Virgin 737 BNE RUNWAY OVERRUN
 

An ATSB investigation has commenced into a serious takeoff incident at Brisbane, Australia on November 30, 2022 involving a Virgin Australia Boeing 737-800.
Flight VA324 was on takeoff roll to Melbourne on runway 19L at 12:50PM when the aircraft rolled past the displaced end of the runway. The 737 became airborne in the section of the runway, that had been closed due to works in progress.
A Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) had been issued that effectively 831 meters of the southern part of runway 01R/19L were unavailable due to works in progress. (NOTAM) is a notice filed with an aviation authority to alert aircraft pilots of potential hazards along a flight route or at a location that could affect the safety of the flight.
Runway NOTAMS can be critical when closures are in effect. In poor weather, if workers and/or machinery are present they may not be visible to an operating aircraft and a collision could occur.
BOEING 737 NG - MSN 40996
VH-YFH
Serial number 40996 LN:3801
Type 737-8FE
First flight date 27/09/2011
Test registration N1786B
Plane age 11.2 years
Seat configuration Seat
Hex code 7C7A3B
Engines 2 x CFMI CFM56-7B26
No inference of blame or liability is implied, and readers should wait for the ATSB report before making judgment

How could anyone miss a NOTAM these days with the million reports about trees and cranes that are apparently in my way to somehow conduct safe flight. If someone could cut all the bull**** off that would be muchly appreciated.

Interesting. Usually coned off.

Let me guess: No risk to safety arose?

PoppaJo: This displacement is to ensure no one collides with that crane which infringes the outer horizontal surface by 100', 7.63nms away.

I agree that the amount of NOTAM's are a joke, but the reduced runway length was also advertised on the ATIS.

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INFO E. WET. EXP INST APCH. RWY 19L&R ARR & DEP. INDEP PARALLEL DEPS IN PROGRESS. REDUCED RWY LENGTH IN OPER, RWY 19L. LDA 2689 M, TAKE OFF RUN AVBL 2689 M. WX: SH IN AREA. TMP: 22. VIS: GREATER THAN 10 KM. WND: 140 DEG MNM 8 KTS, MAX 20 KTS, XW MAX 20. CLD: FEW015, SCT035. QNH: 1014.
INFO E. WET. EXP INST APCH. RWY 19L&R ARR & DEP. INDEP PARALLEL DEPS IN PROGRESS. REDUCED RWY LENGTH IN OPER, RWY 19L. LDA 2689 M, TAKE OFF RUN AVBL 2689 M. WX: SH IN AREA. TMP: 22. VIS: GREATER THAN 10 KM. WND: 140 DEG MNM 8 KTS, MAX 20 KTS, XW MAX 20. CLD: FEW015, SCT035. QNH: 1014.

So, presumably, ATC required the crew to confirm QNH by readback, but didn't require the crew to confirm receipt of the NOTAM re the displaced end of the runway which the aircraft was about to use?

Or maybe ATC could have used the words: "Do you know that....?"

We live in a Safety Management World these days. It would be interesting to learn if any reference to the displaced/reduced runway length was mentioned when the crew received their airways clearance, then by BN ground and tower prior to takeoff.

Totally agree with the amount of rubbish NOTAM’s referring to cranes, drones etc well below any level that’s going to have any impact on aviation safety even if an abnormal occurred.

An industry overburdened with parasitic drag.

Fix stupid NOTAM format now

In the US, if you land or takeoff on a runway with reduced runway length, the tower controller will tell you this when they clear you to land or line up / takeoff.

I’m surprised that isn’t something that isn’t done here to be honest

Who recalls the Emirates A340 that had inadequate power settings for the runway length available?

Reduced power is great for saving money but it definitely does not save runway distance

https://www.flightglobal.com/emirate.../86203.article

When exactly do you read back the QNH on departure?

I have had the pleasure of realising that a crew were about to take off on a runway that was 4500' shorter than they were expecting. If you ever get out out of a first class seat and try to run to the cockpit door, you will find that it gets a bit of a response from the cabin crew, who knew I was an off duty PIC on type. I stopped before I got to the door, and then sat down on a spare F/A seat and strapped in again. Later in the cruise, I confirmed that the NOTAM existed on the ATIS, the NOTAM list, and I did a check of the performance that had been applied. I had done a quick maths while heading to bash on the door, and had concluded that they would get airborne just before the DER, and the perf data runs showed that had been the case. I was able to spot a landmark that was identifiable with the liftoff point. We were about 5' at the end of the concrete in this case, and the equipment was shorter than our gear. Simple case, a two engine aircraft will have a better margin to deal with a gross performance error than a 4 engine case, assuming that you don't lose an engine in either case. The probability of losing an engine in this case was probably around 20M:1. But that is one bird away from a bad day.

Today, my iPAD gives the notams for the airports, and highlights those in a list. They are readily identifiable as a taxiway, runway, comms, airspace etc matter, so the screening is far faster than the 88 pages of NOTAMS we got for a polar flight a few years back.

The event I was too close to arose where the ATC gave 5 different runways to the flight crew, and they were not a team that was known to tell the ATC to make up their mind. As an AAI for that company, I got to make my views to ATC later in the company investigation that occurred.

