What's the big deal about this 180? Ryanair again?
Landings aborted as plane u-turns on runway
An investigation is underway after a Ryanair jet performed a u-turn on a runway that put it in the path of other planes about to land.
According to the Ireland’s Mail on Sunday newspaper, a Ryanair plane arriving in Dublin from London Stansted on February 15 missed its exit, made a 180-degree turn and then taxied back the way it had come.
Other flights had to abort their landings or fly in a holding pattern until the runway was officially cleared.
The paper claims audio from the air traffic control tower reveals pilots say they had needed to “brake hard” on landing.
The flight crew had been instructed to vacate the runway – a direction that was acknowledged, before the jet made a u-turn.
A shocked controller asks: “227, have you made a 180?” to which the response was “affirm”.
The controller immediately warned an incoming Aer Lingus flight to “go around”.
After the incident, another Ryanair pilot in the airspace at the time asked the control tower: “What was wrong with the runway?”
He was told: “Well what happened was one of your company aircraft landed on runway 28, appeared to be going to the very end of the runway and just before they got to Bravo 7 [a runway exit], they made a 180 degree turn which, eh, just screwed everything.”
The Irish Aviation Authority is investigating the incident.
“There were other aircraft on approach to land on this runway, which were being monitored by air traffic control and as the other aircraft was still on the runway these aircraft were instructed to perform a missed approach,” a statement reads.
The runway had to be inspected before operations could resume.
Ryanair says it is cooperating with the enquiry.