Originally Posted by
Henry VIII
Avman, a NOTAM was issued to inform about the change.
This is the NOTAM in question, as previously posted by 89polaris:
B1003/09 - TRIGGER NOTAM
EFFECTIVENESS OF PERM PROVISIONS PUBLISHED LAST 04 DEC 2008 WITH AIRAC AIP AMDT 13/08 AND CONCERNING FLW ITEMS POSTPONED TO 09 APR 2009:
- RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF NORMAL OPERATIONS ON RWY 14/32
- NEW AERODROME LAY-OUT
- COMPLETE REVIEW OF INSTRUMENTAL APPROACH PROCEDURES
THEREFORE AIP SUP 20/07 WILL BE IN FORCE UNTIL 08 APR 2009
AIRAC WILL BE POSTED AND AVBL ON WEB SITE WWW.ENAV.IT
12 FEB 15:55 2009 UNTIL 22 APR 23:59 2009.
CREATED: 12 FEB 15:56 2009
The AIP Supplement 20/07 is available
here. In a nutshell, what it says is: starting December 20, 2007 Cagliari ops will be a big mess, split into 4 phases. For a year or so (they were estimating December 31, 2008 at the time) the inner runway, called 32R/14L, will be in use and the main runway will be undergoing maintenance works. Instrumental procedures modified accordingly with a circling or a sidestep.
In preparation for the renewed main runway coming back into service, the new Cagliari procedures were then published on December 4, 2008, in the AIP AIRAC Amendment 13/2008 (page 18 to 40 of
this pdf file, again from the ENAV website). The new procedures were expected to enter into force on January 15, 2009.
What the B1003/09 NOTAM quoted above says is, plainly: forget about the January 15 date, the ETA for the new procedures is now April 9.
This is the Italian ANSP side of things.
My questions are:
- did Ryanair's chart provider (Jepps I suppose) update the charts accordingly? (Not a very easy task considering the postponements etc.)
- did the Ryanair crew have the updated charts on board?
- were the crew aware of the NOTAM quoted above?
- what does the CVR say about the approach briefing? (How long is the CVR coverage by the way? Would that be enough to record the approach briefing?)
- what were the ATC instructions?
Whatever the answers, in my view this looks like a plain pilot error, but giving the blame is not my favourite sport, since I'm not a prosecutor.
Ryanair/ATC bashing leads to nowhere: it would be much more interesting (and useful) to find out which factors brought to the confusion (to name one: visibility was around 4000 metres by that time), and what could be done to prevent this from happening again.