Separation issue involving Boeing 737, VH-VXH, and Airbus A320, VH-VGV, near Darwin
After many experiences with Darwin ATC, it often runs better as a CTAF. Some controllers at Darwin seem to have no understanding of the profiles required for a large aircraft. Don't Start me on the ones giving 500 instructions in one Radio call either. 
But yes the idea that an international airport in Australia is TIBA Evey night during its busy period is a joke.
Not sure what the wind was at the time but, what complicates things is everyone wants to depart on 11 and arrive onto 29. I understand wanting to depart a place like Townsville etc on a SID due to terrain considerations (especially at night or in IMC). But it's hardly necessary in Darwin. If departing 29 follow the noise abatement proc and turn left to intercept track. If departing on 11 just intercept track it's not hard.
If the wind was favouring 11, I feel like the arriving aircraft also has to shoulder some responsibility. The amount of people who will insist on wanting to do the ILS onto 29 against departing traffic just to save 5 mins astounds me.
Just fly the RNP 11 FFS. Get to the hotel 5 mins later who cares?
Where it gets messy is when you have multiple aircraft holding due wx etc.
But yes the idea that an international airport in Australia is TIBA Evey night during its busy period is a joke.
Not sure what the wind was at the time but, what complicates things is everyone wants to depart on 11 and arrive onto 29. I understand wanting to depart a place like Townsville etc on a SID due to terrain considerations (especially at night or in IMC). But it's hardly necessary in Darwin. If departing 29 follow the noise abatement proc and turn left to intercept track. If departing on 11 just intercept track it's not hard.
If the wind was favouring 11, I feel like the arriving aircraft also has to shoulder some responsibility. The amount of people who will insist on wanting to do the ILS onto 29 against departing traffic just to save 5 mins astounds me.
Just fly the RNP 11 FFS. Get to the hotel 5 mins later who cares?
Where it gets messy is when you have multiple aircraft holding due wx etc.
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WTF is an international airport that takes the occasional heavy diversion running on a CTAF, sorry TIBA?
Yeah the chance of a 777 from China/ Thailand/ insert country where CTAFs are not common making an emergency diversion into Darwin are low but.
Melbourne control tell aircraft to contact TIBA are or whatever the fook it’s called on 1XX.XX… Err what’s that? Ahh ok that’s it. Careflight have a departure and arrival, the late night Pornstar running late oh and farmer Joe has decided to depart, yeah lots of holes required but…..
Shouldn’t tower be subsidised? Or as it’s RAAF? Ok I’m just a little confused.
Yeah the chance of a 777 from China/ Thailand/ insert country where CTAFs are not common making an emergency diversion into Darwin are low but.
Melbourne control tell aircraft to contact TIBA are or whatever the fook it’s called on 1XX.XX… Err what’s that? Ahh ok that’s it. Careflight have a departure and arrival, the late night Pornstar running late oh and farmer Joe has decided to depart, yeah lots of holes required but…..
Shouldn’t tower be subsidised? Or as it’s RAAF? Ok I’m just a little confused.
The closest airport to the countries security threat, the same town bombed during WW2, countless “important” military exercises and reacharaounds and its unmanned at night…… Is anyone taking this seriously?
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Separation issue? It's OCTA. What separation standard are they investigating? The standard for OCTA is far enough apart they don't collide. They didn't collide, therefore separation maintained to the accepted standard for the airspace they are happy to apply (and companies operate in).
They want a separation standard, then supply an airspace where one applies.
They want a separation standard, then supply an airspace where one applies.
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The closest airport to the countries security threat, the same town bombed during WW2, countless “important” military exercises and reacharaounds and its unmanned at night…… Is anyone taking this seriously?
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China will just park its navy at the port of Darwin and unload while it's airforce flies to Merredin. Apparently because they own these facilities they can 'invade' and no one can do anything....
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Don’t mention an incident or accident on takeoff or landing plus it is said diversions. When I was a controller last century at Townsville and Darwin we had a controller in the tower all night and a fire guy coming up if the controller needed a leak or do a runway inspection. Fire guy taught to say standby xxx
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Pertinent charts on pages 34 and 38
Darwin has a higher rate of Loss of Separation (LOS) incidents than any other Australian airport, more than double the rate of the other capital city airports, and more raw incidents than Melbourne, Perth or Brisbane. Bar Cairns, every military controlled non Capital City Class C aerodrome has higher incident rate than equivalent civilian controlled like Essendon or Gold Coast, sometimes 10x the rate.
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There's a VEGPU waypoint and STAR, but no SID, can't say it would be a good idea to depart via an inbound waypoint. Having a waypoint PEGVU in the same area sounds like a disaster in the making, but AA doesn't seem to care at all what names are given to points these days. Using SIDs and STARs OCTA is fraught with danger, not the least of which is situational awareness, a departing aircraft will not have many details on arriving aircraft tracking and vv. Departing and arriving on fixed radials from the airport is much easier to organise and maintain a mental picture of where players are around you. STAR's and SIDs are really designed for use with ATC monitoring. At busy airports the combination of which SIDs are used with what STARs is controlled by ATC, in configurations, obviously without coordination some paths will conflict with traffic not covered by the crossing height/speed profiles. I'd say for sure that reciprocal runway SID/STARs would not be a normal configuration that ATC would use without massive gaps in the sequence.
A key issue maybe the nominated preferred runway on the Zulu atis. Is it changed by the RAAF Flightwatch agent in a timely manner to fit in with traffic flow or is it an automatic computer generated change purely on the current wind? Dunno.
