An autopilot nightmare saw a hero pilot save his passengers from plunging into the sea with just seconds to spare, it has emerged.
The Daily Record reports how the Saab 2000 aircraft had been struck by lightning when the autopilot apparently sent the plane into a nosedive.
It fell to 1,100 feet before its 42-year-old captain managed to override the system and take manual control. The plane was seven seconds away from hitting the surface of the water as it neared Sumburgh Airport in Shetland.
In fact, the investigation found no fault with the autopilot and the near-miss remains something of a mystery.
The terrifying incident occurred on December 14 as the Loganair flight from Aberdeen approached its destination but details have only now come to light thanks to the publication of a report by the Air Accident Investigation Branch.
A ball of lightning appeared in the cabin as a bolt hit the plane, entering at the nose and leaving at the tail. The co-pilot declared a mayday and both he and the captain tried to initiate a climb - but the plane did not respond as expected.
"As the aircraft reached 4,000 feet [above sea level], the [plane] tended towards nose-down and a descent began," the chilling report says.
It began plummeting at nearly 10,000 feet per minute and got as low as 1,100 feet above the sea - just seven seconds away from impact - before the autopilot disengaged and the pilot was able to begin climbing.
The report said the crew may have thought the lightning strike had disabled the autopilot because it had knocked out some of the other controls - but in fact it stayed working. It overrode their attempts to send the plane upwards with automatic nose-down commands as it tried to maintain its altitude tracking.
But as the plane neared a critical height, "pull up" warnings began sounding in the cabin and the autopilot switched off with just moments to spare.
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"Although the pilots’ actions suggested that they were under the impression the autopilot had disengaged at the moment of the lightning strike, recorded data showed that it had remained engaged," the report said.
It remains something of a mystery why the plane went into nosedive, as the report notes: "The AAIB investigation has not identified any technical malfunction which might account for the incident."
Pilot training now includes simulations of the situation, and the probe into precisely what happened continues.
