HALIFAX – The agency looking into an aborted takeoff that damaged a patrol aircraft at the Greenwood base in Nova Scotia is focusing on the plane’s propellers and why they failed to go into reverse.
Lt.-Col. Martin Leblanc of the military’s Directorate of Flight Safety says the Aurora aircraft went off the runway on Aug. 27 when the aircraft commander ordered the pilot to abort the takeoff because a flock of birds was heading towards the runway.
He says that investigators have found in an interim report that when the pilot selected reverse on all four propellers, the two on the right side of the aircraft continued to produce some forward thrust.
Leblanc says the investigators still aren’t certain why that occurred, but the safety agency decided against requesting the Aurora fleet be grounded.
He says a review showed there wasn’t evidence of similar incidents with propellers in other aborted Aurora takeoffs in recent years.
The Aurora was carrying 17 people at the time, but nobody was injured when the patrol plane went off the runway.
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