Titan Airways

The aircraft departed Exeter at 2237 hrs where the weather was fair with scattered cloud at 1500 feet. After climbing uneventfully through cloud to FL 90 the aircraft cruisedin clear, smooth air. In the cruise the co-pilot noticed that his vertical speed indicator was displaying a slight rate of climb although the aircraft was in level flight but this and a spurious hydraulic warning were the only anomalies. As the aircraft approached East Midlands airport the runway visual range there was below the approach minima and several aircraft were holding awaiting an improvement in the visibility. G-ZAPC descended to 2,500 ft and held in clear air over the Lichfield NDB for about 45 minutes until the fuel state dictated a diversion to Liverpool. On diversion the aircraft was initially cleared direct to the Whitegate NDB and then Wallasey VOR at FL 40. At this level the crew could see ground features in good visibility until they entered cloudas they descended through 3,500 feet whilst being radar vectored for an approach to Liverpool Airport. The cloud was stratiform in character and did not appear to contain precipitation or significant turbulence. At Liverpool airport the cloud base was 6/8at 1,100 feet, the visibility 12 km, the air temperature +1°Cand the surface wind was 060°/8 kt. There is an ILS localiser on Runway 09 but no glidepath transmitter so a LOC DME approach is normally flown. Although the DME antenna is mid-way along the runway, the DMErange is set to read zero at the runway displaced threshold. The pilot flies the localiser in azimuth and adjusts his height according to his pressure altimeter; the 3° glidepath commences at 1,610 feet QNH from 5 nm DME with check heights at 4, 3, 2 and 1 nm DME. On the north side of the runway 329 metres from the threshold there are 4 PAPI (Precision Approach Path Indicator)lights which are set to a glidepath of 3°. During the approach to Runway 09 at Liverpool all the anti-icing services were switched on and operating except for the wing de-icing boots which, having seen no ice on the wings,the commander decided not to employ, and the ice detector which he considered unreliable. The approach proceeded normally andthe aircraft descended out of cloud at about 1,100 feet having been in cloud for about 10 minutes. When the commander viewed the PAPIs at 1 DME"all four lights had a pink tinge". Thinking he might be slightly low relative to the approach glidepath, he asked the co-pilot to specify the correct height at 1 DME which was 410feet. At the time the commander's pressure altimeter, which was set to the QNH of 1019 mb, indicated that the aircraft was slightly high and so he made a small correction to the flight path which resulted in three red PAPI lights and one white light. The commander also decided to touch down slightly beyond the runway identifier numbers which are a few metres beyond the 'piano keys' that identify the threshold. The aircraft was cleared to land with a wind of "Easterly at 10 kt" and on short finals the commander asked for full flap. He then allowed the speed to bleed back from the approach speed of between 110 and 120 KIAS towards the threshold speed of 90 KIAS without moving the throttles from their approach power setting. According to both crew members and the passenger who was seated in the 'jump seat', the aircraft crossed over the end of runway at between 88 and 90 KIAS. Some 20 to 30 feet above the runway the commander noticed that the flight controls felt 'sloppy' as if the aircraft's speed was unusually low but there was no hint of a stall warning or stick shaker activation. At much the same time all three persons on board felt the aircraft sink rapidly; the commander pulled back on the control column but he was unable to arrest the high rate of descent and the aircraft struck the runway very hard. The right wing dropped as the right main gear collapsed and the aircraft veered to the right off the runway onto the grass. The ground was frozen hard and the aircraft came to a halt without incurring further significant damage. The crew informed ATC that they were unhurt before securing the aircraft whilst ATC activated the airport's emergency services. On leaving the aircraft the commander inspected the wings for ice accretion. He noticed a thin layer of clear,watery ice along the leading edges across the pneumatic de-icing boots from top to bottom. The ice layer could be wiped off with one finger and was no more than one eight of an inch thick. Throughout the flight there had been no visible signs of ice accretion on the wings or the windscreen wiper. Consequently, the commander had not increased the threshold speed to compensate for ice accretion.

The aircraft departed Southend at 06:59 UTC, about one hour before sunrise, on a Special VFR clearance. The aircraft flew to Wallasey via Daventry, White gate and the Liverpool Special Rules Zone at 2,400 feet. It could not be determined why the commander chose to fly this route however, some two weeks before the accident he had spent a short holiday at Haverigg which is close to the direct track from Wallasey to Glasgow. On leaving Wallasey, the aircraft tracked north towards Glasgow and, at 08:01 hrs, the crew called Warton aerodrome stating that they were descending to 1,000 feet and requesting a 'Radar Service'. At 08:10 hrs, an aircraft that had just taken off from Blackpool reported a cloud base of between 2,500 and 3,000 feet and a visibility greater than 20 km. At this time the radar transponder on the aircraft was operating but the height encoding facility had not been selected. Recordings of the Great Dunn Fell and the St Anne's ATC radar heads indicated that the aircraft had left Wallasey on a track of 007°M which was maintained until radar contact was lost at 08:13 hrs at a position one mile to the south west of Walney Island airfield near Barrow in Furness. Consideration of the obscuration due to terrain between the radar heads and the aircraft indicated that, at the time of loss of radar contact, the aircraft would have been no higher than 350 feet amsl and possibly lower. At 08:09 hrs, the time of local sunrise, the crew had called Walney Island stating that they were nine miles south of the airfield at 1,000 feet and requesting overflight of the airfield. At 08:12 hrs, the controller at Walney Island sighted the aircraft abeam the airfield at an estimated height of 800 feet and asked the crew to report at Millom which is about eight miles north of Walney Island. At about the same time, a witness on the beach near the airfield saw the aircraft heading north in and out of cloud at a height estimated to be not above 400 feet. The aircraft did not make the requested position report at Millom and, at 08:16 hrs, the controller advised the crew to call London Information for further service. There was no reply to this call. The last person to see the aircraft reported that it was flying steadily north towards Ponsonby Fell and that the cloud in the area of the Fell was covering the ground at 500 feet above sea level. At about 08:15 hrs a farmer, who was some 600 metres from the crash site, heard a bang from the direction of Ponsonby Fell. He stated that at the time that he heard the bang the weather was very bad with a strong wind, rain and mist covering the fell. The aircraft had flown into ground about 15 metres below the top of Ponsonby Fell. The aircraft was destroyed upon impact and both occupants were killed.