Crew of plane that overshot runway had landed in Guernsey many times

Aurigny's CEO confirms the Luxwing pilot and first officer had landed into Guernsey "I would guess approximately four to six times a day, for the past 20 days."

The Dash 8 ended up in the long grass at 18.45 last night( 23 April). None of the 67 people on board were injured.

But because it's a passenger aircraft, what happened has to be investigated. A team from the Air Accidents Investigation Branch is in Guernsey now, talking to all involved.

Aurigny CEO Nico Bezuidenhout says mainly that will be the Luxwing crew who had flown it in.

"Aurigny stands as a supporting entity in this process, given that it wasn't our aircraft and wasn't operated by our staff.

"There's a standard process they'll undertake; the aircraft, records, training and interviews with relevant ;personnel."

He says weather wasn't a factor:

"The weather conditions were fine, the runway conditions were perfectly fine. The independent investigation will shed some light onto the contributing factors."

Nico Bezuidenhout wanted to send out a message to all involved:

"Our sincere regret for the impact on our passengers and operating crew on the aircraft and our appreciation to Aurigny staff, as well as airport personnel and emergency response services in how swiftly and professionally matters were dealt with." 

But where does this leave an airline that just a few weeks ago had a 'black swan event' which is airline speak for multiple delays and cancellations? Its fleet is now one aircraft down in the short term:

"We are waiting for the aircraft to be released after the investigation, and at that point the actual maintenance inspections can progress. We could expect this could take three to four days."

Under the wet lease agreement, Nico Bezuidenhout confirmed that Luxwing is obliged to provide a cover aircraft. He says they're 'in talks' and they do have another Dash 8 available.

The E195 is due a heavy and costly ten year maintenance check in early June. Nico Bezuidenhout didn't rule out extending its use for another few weeks:

"You run into a dead stop and that's dictating the time-frame. Not beyond the end of May, that aircraft can't be used beyond the end of May."

"Our level of resilience isn't as high as it normally would be. As we move to the end of June when our first leased ATR comes into our fleet, our resilience will improve from then onwards."