Britannia Airways Flight 226A

Britannia Airways Flight 226A was an international passenger flight from Cardiff, Wales to Girona, Spain, operated by charter airliner Britannia Airways. On 14 September 1999, the Boeing 757-204 aircraft suffered a crash landing and broke apart during a thunderstorm in Girona-Costa Brava Airport. Of the 236 passengers and nine crew on board, two were seriously injured and 41 sustained minor injuries. One of the passengers who had apparently sustained only minor injuries died five days later of unsuspected internal injuries. The aircraft involved in the crash, Boeing 757-204 registration G-BYAG, was damaged beyond economical repair and scrapped.

The body that was responsible for the investigation of the crash, the Civil Aviation Accident and Incident Investigation Commission (CIAIAC), concluded that the crash had been caused by destabilized approach, loss of external reference and loss of automatic height callouts while landing in Girona. The aircraft entered a high rate of descent with a nose down attitude, creating an impact that was violent enough to dislodge the nose landing gear to the back and caused it to crash onto the aircraft's main electrical unit, resulting in an electrical failure that disabled all deceleration systems and in a sudden production of unwanted forward thrust. The aircraft was unable to stop and eventually veered off the runway.^: 92