Vulcan runway excursion at Wellesbourne Mountford.

[Airbus A346]

Earlier today, Friday 16th September XM655 over ran the runway while performing a practice high speed taxying run on runway 36.
It came to rest on soft ground adjacent to the hedge and B3086 Stratford Road on the airport perimeter.
Thankfully the aircraft appears to be undamaged and no one was injured. The airfield is currently closed pending an investigation - no doubt Health and Safety will have a 'field day' and put a stop to its taxy runs.

[robaero]

Here is the official statement from the Vulcan Guys.



As many of you will have already seen, XM655 suffered a runway excursion earlier today during our trial run for the event which was planned for Sunday 18th. That event has been cancelled, all ticket holders have been informed by email and full refunds have been processed via Eventbrite. As far as we can see, the aircraft is largely undamaged, but in addition to the ongoing recovery work, we also have a lot of inspection work to carry out before we can consider any further live activity.
In an attempt to reduce uninformed speculation, we will explain what happened. After satisfactorily completing low speed steering and braking tests on runway 05/23, the aircraft was taken onto runway 18/36 for a trial high speed run. Due to a malfunction of a piece of equipment in the cockpit, the aircraft remained at full power for approximately two seconds longer than intended. This resulted in excessive speed and less distance in which to stop, and the aircraft passed beyond the end of the runway on to the agricultural area, stopping just before the airfield perimeter. The failed equipment was an air speed indicator which had been tested and found satisfactory six days ago, and which started working normally before the end of the run. The aircraft brakes worked properly but were unable to bring things to a halt within the reduced space available.
We will provide further updates when XM655 has been recovered and we have had chance to assess any damage.