PNGAIC says unstable approach behind Tropicair hard landing

By Andrew Curran.

Papua New Guinea’s Accident Investigation Commission (PNGAIC) has issued its final report into the hard landing of a Tropicair Cessna 208B Grand Caravan at Balimo Airport (OPU) in July 2025. The landing destroyed the aircraft’s nose landing gear and caused significant damage to the aircraft.

Nine people were on board the 1999-built aircraft, P2-AMH (msn 208B0785), when it flew from Port Moresby (POM) to Balimo on July 13, 2025. Balimo is located in Papua New Guinea’s Western Province, about 460 kilometres west of the capital.

After landing, the pilot was able to shut down the engine and safely evacuate everyone on board. There were no injuries.

According to the 25-year-old pilot, he had configured the 208B Grand Caravan correctly during the approach and maintained his conditionally nominated approach airspeed. Immediately before touchdown, he flared the aircraft and felt it touch down on the right main wheel.

Tyre marks on the unpaved 1,390-metre runway indicated that the Cessna had bounced on landing, contacting the runway before briefly becoming airborne again. A tail strike occurred on the second runway contact.

“The aircraft nose subsequently contacted the ground heavily and the nose landing gear collapsed,” the report reads. “As the nose dropped, the propellers struck the ground. The aircraft nose dragged across the surface and decelerated before eventually coming to rest.

The nose wheel contact was described as “aggressive”.

Two times unlucky for Tropicair

The pilot told investigators that, after landing, he applied and maintained back pressure. He said the Cessna began to veer right off the strip. To counter the right veer, he applied full left rudder to manoeuvre the aircraft back towards the strip centreline. The aircraft again veered off the strip surface and onto the grass before the pilot successfully manoeuvred it back onto the centreline. The aircraft then maintained centreline tracking before eventually coming to a stop.

At the time of the incident, the pilot had accrued 2,045 hours of flying time, including 290 hours on the 208B. His last competency check was in February 2025.

Tropicair is an established local charter airline based at Port Moresby Airport, operating a fleet of 208B Grand Caravans, DHC-6-300 Twin Otters, King Air B200s and a Cessna Citation CJ3.

One of those Twin Otters, P2-BBM (MSN 542), is the subject of a separate PNGAIC investigation after it lost its nose landing gear following take-off from Tapini Airport (TPI) in January 2026 and was required to make an emergency landing at Port Moresby.

The Cessna 208B involved in the Balimo incident had just come out of scheduled maintenance on June 30, 2025. It had accrued 17,457 flying hours and 19,933 landings at the time of the incident.

Investigators determined that the aircraft’s weight and balance were within the approved centre of gravity limitations for the intended flight and were not factors in the incident.

Thirty-one seconds elapsed between the first runway contact and the aircraft coming to a complete stop.

Substantial damage to the aircraft

Preliminary inspections indicated that the damage was primarily structural and mechanical in nature, consistent with a heavy landing, bounce sequence and subsequent runway contact. On-site investigators noted the following damage:

• The nose wheel was deflated and the nose landing gear assembly had collapsed.
• All three propeller blades showed signs of ground impact, with tips broken off and blades bent.
• The right main landing gear spring leg, axle and wheel were bent.
• A strike mark was visible on the aircraft’s aft section.

The investigation found that the landing approach deviated from standard operating procedures and stabilised approach criteria.

Pilot deviated from standard operating procedures

The pilot reported maintaining an approach speed of 100 knots due to gusting crosswind and wet runway conditions. He stated that on short final he crabbed into wind to manage the crosswind. The pilot said he continued this manoeuvre until final alignment with the strip, when he transitioned to a right-wing-low technique near the threshold. He described applying left rudder to align the aircraft’s nose with the strip and right aileron into wind to counter drift.

However, the investigation found that the pilot should have initiated a go-around when the approach became unstable. The report described the approach as “fast and steep” and said the unstable approach resulted in the heavy landing.

Aside from the standard operating procedure deviations, the investigation cited human factors, including decision-making, plan-continuation bias and perceptions of stability.

“These human performance factors combined to reduce the pilot’s ability to effectively manage the unstable approach and recover safely from the significantly bounced landing,” the report noted.

Tropicair responds

In response, Tropicair Limited provided the Commission with evidence of safety actions taken to address identified flight operations deficiencies.

The airline has introduced a mandatory 208B standard briefing card covering destination, runway, weather, NOTAMs, approach type, navigation source, landing configuration, braking, missed approach routing, stabilised approach policy, threats, mitigations and crew coordination.

Specifically, the briefing card states that “the approach should be stabilised by 1,000 feet in instrument meteorological conditions or 500 feet in visual meteorological conditions, otherwise a go-around should be conducted.”

Additionally, Tropicair put its pilots through training covering aeronautical decision-making, crew resource management and human factors/non-technical skills.

The report indicates that the Accident Investigation Commission was satisfied with the airline’s response.

You can read the final report here.

Photos: Papua New Guinea Accident Investigation Commission.

Contact the writer: andrew@aerosouthpacific.com