it a useful tool to provide a “heads up” on aviation accidents and incidents, a matter that by nature in aviation is deeply studied and analysed." The lawyer subsequently offered to forward documents that would prove his client's point of view. We replied that of course we are happy to update our coverage on the base of evidence.

It then became silent, on Aug 14th 2015 The Aviation Herald sent a note to the lawyer asking when we could expect the documents and received a reply from Mr. Jose Mosczytz Madeira, that the lawyer was on vacation but "As a starter you can start congratulating your 'professional listeners' they did a wonderful job."

On Sep 4th 2015 The Aviation Herald received a good number of documents transmitted by the lawyer including written reports by the captain - referencing the coverage by The Aviation Herald -, written report by the first officer - referencing the coverage by The Aviation Herald -, a written communication transcript signed by the "Chef de la Circulation Aerienne", maintenance reports and engine data, all to the point stating, that there had been no mention of an engine problem, the crew reported a problem with the seat belt, there was no problem with an engine but a problem with the first officer's seat belt.

The transcript includes the communication betwen Chalair Callsign CLG53BK and tower at Limoges from the request to start up including the first taxi out and return to the apron to the hand off to Bordeaux after the departure approximately 37 minutes after the request for startup. The relevant page 1 (page 2 is mainly the actual departure) reads (CLG: abbreviation in transcript used for Chalair):



The Aviation Herald immediately forwarded the transcript to our initial source described as "listener on frequency" for statement asking: "Can you explain how you understood an engine problem?" and received reply within hours: "I am sorry to hear that my report caused troubles for you. If that is the official transcript, it seems to be the case that I have misinterpreted the situation. I however definitely cannot recall the part of the communication about the seat belt."

While studying the transcript in detail immediately after sending out the note to our source The Aviation Herald noticed about 20 minutes after transmitting the e-mail the decisive sentence at 11:34:17:

"CLG, CLG56BK, we request to taxi back, we have a little problem with an issue, with the seat belt"

and contacted the lawyer asking for clarification of the transcript and inviting for correction: "Is this a transcription error, was this said so indeed, or is the audio quality so low to cause a false address (Chalair instead of Tower) and false call sign (Chalair 56 BK instead of Chalair 53 BK)?" We decided to postpone the update of our coverage pending this clarification.

In addition The Aviation Herald contacted our initial source again asking to describe the quality of the transmissions of the time, following up on the thought of possibly poor audio quality (5 very good, 4 good, ... 1 unreadable) that arose out of the transcript. Our source reported: "The audio quality was 4 from what I can recall now. So that should not have been an issue."

On Sep 14th 2015 the lawyer contacted us querying the update, The Aviation Herald pointed out, that we had asked important additional questions and received response: "I received your other email that you're mentioning, but I must confess that I didn't fully understood your allegations then, and frankly I find them now unacceptable. ... You'll surely understand that one thing is a typo on an ATC transcript: another different thing is a full allegation of a document being false, and forged with other false documents."

Late Sep 16th 2015 the lawyer notified us: "the ATC transcript is a document prepared by official entities, that certify the authenticity, and for which LEASE FLY can't answer more than it has done".

The Aviation Herald therefore decided to go ahead with the update of the coverage.

The maintenance report forwarded by the lawyer states, that the first officer's seat belt "stucked in locked position" and described the maintenance action taken: "The main screw of the lock seat belt mechanism found loose. Screw tighten on the position. Operational check c/out."

The captain reported (without date of when this report was written): "... after clearance read back while backtracking RWY 21 the first officer realized that one of the shoulder strip was twisted and she had to unlock the seat belt. She told me she had an issue to unlock the belt so I completed my taxing to give her the assistance required. After checking that her seat belt could not be removed from normal 'unlock turning wheel operation' I informed ATC we required taxi back to our stand since we had an issue with a seat belt. ... The problem was sorted in 15 minutes and our total delay was not higher then 20 minutes, our passengers were calm and had no complain at all. Our journey continued as scheduled and when back from Nice I was informed about Aviation Herald stating the pilot reported an engine issue ..."

The first officer reported, dated Aug 4th 2015: "... While we were backtracking runway 21 i realized that one of my shoulder strap was twisted, as I detached it, I was not able to lock it again and I realized at that moment that the seatbelts were not working properly. I told to the captain that I was having a problem with my seatbelt, and that it was not working properly. Both of us assumed it was a matter of safety and decide that we were going back to the stand and ask the mechanic engineer to fix it. We assumed that the problem was going to be fixed quickly and that it was not going to delay the flight significantly. At this time we were aligned on runway 21. The captain called the tower and said that we had a technical issue with the F/O seatbelt and that we had to return to the stand for a quick period of time. The tower acknowledged this information and told us to taxi via C to the stand. ... When we were taxing to our stand the captain feathered the nº 1 engine as we do all the time when we are taxing and is a standard operational procedure. At the stand both engines were switched off. The mechanic engineer came to the cockpit and solved this problem in more or less 15 to 20 minutes. ... The information that I red in the Aviation Herald online site concerning this flight is completely false."

Editorial note: It needs to be said that this turmoil over an absolutely minor occurrence could have been avoided, had Chalair responded to our initial inquiry before we released our initial coverage. Instead, reader comments were later posted portraying to be written by staff of Chalair, see below in the reader comment section. None of the comments originated from IP addresses that could be associated with the airline or even carried e-mail addresses associated with the airline. When we attempted to contact those posters via the submitted e-mail addresses to verify the authenticity, we did not receive any reply, hence those comments could not be substantiated.
Incident Facts

Date of incident
Jul 19, 2015

Classification
Incident

Airline
Chalair

Flight number
CE-503

Destination
Nice, France

Aircraft Registration
CS-DVL

Aircraft Type
ATR ATR-42

ICAO Type Designator
AT42

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