The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has determined that pilots on a Tiger Airways aircraft used incorrect altitude information and the airline had an inconsistent safety management system, which contributed to the airline being grounded.
Following the investigation of a low approach of a Tiger A320 aircraft into Melbourne Airport on June 7, 2011, ATSB official report stated that the flight crew based their descent profile on incorrect altitude data on the aircraft’s display unit provided by a third party.
Flight crew were also using the flawed data for paper charts and had not identified the error when preparing for the landing approach, the ATSB report states.
It found there was an increased risk of Tiger unintentionally failing to follow published instrument approach procedures, because it was inconsistent in carrying out its safety management system for identifying and managing data base “anomalies” or errors.
“In addition, different assumptions by the data suppliers and the operator compromised the quality assurance of the navigational data,” the report states.