If the latter is the case then it is understandable how unintended conflicts occur.
One would need strong reasons to operate contrary to the preferred runway even in light winds, however the issue may be that changing after an arriving aircraft has committed to the approach and are unawre of the preferred runway change particularly if the flightwatch person does not broadcast it.
If the latter is the case then it is understandable how unintended conflicts occur.
One would need strong reasons to operate contrary to the preferred runway even in light winds, however the issue may be that changing after an arriving aircraft has committed to the approach and are unawre of the preferred runway change particularly if the flightwatch person does not broadcast it.
Modern SID/STAR design has built in either segregation or separation assurance, and pilots are used to flying them (albeit for same runway, not for RRO). The safety issue arises when pilots start doing something what is not normal for them (the old fashioned radials, etc), such as NOT flying the SID/STARs that are already programmed into the aircraft and they are mentally attuned to using. The locals know which way the airline transport flights go but there's not many of the former overnight.
Hence these SID/STARs should not be used OCTA as pilots do not know what SID/STARs should be used in particular combinations. This is why controllers talk about runway configurations, it is referring to what is being used for arrival and departure paths and determines what SIDs/STARs will be used.
It is obvious that the RWY 29 RUSKA has a not below crossover to allow separation with inbounds to RWY 29. However OCTA an aircraft can choose to operate any runway it wants to, there is no runway configuration in place, so therefor the SID/STAR patterns are not going to ensure traffic separation.
Now what is the answer here, well first of all it needs to be understood when a SID/STAR will ensure separation, nothing in the documentation states that the RUSKA 11 and VEGPU 29 should not be used simultaneously. Remembering that a quick look has the departing aircraft turning at 900ft so it should be quickly out of the way of arrivals if they haven't started the ILS yet, but no, the conflict point is a number of miles from departure approaching the en-route phase. So an aircraft that is miles away suddenly becomes a conflict. None of this is saying that is what happened here, but it highlights how using opposite direction SID/STAR is not a good idea.
Last edited by 43Inches; 10th Apr 2023 at 12:15.
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ATSB - Loss of separation between aircraft in Australian airspace
Pertinent charts on pages 34 and 38
Pertinent charts on pages 34 and 38
Lets just say that the QF used the RUSKA Six Departure RWY 11 and the Jestar was inbound on the VEGPU Seven arrival RWY 29 there is NO traffic separation provided by this SID/STAR. The tracks crossover between ITTSA- SARRE inbound and PAGSO-VABLI outbound whats more the departure is restricted to not above 6000 prior to VABLI while the arrival has to be below 8000 after VEGPU, further condensing the traffic into similar airspace considering the arrival is on a constant descent from VEGPU then it would probably pass very close to the departure climbing from 3000 to 6000 ft. These SID/STARs would never be used in actual combination without ATC restrictions. There is nothing on either SID/STAR that prevents the arrival and departure aircraft from being at the same altitude when transiting those tracks.
Hence these SID/STARs should not be used OCTA as pilots do not know what SID/STARs should be used in particular combinations. This is why controllers talk about runway configurations, it is referring to what is being used for arrival and departure paths and determines what SIDs/STARs will be used.
It is obvious that the RWY 29 RUSKA has a not below crossover to allow separation with inbounds to RWY 29. However OCTA an aircraft can choose to operate any runway it wants to, there is no runway configuration in place, so therefor the SID/STAR patterns are not going to ensure traffic separation.
Now what is the answer here, well first of all it needs to be understood when a SID/STAR will ensure separation, nothing in the documentation states that the RUSKA 11 and VEGPU 29 should not be used simultaneously. Remembering that a quick look has the departing aircraft turning at 900ft so it should be quickly out of the way of arrivals if they haven't started the ILS yet, but no, the conflict point is a number of miles from departure approaching the en-route phase. So an aircraft that is miles away suddenly becomes a conflict. None of this is saying that is what happened here, but it highlights how using opposite direction SID/STAR is not a good idea.
Hence these SID/STARs should not be used OCTA as pilots do not know what SID/STARs should be used in particular combinations. This is why controllers talk about runway configurations, it is referring to what is being used for arrival and departure paths and determines what SIDs/STARs will be used.
It is obvious that the RWY 29 RUSKA has a not below crossover to allow separation with inbounds to RWY 29. However OCTA an aircraft can choose to operate any runway it wants to, there is no runway configuration in place, so therefor the SID/STAR patterns are not going to ensure traffic separation.
Now what is the answer here, well first of all it needs to be understood when a SID/STAR will ensure separation, nothing in the documentation states that the RUSKA 11 and VEGPU 29 should not be used simultaneously. Remembering that a quick look has the departing aircraft turning at 900ft so it should be quickly out of the way of arrivals if they haven't started the ILS yet, but no, the conflict point is a number of miles from departure approaching the en-route phase. So an aircraft that is miles away suddenly becomes a conflict. None of this is saying that is what happened here, but it highlights how using opposite direction SID/STAR is not a good idea.
I think the night time procedure off RWY 11 for aircraft not flying a SID is to maintain runway heading (rather than track) until 2DME/GPS until 1230UTC and 7DME/GPS after that time. Darwin NAP 2.2.2 refers. After that point then? until they get an ATC clearance.
There's almost never any segregation or separation by design in RRO! But if they were using the same runway the SID/STAR design does provide segregation/separation. And the aeroplane does not know whether or not an ATC service is available - it will fly what it is programmed to do regardless of the airspace status.
Why can’t they just be pilots and fly the SID/STAR most appropriate to them and separate themselves vertically? 
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