Pilots flying a regional Qantas aircraft carrying 97 passengers were warned the plane was in danger of dropping from the sky during two bungled landing attempts.
An incident report released yesterday said the captain and co-pilot wrestled with shaking joysticks as they tried to land the pitching Boeing 717-200 at an airport in Kalgoorlie, en route from Perth, in October 2010.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau report found the drama resulted from the captain entering the wrong data on the plane's weight into the flight computers — an error unnoticed by the co-pilot.
The plane's landing weight was being calculated at 9.4 tonnes lighter than its actual weight.
This meant the plane approached the landing strip at the wrong speed and angle.
The botched calculations twice triggered the "stick shaker" which alerts pilots to an impending aerodynamic stall — when the plane is no longer stable and may fall mid-air.
The warning was triggered during the first attempted landing at an altitude of 335 metres and again during the second attempt at 106 metres.
On both occasions the pilots failed to identify the underlying error and assumed air turbulence was to blame.
Investigators said a lack of standard cross-checking routines allowed the data error to go unnoticed. They also said the captain, although "well rested", had struggled to manage his fatigue owing to numerous roster changes.
The plane was operated by Cobham Aviation Services but was flying under the banner of QantasLink.
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