Incident Overview
On 25 June 2024, a British Aerospace BAe 146‑300, registered VH‑SAJ, operated by ASL Airlines Australia on a cargo flight from Sydney, New South Wales to Brisbane, Queensland, experienced a tail strike upon landing. The crew consisted of two pilots: the captain as pilot monitoring and the first officer as pilot flying.
Approach and Weather
While descending into Brisbane, visibility dropped to about 1,000 m in fog. The crew conducted an instrument landing system (ILS) approach for runway 19L using the autopilot. At approximately 220 ft, they visually identified the high‑intensity approach lighting. The first officer disconnected the autopilot at about 110 ft and made control inputs that led to an increasing pitch attitude, followed by several corrections and decreasing airspeed. The aircraft touched down with a high pitch angle and a vertical acceleration of about 2.4 g, causing the tail to strike the runway. Damage was limited to the tail strike indicator and surrounding panels. No injuries were reported.
Crew Experience
The first officer had been checked to line 28 days prior to the incident and had accumulated 113 hours on the BAe 146. During line training, additional simulator and supervised flying sectors were required to achieve the required standard for situation awareness, approach, and landing. The first officer had not previously landed an aircraft in foggy conditions; prior experience was predominantly in smaller single‑engine aircraft in visual meteorological conditions.
Operational Circumstances
At the time the crew reached the ILS decision altitude for runway 19L, visibility was recorded as 912 m, which exceeded the minimum required for the approach. The first officer experienced a sight picture unfamiliar from training and reported that after transitioning to visual flight, their instrument scan pattern broke down as attention shifted outside to make sense of the landing environment.
Post‑Incident Analysis
The investigation noted that the combination of degraded visibility, potential visual illusion, high workload, and inexperience likely contributed to the first officer losing awareness of the aircraft state. After disconnecting the autopilot, the aircraft initially became high on the approach. The first officer likely became aware of the high profile and attempted corrections with pitch attitude changes, but without monitoring airspeed or adjusting engine power, the airspeed decreased and the rate of descent increased. A large pitch attitude increase was recorded just before touchdown, but it was insufficient to arrest the high descent rate, resulting in the tail strike.