Draft:British Airtours Flight 101

British Airtours Flight 101 was a package tour flight from Palma, Spain to Leeds, England, operated by British Airtours. The plane overran the runway, with only minor injuries suffered by the passengers and crew.

Aircraft
The aircraft was an 11-year old L-1011, model 385-1. At the time of the accident, the aircraft had flown 15,875 hours and was carrying 159,929 kg of weight. Despite the damage suffered during the landing, the aircraft returned to service several weeks after the accident. The flight was also carrying members of the York City and Lincoln City Football teams.

The crash
The flight left Palma de Mallorca Airport at 10:21 UTC, and contacted Leeds Bradford Airport's air traffic control at 12:16, while still around 15 nautical miles from the airport. Around this time, the air traffic control informed Flight 101 that the runway it was to land on, Runway 14, was wet from rainfall that had occurred earlier, but that the rain had stopped temporarily. The aircraft began its approach using radar surveillance, even though air traffic control had confirmed he could see the aircraft from 7 miles. This was likely due to the fact that none of the pilots on the aircraft had previously landed at Leeds Bradford Airport. The aircraft was then cleared to 2500 feet, and made the final turn to face Runway 14. The flaps were extended, the engine's output changed, but the auto-throttle was left on until the aircraft was 36 feet above the runway. After the Flight Engineer called '30 feet', the Captain firmly touched the plane down on the runway.

The aircraft had touched down around 500 metres down the runway, with 1419 metres of runway and overrun ahead of them. As they touched down, the spoilers on the aircraft opened, and the Co-Pilot selected 90% reverse thrust, a higher amount than normally required due to the wet runway. As the aircraft sped down the runway, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Then, once the Captain could see the red runway end lights, he applied full brakes, and said "Gosh, the red lights come quickly don't they.". Despite his braking, he could not feel any deceleration, and so he pushed as hard as he could on the brakes. Once the plane reached 380 metres from the end of the runway, the Captain said "I've got my feet on the brakes as far as I can.", and the Co-Pilot applied maximum reverse thrust. Now, with the end of the runway appearing close, the Captain applied a full left turn on the aircraft's front wheel to avoid hitting the runway lights. The aircraft left the runway at around 30 knots, and came to a stop 10 metre from the end of the runway in a patch of grass near a golf course.

Once the aircraft had stopped, the Captain ordered an immediate evacuation of the aircraft. The crew shut down all three of the aircraft's engines, but in doing so the Co-Pilot knocked the flap lever, retracting the flaps. He fixed this shortly after. All emergency doors were opened and slides deployed without issue, and all 412 passengers and crew evacuated in around 90 seconds, with no serious injuries sustained.

Aftermath and aircraft damage
During the overrun, the aircraft had suffered significant damage. Firstly, the front gear had folded backwards and forcefully impacted the nose wheel bay. Also, the underside of the fuselage, engines 1 & 3, and the lower freight door had suffered damage and the underside of the engines had flattened, causing ingestion damage. The gear had also dug into the grass, creating deep troughs that also damaged the airport's lighting cables. The damage was slightly worsened during the recovery of the aircraft. After the aircraft was repaired, it was bought by Caledonian Airways, Worldways Canada and Air Algerie, before being scrapped in September 1999

After passengers had left the aircraft, most ran from it, in case of an ensuing explosion or fire. Neither of these occurred. Throughout the recovery process, the wreckage had attracted some attention. Many people came to observe and take photos of the aircraft, stationary at the end of the runway, with investigators from the AAIB around it, attempting to figure out the cause of the accident.

Investigation results
Investigators found that there was nothing wrong with the speed and distance down the runway that the flight landed at. What they did find however, was that the braking efficiency of the L-1011 was not enough to stop the aircraft on the wet runway.

The AAIB recommended that the Tristar's runway performance and braking performance on a wet runway should be re-examined, and that all aircraft measured with the same system should also have a re-examining, in case the system was not accurate. They also recommended a re-examining of Runway 14, to make sure that the texture of the runway and the slope was up to standards.