AAIU report into near miss at Dublin

The Air Accident Investigation Unit of the Department of Transport today issued it's report into a near miss that occurred between an Agusta A109 registered N449J and Learjet 31A EI-MAX, which occurred at Dublin Airport on December 17 2007.

The incident occurred shortly after sunrise at 08.43 am. Runway 10 was in operation at the time. The incident occurred when the helicopter was given a conditional clearance to cross the active runway once the rolling traffic, the Learjet was airborne. The pilot of the helicopter misunderstood the instruction that he had been given, thinking that ATC had referred to an aircraft on finals and crossed the runway in front of the Learjet which had just become airborne. The AAIU report commends the airmanship of the Learjet Commander - "during this serious incident, an accident was narrowly avoided by the excellent airmanship displayed by the Commander of the Learjet. Having become airborne the Commander, on seeing the closing helicopter immediately took over control of the aircraft from the handling pilot and took evasive action. He pushed the nose forward, banked left at a very low altitude of about 200ft and narrowly avoided both a mid air collision and ground contact."

The probable cause of the incident is given as the pilot of the helicopter not complying with the instruction given by ATC with the dark colour of the grey Learjet at sunrise being a contributory factor.

The report states that as a result of this incident conditional clearances for helicopters are no longer issued at Dublin. No safety recommendations are made.