Croatian investigators have determined that adverse weather and runway conditions were not factors in the runway excursion involving a Croatia Airlines Airbus A220-300 at Split Airport last month, although the exact cause of the incident remains under investigation. The Croatian Agency for Investigation of Accidents in Air, Maritime and Rail Transport (AIN) released its preliminary report into the serious incident involving aircraft 9A-CAN, which occurred on May 16 during an attempted departure from Split to Frankfurt.
According to investigators, the aircraft had arrived from Dusseldorf approximately one hour earlier and was preparing to operate the scheduled service to Germany with 132 passengers and five crew members on board. Around twenty minutes before departure from Split, a brief rain shower had passed through the area, leaving the runway wet. However, investigators concluded that the condition of the runway was satisfactory and “could not have been a factor that endangered the take-off”. During taxi, the crew requested a change from Runway 05 to Runway 23 due to wind conditions, as the originally assigned runway would have resulted in a tailwind component. Air traffic control approved the request.
At the time of departure, winds were recorded from 290 degrees at 15 knots, with gusts of up to 23 knots, resulting in a crosswind component of 13 knots, gusting to 20 knots. The report noted that the maximum permitted crosswind component for the A220-300 during take-off is 32 knots. “The influence of the wind was not negligible, however it was below the permitted limit”, investigators said. The report added that another Croatia Airlines A220-300 departed from the same runway approximately four minutes earlier without incident.
The aircraft commenced its take-off roll at 13:27 local time and accelerated normally, reaching a speed slightly below V1 before beginning to veer left. Investigators said the deviation initially developed gradually before becoming sudden. The crew successfully aligned the aircraft parallel to the runway centreline and rejected the take-off. The aircraft eventually came to a stop with the left main landing gear on unpaved ground and the nose gear in a shallow drainage ditch alongside the runway. Investigators classified the damage as minor and repairable. The left engine and nose landing gear sustained damage, while all tyres were affected by skidding, including a burst left nosewheel tyre. Additional damage occurred when reverse thrust operations lifted debris from the ground, affecting the lower fuselage and left wing. The left engine also struck runway signage.
The agency said investigators have already conducted interviews with the flight crew, collected documentation, analysed weather data and retrieved information from the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder. Further work will focus on analysing the aircraft’s maintenance records, pilot training programmes, emergency procedures and data obtained from the flight recorders.
