The Preliminary Report makes disturbing reading. The two pilots seem utterly preoccupied in keeping the autopilots engaged, and repeated pressing of buttons seems to be their preferred course of action, during which the aircraft is all over the place:
According to FDR data, simultaneous with the attempts to re-engage the AFCS, the aircraft climbed to about 3,500 ft within a period of 1 min and 40 s, followed by a rapid descent to 330 ft in 45 s. FDR shows that the aircraft commenced another climb to 2,500 ft in the next 2 mins within which period, several pitch and roll control inputs were recorded; pitch angle varied between 28° pitch up and 12o pitch down before a maximum 25° pitch down motion was recorded, simultaneous with the maximum recorded roll angle of 37° to the right.
Over the next 44 s, the PF attempted to correct the right roll unto datum and continued into a left roll to a maximum angle of 15° before recovering to level flight 9 min later, following a series of roll attitude corrections.
The 'Initial Findings' section of the Prelim report states "8. The serious incident occurred in Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC)." The preoccupation with autopilot engagement (never mind the 45 second dive from 3500 ft to 330 feet!) leaves me with a distinct impression that the pilots were very reluctant to manually fly the aircraft! Is that because they are not confident about doing so in IMC, perhaps rarely practising doing so?
A few more items of interest from 'Initial Findings' section of the Prelim Report:
3. The First Officer’s medical certificate validity expired on 15th January 2024.
[Expired 5 days before this incident, which occurred 20th January 2024.]
......
9. The crew experienced failure of the Auto Pilot systems (AP 1 and AP 2) and the
aircraft entered ’unusual attitude’.
......
10. The FDR captured multiple unusual attitudes within a 5-min period.
......
16. The CVR recordings of the event were overwritten."
Additionally, "The aircraft sustained minor damage.":
The following damages were observed during post occurrence inspection of the aircraft:
1. Two cabin windows were blown out in flight, and missing on ground.
2. Debris from a broken third window was found in the cabin.
3. A main rotor blade had a broken glass shrapnel stuck to the blade root.
4. The main rotor lightning conductor was broken.
5. A cabin light lens and transparent light cover were broken.
Originally Posted by
nowherespecial
Many unhappy passengers.
Yes, I can sympathise with that. 😲