On Monday, June twenty sixth, a serious catastrophe was avoided by a Ryanair aircraft on final approach to land in Porto (OPO), when the pilot noticed an Azores Airlines aircraft occupying the runway it was cleared to land on and performed a go-around procedure. The Office of Prevention and Investigation of Accidents in Civil Aviation and Rail (GPIAAF) is now investigating the incident.
The incident
As reported by AeroTime Hub, The GPIAAF has classified the incident as a lack of separation. This classification is predicated on the proven fact that Ryanair’s Boeing 737-800 aircraft, on its final approach, descended below 300 feet and got here as close as 275 feet above the bottom and 950 meters away from runway 35’s threshold, where Azores Airlines’ Airbus A321neo was lined up.
As such, the 2 aircraft were closer than the vertical and horizontal minimums required throughout the controlled airspace. The Portugal News reports that NAV Portugal has opened up an internal investigation to discover the foundation explanation for this incident.
Photo: Tom Boon | Easy Flying
Joining GPIAAF within the investigation might be the Portuguese Civil Aviation Authority (ANAC).
The small print
While the investigation remains to be ongoing and considering the character of the incident, it’ll take a while for the ultimate report back to be formed and released. Nevertheless, AeroInside notes that based on the GPIAAF finding, on the time of the incident, the tower controller was also handling ground control communications, which a dedicated ground controller normally controls.
The reports suggest that originally, the A321 was cleared to line up and await clearance on runway 35 behind incoming traffic that were on final approach. After the traffic landed, the Azores Airlines A321 entered the runways and lined up.
Concurrently, Ryanair’s Boeing 737 was on final approach for a similar runway. 30 seconds before landing, the pilot received wind information and landing clearance for runway 35.
Photo: JJFarq | Shutterstock
The Ryanair pilot spotting that the runway was occupied, reconfirmed with the controller and informed passed information concerning the lined-up aircraft. The controller instructed the 737 to abort the landing and perform a go-around with 13 seconds left before the aircraft was over the runway threshold.
Unusually high variety of close calls
Within the US alone, around seven near-miss incidents have occurred since January of this 12 months, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has expressed a series of safety concerns and has identified several areas which may be improved.
The pinnacle of the FAA stated that because aviation is recovering at a rapid pace, it is important that in the longer term, these issues should be negated. While the results of the pandemic actually have negatively affected the performance of a number of the air traffic controllers, the FAA also identified controller shortage as a problem.
Photo: EQRoy | Shutterstock
Not only within the US but world wide, the aviation industry is facing controller shortages. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) within the US states that as compared to 10 years ago, there are currently 1,200 fewer certified air traffic controllers for the time being.
While the NATCA holds recruitment drives for brand spanking new air traffic controllers, reports suggest that recruitment will not be happening fast enough to maintain up with the rising demand.