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DEPARTING AND ARRIVING planes came within 800 metres of each other in near-miss incident at Dublin Airport in March.
The Air Accident Investigation Unit (AAIU) released a report today which outlines how two Boeing 737 airplanes came close to colliding due to a blocked transmission.
Earlier this year on 8 March, Dublin Airport was busy, with a large volume of inbound traffic. The incident occurred just before 10pm when a departing aircraft was cleared for take off as the arriving aircraft was on its final approach to the runway.
The air-traffic controller tried to stop the departing aircraft from taking off after he re-appraised the situation. But a blocked transmission meant that the departing plane didn’t hear the order.
There were over 300 passengers on both airplanes.
Identify the gap
The air-traffic controller’s job was to identify a suitable gap in the arriving schedule to facilitate a departure. When he saw a moment, he instructed the departing aircraft to take off.
However, the arriving aircraft “seemed to slow down” as it was arriving, which made the controller change his mind. He instructed the departing flight to stay on the runway.
But the departing flight didn’t get this instruction and as it passed the stop line, the controller decided it was safer to let the arriving aircraft land rather than make it stop.
The planes came within 807 metres of each other at their closest point.
Good communication essential
The report outlines how good communication is essential to avoid dangerous incidents happening.
“Good communications are essential to the safe and orderly flow of air traffic,” reads the report.
“With traffic levels building up at that particular time of the evening, increased coordination was necessary between the Air Movements Controller and the Approach Controller in order to identify gaps for departing traffic.”
After the incident, the Irish Aviation Authority installed a ‘Time to Touchdown’ facility (TTT) for the Tower Controller (AMC) which displays the time to touchdown of the next aircraft on final approach.
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Last March? Your headline would imply it’s only after happening today.
No, the headline suggests the report is recent. How quickly do you think the AAIU can conduct an investigation and write a report?
They changed the headline, they added in “new report outlines”
Go home guys it’s Christmas eve
i’m really glad the safety record in Dublin is good. I have total confidence in the controllers/pilots there, especially when they are trying to get people home for christmas during storms.
I have total dependence anyway. We’ve a good record which gives me condolence.
type first…read later… :/
800 metres? That’s nearly a kilometre …musta been a quiet day in air traffic control
Think of it in terms of how many seconds a commercial jet would take to cover 800m.
800 metres for 2 aircraft is like 8 centimetres between 2 cars ! How long do you think it takes 2 aircraft to close a gap of less than a kilometre?
It would take at lane landing at 160 knots just under 3 seconds to cover that distance
Just over 7 seconds at an average speed of 240kmh, but the turbulence left in the wake of a craft can also cause a crash. That’s why you always see a couple of minutes between large planes in particular taking off. Hard to beat the documentary channels :)
A half a mile away…..
Last March should have been in the title!
A near miss is a hit. If you nearly miss something means that you actually hit it.
Near and nearly, very different, not at all similar.
I think that instead of the negative spin being put on this, that it should be remembered that for every mistake there is a lesson learned and this is one such case.
No one and nothing can account for the very many variations out there – human, mechanical, computer – you can be sure that every “mistake” hasn’t even been thought of yet – his exemplifies how good the system is – not how bad.
NEAR HIT NOT FECKING NEAR MISS !! THAT SAYING DRIVES ME MAD !!
A far miss…
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