Runway near miss in Nice, France, two Airbus A320s

[butchstewie]

Don't think there's a thread on this but this looks like it could have been really really bad

Nantes Bound easyJet and Nouvelair aircraft from Tunis Came Together so Close, Catastrophic Near-Collision at Nice-Côte d’Azur Airport, France Narrowly Avoided in Dangerous Aviation Incident

[Stick Legs]

Astonishing that that can happen!

"The aircraft remained parked at Terminal 2, and all affected passengers were re-accommodated or directed to alternative services."

I'd be on the train.

Be interesting to see the write ups after the investigation, but if it is as simple as an aircraft trying to land on the wrong runway then it's shocking.

[Tony1963]

A good friend of mine told me about this last night. He’s a licenced engineer at EasyJet. Hope the EasyJet crew had a clean change of underwear in their baggage.

[outnumbered]

There's a brief update on the BEA's website that says that the landing aircraft was cleared for 04L, and attempted to land on 04R... Although it doesn't say whether the crew read back the original clearance properly or any more than that.

[Geneve]

The visibility was very poor, but I doubt the separation was the 10ft, or even the 35ft, that some of the media were reporting.

[Tony1963]

Geneve said:

The visibility was very poor, but I doubt the separation was the 10ft, or even the 35ft, that some of the media were reporting.

My mate at EasyJet says 50ft, but unless someone was out there with a tape measure while standing on the fuselage above the nearest point to the rogue lander, I don’t think we will really know exactly.
Not that it matters much. They were lucky, that’s all.

[Crumpet]

outnumbered said:

There's a brief update on the BEA's website that says that the landing aircraft was cleared for 04L, and attempted to land on 04R... Although it doesn't say whether the crew read back the original clearance properly or any more than that.

I’m at Nice quite a lot but I don’t think I’ve ever landed 04R - it’s always 04L for landing.

When taxiing out to 04R you switch to tower to cross 04L and they almost always clear you to line up on 04R as part of the taxi instructions. I would highly doubt the EasyJet is at fault here.

The approach itself is a bit more complex than a normal straight-in but is simple enough for anyone competent, I’d even call it ‘fun’. It requires a VERY thorough brief and a thorough identification of the threats - the main one being the parallel runways and the risk of lining up on the wrong one! You then come up with mitigations for the threats, for example the pilot monitoring could have the localiser for 04L tuned and displayed or, if you’re lucky, your aircraft might have synthetic vision or some other means of identifying the correct runway. But really you’re looking out and making sure the picture looks correct, it’s a visual approach after all. It is, however, totally ripe for fking up - as it looks like here - and I’m surprised it’s taken so long. It would be interesting to see the stats on how many approaches they have each year where someone has lined up with the wrong runway. Really they could do with a big red ‘X’ illuminated before the threshold to 04R.

Unfortunately, it’s one of dozens of airports I go to where noise abatement or some other reason overrides safety. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve said ‘Jesus, that’s bad design’ or ‘that’s an accident waiting to happen’.

Aviation is supposed to be about safety but when you’ve got things like Spanish and French controllers speaking Spanish and French on the radio such that situational awareness for everyone else is significantly reduced, well it shows there’s still much to be done. Wouldn’t surprise me if the Tunisian crew here read all their clearances back in French so the British EasyJet crew were already at a disadvantage.

[gt40steve]

Disappointing to hear the continued use of different languages goes on.
A major factor in the year 2000 fatal runway collision between a MD-83 & a Streamline Aviation Short 330,
In France.