Europa E195 at Madrid on Jun 15th 2016, door open indication in flight, mechanics examining on ground falls off aircraft

Last Update: March 30, 2017 / 14:54:43 GMT/Zulu time

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Incident Facts

Date of incident
Jun 15, 2016

Classification
Accident

Airline
Air Europa

Flight number
UX-7234

Destination
Madrid, Spain

Aircraft Registration
EC-LKX

Aircraft Type
Embraer ERJ-195

ICAO Type Designator
E195

An Air Europa Embraer ERJ-195, registration EC-LKX performing flight UX-7234 from La Coruna,SP to Madrid,SP (Spain), was descending towards Madrid when the crew received indication of an aft door being open. The aircraft continued for a safe landing on Madrid's runway 18R.

Spain's CIAIAC reported in their notification of opening an investigation into the occurrence that after passengers had disembarked mechanics were called to investigate the door indication. During the maintenance work a mechanics rushed off the aircraft and received serious injuries about 40 minutes after the aircraft had landed. The preliminary report, while only mentioning serious injuries in the textual abstract, initially listed the mechanics as having died in the victim table, the entry was corrected the following day identifying the mechanics as seriously injured in the victim's table now too.

The occurrence aircraft returned to service about 2 hours after landing.

On Mar 30th 2017 the CIAIAC released their final report concluding the probable cause of the accident was:

The investigation determined that this accident was caused by aviation maintenance technician’s inattention while carrying out a maintenance task.

The investigation found: "The safety strap is not a replacement for installing a platform at the door as a safety barrier, as it does not prevent accidental falls."

The CIAIAC analysed:

On Wednesday, 15 June 2016, an EMBRAER ERJ 190-200 LR aircraft, registration ECLKX, had an aft-door open warning while flying toward the Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas airport (Spain).

After landing and disembarking the passengers, the crew, which remained in the cockpit to prepare for the next flight, called the maintenance technicians to have them check the condition of the door.

Maintenance technician AMT2, assigned to this aircraft, had a certifying authority of scope “D”, and thus could not issue a return to service certificate. After being informed by the pilot of the problem with the door, she notified maintenance technician AMT1, who had a B1.1 maintenance license for that airplane model.

Maintenance technician AMT1 was busy on another airplane, but so as not to delay the departure of aircraft EC-LKX, which was ready for boarding, he reported to EC-LKX to help her coworker.

His plan was to visually inspect the condition of the sensor. He did not request to have a platform installed at the door for this inspection. He set up the safety strap, as instructed by the manufacturer for a visual inspection, and held on to the handle. The strap, however, did not keep him from falling when he stepped off the edge while looking at the door sensor.

Since the safety strap has been shown to be ineffective in preventing accidental falls, a Safety Recommendation is issued to the aircraft operator so that whenever a door has to be open for maintenance, a safety system is used that can prevent accidental falls.
Incident Facts

Date of incident
Jun 15, 2016

Classification
Accident

Airline
Air Europa

Flight number
UX-7234

Destination
Madrid, Spain

Aircraft Registration
EC-LKX

Aircraft Type
Embraer ERJ-195

ICAO Type Designator
E195

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