AVIATION/ SOUTH AFRICA REPORTS ON SA EXPRESS FL1107

South Africa's Civil Aviation Authority has released its Final Report into an incident involving an SOUTH AFRICAN EXPRESS AIRWAYS Dash 8-300 at Kimberly, South Africa, on July 16, 2010. On that date, Flight 1107 was on Domestic Service from Johannesburg to Kimberly, South Africa, with 40 passengers and 4 crew members onboard. The Dash had just touched down with its main gear on Kimberly's runway 20, with the nose gear about to touch down, when the nose gear struck an aardvark that had run on the runway and bent backwards. The crew managed to stop the aircraft on the runway. No one onboard was injured, however the Dash suffered substantial damage. In its Final Report, the South African CAA said the Probable Cause of the incident was: "During landing the nose landing gear of the aircraft collapsed backwards after it had collided with a wild animal on the runway". The CAA said that the aerodrome fence had been constructed without a proper foundation, which allowed animals to dig holes and trenches underneath the fence in order to gain access to the aerodrome property, thereby easily migrating from one side of the fence to the other. The Report also notes that a section of the perimeter fence that used to be electrified was disabled due to theft of the solar panel powering the fence, was considered to be a significant contributory factor in the migration of animals along the fence. The CAA said that an aardvark and other types of animals were spotted on the aerodrome by personnel during their runway and taxiway inspections over the period of July 12 to 16, 2010. However, no corrective measures were taken by the aerodrome to address this shortcoming, such setting traps to catch these animals or bring in professional wildlife capturing teams to catch and relocate these animals. The fact that aerodrome maintenance personnel were not on duty over weekends to ensure that the integrity of the perimeter fence had not been jeopardized and if so, to take corrective actions by closing all possible holes/trenches dug underneath the perimeter fence, was considered to be a significant contributory factor to this accident. The full Report can be found on the agency website.