Incident Overview
On June 19, 2016, Mahan Air flight IRM 4525, a scheduled passenger flight, departed Ahwaz Airport at 1257 local time (0827 UTC) and landed at Khark Island Airport at 1335 local time (0905 UTC). After the flight was handed off from BUZ approach control to Khark tower, the crew received clearance to land on runway 31 via a visual approach. While 10 nautical miles on final approach, the pilot requested weather information for the destination and subsequently asked to perform a visual approach for runway 13.
Sequence of Events
The pilot in command executed an unstabilized approach and landed on the runway after covering a long distance down the runway. Given that the runway length was 7,657 feet, the aircraft overran the end of runway 13 and made a runway excursion, coming to rest on the unpaved surface 54 meters past the runway end. During the excursion, the nose landing gear strut broke and collapsed. The captain instructed the cabin crew to evacuate the aircraft. No unusual occurrences were reported during departure, en-route, or descent phases of the flight.
Investigation Findings
The official investigation determined the probable cause to be the pilot's wrong behavior, which included: making a decision to land on the short field runway 13 with a tailwind; conducting an unstabilized landing contrary to normal flight profile; demonstrating weak crew resource management; exhibiting poor judgment by not executing a go-around during the unstabilized approach; and improperly calculating landing speed without accounting for the tailwind component.
Contributing factors identified were: failure of the right-hand landing gear anti-skid system, which prolonged the landing distance; variable wind conditions on the aerodrome traffic pattern; and late activation of airbrakes and spoilers (especially airbrakes) with a tailwind, which increased the landing roll distance.