Sea salt incident on Aer Lingus flight.
 

The Air Accident Investigation Unit in Ireland has reported on an incident where the flight crew's visibility was compromised by sea salt

The solution? Find the aviation equivalent of a car-wash.

Irish pilots save plane and 46 passengers during landing - AAIU - Independent.ie

Well done to all involved.

I've never heard of this being a problem.

It was probably more difficult to avoid the showers seeing as it was so stormy. :rolleyes:

Good point.
Recollect reading, years ago, of a FJ jock who cleared bird blood etc from his windscreen by flying through a rain shower.

Back in, was it the late 70s or early 80s a plague of greenfly, followed by a plague of ladybirds created havoc with the canopies of the low level squadron Jet Provosts at RAF Finningley. The summer was fine and warm with no rain around, visibility was severely compromised.

Many years ago I was involved in flight calibration of the Australian T-VASIS at Townsville, Australia. Erroneous indications were evident until engineers had a closer look at the T-VASIS system at one end of a runway that was relatively close to the sea. Salt water spray had impinged on various lens causing refraction and thus erroneous indications.

http://www.aaiu.ie/sites/default/fil...202015-007.pdf

and

all good. detailed report. low tech solution. good to know.

My apologies.

I really should have linked to the report. Thank you for that.

It's striking from the report how rare such an incident is.

The crew reacted with great initiative.

The crew reacted with great initiative.
 

Give us a break! The crew reacted with good, common sense - such a rare commodity these days that it deserves comment?

It has happened before, and it will happen again. Nothing wrong in commenting on it.

It does get messy when there's no wiper fluid available.

Cpt was kind enough to give me this landing... he had too much guts to do it by himself :)


http://shrani.si/t/3o/d0/4oaQQayX/photo0008q1.jpg


http://shrani.si/t/2v/3D/2xNUk5bf/2013-11-07-0196.jpg

The original NOAA WP3D report referred to in the AAIU report can be found here; http://www.omao.noaa.gov/aviationsaf...port_01-07.pdf

Quite a scary incident for the crew. Shows the importance of regular engine washes. Similarly to the windshield, only flying through a shower removed enough accretion to permit a restart of the engines.

ATR 72 Crew’s Ingenuity Cited In Rare Sea Salt Incident
 

More here: link

Purely anecdotal, the Royal Yacht used to look on the radar for thunderstorms prior to arrival with HRH and detour through the rain in order to arrive at a port with a clean and shiny appearance.

I flew bathymetric lidar, low level over the ocean for over 3 years....
this is daily ops normal.


we didn't need 2 missed approaches to figure it out....


but kudos to them.

Same at Bournemouth with the Falcons....SOP!

Sea Salt Incident ATR72
 

ATR 72 Crew’s Ingenuity Cited In Rare Sea Salt Incident

May 2, 2015 John Croft | Aviation Daily

"The crew of an Aer Arann ATR 72 flying for Aer Lingus is credited with “good airmanship” in finding a way to remove salt deposits that had completely blocked the view forward from the twin turboprop’s windscreen while attempting to land at the Cork Airport in January 2014.

While such incidents are rare, the wind and weather conditions that night also caused similar, but less severe, sea salt coatings to form on a second ATR 72 and an Airbus A321 approaching the airport, both of which were able to land, according to a final report by Ireland’s Air Accident Investigation Unit (AAIU).

Pilots on the incident flight, which had four crew members and 42 passengers aboard, aborted a first landing attempt due to a large change in winds, which were measured at 28 kt. and gusting to 41 kt. The windscreen was clear on the first approach.

Following the missed approach, air traffic control vectored the aircraft over land and sea back to the airport at 3,000 ft. altitude, during which time the captain noticed “a considerable build-up of white contamination forming on the windscreen” but did not immediately know its origin. During the second approach, the captain said the residue made the windscreen opaque, “diffusing the [runway] lights into a complete blur,” and forcing a second go-around.

The windscreen wipers had no effect in clearing the residue as the atmosphere was dry, the captain stated, adding that the windscreen heaters, turned on to prevent any ice build-up, may have exacerbated the problem by drying the salt residue. The ATR 72 does not have windscreen washer. Investigators asked the French civil aviation safety bureau, BEA, as well as ATR and Airbus if there had been any similar incidents in their records. All said no.

However research compiled by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shed light on the issue. A NOAA Lockheed WP-3D four-engine turboprop research aircraft in 2007 had been flying at approximately 3,000 ft. altitude about 500 nm. east of Newfoundland in wind speeds of 85-95 kt. when it lost power to three engines due to sea salt accretion. The crew was able to restart the engines and return to Newfoundland, but noted “very limited visibility through the windscreen” on landing due to the salt accretion. The final report on that incident linked high wind speeds and a lack of precipitation in part to “the presence of high concentrations of sea salt aerosols.” A follow-on report by the U.S. Naval Research Lab determined that under worst case conditions, the salt residue could ascend as high as 5,000 ft.

After the second landing attempt, the ATR 72 crew contacted the airline engineering center by mobile phone, learning about the visibility problems the other ATR 72 experienced earlier that evening due to sea salt. The captain decided to fly toward a nearby area of rain displayed on the weather radar in an attempt to clear the salt. Upon flying through the shower, “a small area at the base” of the captain’s windscreen “cleared of contamination,” the AAIU says. During the third approach, controllers turned the runway lights to full brightness as the aircraft declared an emergency due to the limited windscreen visibility.

An area of rain on the final approach further cleared the windscreen and the aircraft landed safety.
Following AAIU’s investigation, the aircraft operator, now Stobart Air, issued a Flight Crew Instruction on sea salt aerosol accretion, citing much of the information in the AAIU’s final report and advising crews “that it may be necessary to fly through precipitation prior to conducting a landing.”

Given the rarity of the event, the AAIU did not issue any specific safety recommendations."

http://www.aaiu.ie/sites/default/fil...202015-007.pdf