Originally Posted by
rog747
I came in for a late shift at LGW summer 1992.
We looked after Airtours International who were quite new to the IT airline business and had a fleet of new MD-83's.
It had been very foggy in the morning and the badly delayed Dalaman that I saw off the night before came back in to LGW around 07.30 flying in Low-Vis ILS Cat 3 APP and the Crew selected to Autoland.
This was their 5th duty that week, with 3 night flights in a row, finishing with a long and delayed DLM.
50 feet above the ground the MD-83 was seen going towards the grass, the crew took late corrective action at 30 feet but (unaware to them) the left wing tip struck the runway.
The aircraft landed OK but ATC was advised by another 737 that they saw the MD-83's wing strike the ground.
I saw the damaged aircraft that afternoon, and I gather they were a breath away from cartwheeling over the runway (not my opinion)
Here is the report -
https://assets.publishing.service.go...JSMC_12-92.pdf
NB- it was always foggy at LGW !
Worse in the 60's and 70's when I was spotting there........
The AAIB report says vis was OK and the CAT3 autoland was a practice but the proper Company procedures in terms of Commander being PF etc were not followed. Furthermore the Commander's insistence on the FO, who was PF for the sector, taking on some monitoring as well probably left him overloaded.
The report mentions the Commander being subsequently diagnosed with a medical condition.
There were also a significant number of defects with the aircraft's instrumentation.