Investigators blame ‘downdraft’ for 2024 Air Inuit incident

A windy ‘downdraft’ is partially to blame for a cargo plane’s bad landing in Kangiqsujuaq last year, federal investigators say.

The Transportation Safety Board, which is tasked with investigating incidents involving air, sea and rail incidents in Canada, released its report Thursday into the March 2024 incident in which an Air Inuit propeller plane’s rear landing gear collapsed upon landing at Kangiqsujuaq’s airport.

Nobody was injured.

The pilots, the report said, were concerned that the runway was too short.

“This perception that the runway was too short led the pilots to want to reduce the risk of an overrun by using a practice that is common for short runways. This practice consists in descending below the glide path to aim for a touchdown point at the beginning of the runway,” the report states.

“However, at a height of approximately 60 feet [18.2 metres], the aircraft was affected by wind gusts and a downdraft, which further modified the aircraft’s path and resulted in the aircraft touching down before the runway threshold.”

The plane touched down about 67 metres before it should have, the report said.

Investigators noted the aircraft was performing well and the pilot “flew as he normally would.”

The Transportation Safety Board doesn’t offer any official recommendations in its report.

However, the report found that Air Inuit pilots had a tendency to attempt landings “close to the runway threshold on gravel runways.”

It also said “flight crews did not always fully understand landing performance calculations.”

Air Inuit has since implemented training programs so that pilots are making safer approaches on shorter gravel runways, the report said.

“Air Inuit followed up on implementation of the procedure and all pilots were adhering to the practice, without any negative impacts on flight operations. This procedure does not appear to need any adjustments,” the report said.