A Thomas Cook Airlines pilot concerned about being demoted made a number of errors in what air accident investigators described as a “serious incident”.
A fault with the wing flaps on a Boeing 757 with 235 passengers and seven crew flying from Fuerteventura to Newcastle resulted in the aircraft diverting to land at Manchester in August last year.
The aircraft landed with just 900kg of fuel when it should have had a reserve of 1,627kg, according to the Air Accidents Investigation Branch report.
A “go around” over Newcastle airport was mishandled, resulting in a wing flap problem which led to the decision to divert to an airport with a longer runway.
“The pilots became stressed and task-saturated and were unable to follow the checklists correctly in order to regain full use of the slats and flaps and then land at their destination,” the report said.
“When a decision was made to divert, it was accepted that the fuel in tanks would drop below the final reserve level before landing.
“However, fuel caution messages were overlooked because a low fuel state was seen as an integral part of the solution to the earlier difficulties. The low and imbalanced fuel state which developed could have had serious implications.”
The airline commenced an internal investigation when details of the occurrence became clear.
The AAIB report said the 56-year-old captain “sensed that the airline was in turmoil due to a major internal re-organisation programme”.
The report added: “The direct effect for him was that he had been told that he would be one of several captains who would be demoted to first officer in March 2014 and that his salary would reduce significantly.
“He was unhappy about this impending change and the matter weighed heavily on his mind at work, despite his best efforts to ignore it.”
The report added: “There was no indication that the crew’s performance was degraded by fatigue or medical reasons. However, the commander was affected by the major re-organisation that was taking place in the company.
“He tried to put worries about his pending demotion to one side when he was at work but inevitably these still intruded into his mind.”
A Thomas Cook Airlines spokesman told Mail Online: “As a result of the AAIB’s and our own internal investigation, we have completely reviewed pilot training for go-around manoeuvres to ensure operating procedures are accurately followed and when necessary low fuel levels are appropriately declared to air traffic control. The aircraft landed safely at Manchester airport.
“At the time of the incident, proposed demotions were entirely due to the requirement to balance our number of captains and manage our costs in light of a significant surplus.
“Due to the subsequent review of our fleet and new aircraft and routes, we have now been able to reverse almost all of the demotions ahead of 2015.”