(Image: Grahame Robinson; Tornado GR4A ZA371 at Newcastle Airport)
Around teatime on August 5, 2008, Panavia Tornado GR4A ZA371 was involved in an incident at Newcastle Airport in North East England. The RAF Marham-based warplane had suffered a bird strike and was forced make an emergency landing at the civilian airfield. An electrical fault on landing then caused the aircraft to overrun the end of the runway (see the incident report summary below). These images were taken by photographer Grahame Robinson some time after the two crew members’ successful evacuation of the 13 Squadron jet.
The UK Government website summarises the investigation findings as follows:
The aircraft diverted to Newcastle Airport following a bird strike. During landing, an electrical connection in the right engine reverse thrust control system became intermittent, producing random oscillations of the engine’s reverse thrust buckets. The fault was such that it was not clearly indicated to the crew until the aircraft had travelled a considerable distance along the runway and the pilot did not take the appropriate action of retarding the right power lever. With full dry power selected on both engines throughout the landing roll, there was thus a considerable forward component of thrust, and the pilot was unable to stop the aircraft before it overran the runway end.
(Image: Grahame Robinson)
Panavia Tornado ZA371 (coded 005) was one of the earlier airframes in the fleet. First flown in August 1982, ZA371 was converted to GR4A standard (a reconnaissance version of the successful RAF strike jet) at Warton in 1999 before returning to service the following year.
Despite substantial damage suffered during the Newcastle Airport incident, Tornado ZA371 was repaired and returned to service. She was latterly seen sporting an updated lighter grey camouflage and light grey radome worn by the current Tornado GR4 fleet. But her flying days came to an end in December 2013 when she was retired and ferried to RAF Leeming for RTP (or reduced to produce and scrapping).
Related: The RTP’d Remains of Panavia Tornado ZA600
The post Tornado ZA371 After Emergency Landing Accident at Newcastle Airport (Following Bird Strike) appeared first on Urban Ghosts Media.