Operational non-compliance incident involving a Beech Aircraft Corporation BE76, near Gold Coast Airport, Queensland, on 30 April 2018

What happened

On 30 April 2018, at about 1114 Eastern Standard Time, a Beech Aircraft Corporation BE76 was on a dual flying training flight under instrument flight rules^[1], returning to Gold Coast, Queensland (Qld). There were an instructor and student pilot on board the aircraft.

During the cruise, Brisbane air traffic control (ATC) issued a heading vector to the flight crew. The student pilot set the autopilot’s heading bug to the assigned heading but did not change the autopilot from navigation mode to heading mode resulting in the aircraft continuing on the original heading. The instructor did not detect that the student pilot had not selected heading mode and as the autopilot is positioned to the left of the instrument panel, it is difficult for them to see the selected control mode.

The instructor was troubleshooting why the aircraft had not turned onto the required heading when the crew received an instruction from ATC to descend. The student pilot entered the assigned altitude into the assigned altitude indicator and disconnected the autopilot. The aircraft subsequently climbed 100 ft above the assigned altitude. This generated an alert to ATC.

The crew then regained positive control of the aircraft and descended in accordance with the clearance.

Safety message

This incident highlights the importance of all flight crewmembers being aware of the selected autopilot modes during all stages of flight. When changes are made to the selected mode, these should be verbalised and where possible verified by the second crewmember.

About this report

Decisions regarding whether to conduct an investigation, and the scope of an investigation, are based on many factors, including the level of safety benefit likely to be obtained from an investigation. For this occurrence, no investigation has been conducted and the ATSB did not verify the accuracy of the information. A brief description has been written using information supplied in the notification and any follow-up information in order to produce a short summary report, and allow for greater industry awareness of potential safety issues and possible safety actions.

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1. Instrument flight rules (IFR): a set of regulations that permit the pilot to operate an aircraft to operate in instrument meteorological conditions (IMC), which have much lower weather minimums than visual flight rules (VFR). Procedures and training are significantly more complex as a pilot must demonstrate competency in IMC conditions while controlling the aircraft solely by reference to instruments. IFR-capable aircraft have greater equipment and maintenance requirements.