SIXTH FLIGHT DEPARTS ST HELENA AIRPORT
Taking advantage of weather conditions, the sixth flight into St Helena Airport, a Bombardier Challenger business jet, departed the Island this morning at 09.47hrs, slightly ahead of its scheduled departure time (10.00hrs).
Comment from the SHG site;
This very aircraft from the same company was on St.Helena already in May.
According to the Lord Ashcroft Report the pilot back then reported that during one of his test flights “at +- 2/3 NM [nautical miles] from touchdown we encountered severe windshear resulting in an immediate max performance go-around [a dramatic windshear escape manoeuvre]”.
“We positioned left downwind for [runway] 20 and attempted two visual approaches, both were unsuccessful due to severe turbulence and windshear on short finals, the second approach was an eye-opener as the windshear rolled the aircraft to the left and +- 20 degrees off the approach course!”
The pilot added: “I have personally never experienced windshear this severe, not even in the sim [simulator].”
The pilot made five safety recommendations for any crew planning to land at St Helena and concluded: “I hesitate to dramatize however it is both my and co-pilot (my colleague in the cockpit) opinion that a landing could not have been carried out by any aircraft on [runway] 20 yesterday at the time we flew…”
The pilot, a South African veteran aerobatics display team member, told friends that his experience had been “hair-raising” and he said of conditions “some days [are] good, others very scary!”
Obviously yesterday and today they were good days and they decided to land on runway 02 anyway.
I don’t know if this time it was the same pilot or not. But it seems small (bizjet sized) planes can handle well landings from the south (runway 02) with moderate tail and crosswinds.
All recent flights avoided landing from the north (runway 20) where severe windshear causes the problems.