The NOTAM system is grossly deficient. There is no safety in a system that loses critical signal in the noise of the volume of inane routine messages. 88 pages, 15-18 NOTAMS per page, and the time provided by the company to review those is around 10 minutes at flight planning.

Where I used to work the shortening of the departure runway would be mentioned by clearance delivery ("runway 19L take off run avalialble...") and then again by ground on initial contact. ("runway 19L shortened, taxy...")

How did you know?

I’ve been told about reduced runway length by ATC before in Oz. Not sure if it’s procedure or if it was just offhand. Seems commonsense though. Having said that, the other 1000 arrival and departures from BNE managed to find the notam and allow for it…………this time………

Sounds like the BA 777 at St Lucia?

Being told of a reduced runway by ATC would be far more important than ATC broadcasting the reduced capability from CAT10 to 9 every time one of those guys goes to the toilet.

When will "Woke" kick in and and NOTAM change to NOTAP

In UK it has already kicked in - We're keeping NOTAM but now it stands for "Notice to Air Missions"! :rolleyes:

Good to know that they are dealing with the big issues!

Good point.

I meant to address the selective requirement to readback bits of ATIS information. If the readback of QNH on approach is important, notwithstanding that it's contained in ATIS that's already been confirmed by the pilot as having been received, I would have thought it would important for ATC to confirm receipt of the displaced runway end ATIS information by a pilot who's about to take off on that runway. But that's just me.

LB
The ATIS code and the QNH read back are for 2 different reasons.

Saying the ATIS code is to confirm receipt of the QNH/wx.
“Descend 9000’ on 10xx” is to make sure you actually set it coming through transition/changing from area QNH to local - not just have it displayed somewhere.

Not in many if not all circumstances in which I'm required to readback QNH. Just fat, dumb and happy below the transition altitude in an area maintaining the altitude I've reported when requesting an inbound clearance, which request includes 'with [e.g.] Charlie'. ATC looks and sees me squawking that altitude at that location, then proceeds to tell me I'm identified, give me an inbound clearance ... and the QNH. If it's so important for me to read that QNH back, notwithstanding that ATC can see I'm where I say I am (both laterally and vertically), it seems to me to be at least as important, if not more important, for ATC to confirm that the crew of a fat jet about to take off has received the bit of ATIS information that says the runway end has been displaced.

Don't bother trying to assist Lead Balloon with his crusade against reading back the QNH on descent. He has had it explained on other threads and will hijack any other thread that he can to once again flog his own personal agenda.

Back to the original topic. I can see how this happens with all the NOTAMs that the airports put out. Not only that but the airports will disregard the timings of their own runway works NOTAMs if the conditions don't suit. The problem can carry over to the printed ATIS where there can be a lot of information crammed into a small space. You just have to look at Sydney as an example. Every once in a while PRM approaches will be snuck in there, lost in all the other wordage. Unfortunately CASA and the airline won't consider this to be an issue and will put the crew, especially the PIC, through the wringer before they will be released to the line again.

When Three Mile Island nuclear reactor was out of the control, the problem was not too little information, it was too much random information overloading the operators.

My seat had a window... The drunk pretzel we traced was weird.... One of the observer crew had kept a note on a CFP of the clearances they were given, for taxi... the crew were debriefed, and the ATC tapes were pulled...

What got me out of the seat was putting the plane on the ground into an area of the airport that had one runway that was far too short to operate from, and the other runway had been shortened by NOTAM.

Had it been a B74, which the company also operated into this airport, the way §25 Subpart B works [§25.109, §25.113}, they would have been at high speed through the guys in the works area.

Same reason why Victoria was without gas for two weeks following an explosion in the gas plant, 8,500 alarms in a 12 hour shift for the operator to deal with. Royal Commission,

That is still a problem with Lé Airbus' ECAM architecture, you can have a cascading alerting process that messes up the crews efforts to resolve matters. The legacy issue that has impacted the Max 7 & 10 are questioned for this issue of "advanced" crew alerting systems, a mandate to put in a system that has its own share of problems seems a little silly. Demanding a poisoned bandaid be applied doesn't seem to get you where you need to go.

Was it a intersection A3 departure

And after the readback the ATC system still has no clue what QNH I've inputted...

For some reason ATC assumes that saying 'with Charlie' means the crew has copied and understood and acted upon the displaced runway end part of Charlie on take off but not the QNH part of Charlie when inbound.

My apologies if my point is too obscure and this is thread drift.

What’s your point here?

Yes. A3 to A7 for the run gives them about 1700m.

Having a look at the data, the inbound flight landed and a car was on the closed part of the runway, you can't tell me they didn't know about it if the same crew operated the flight back. During the closure only two aircraft opted for A3, two VA 737s. The other one was up before reaching A7 but still seems a bit tight for my liking. Will be interested to see some of the performance data when the report comes out.

Lead Balloon, not 100% correct, Mode S EHS transponders also report the QNH that is set (Barometric Pressure Setting)

Same type, same day, same company, luckily caught the new ATIS during pushback - very easily could not have - especially among the unnecessary NOTAMS and no notes in the briefing package.
Fortunately, applied the correct WIP OPT and additionally denied A3 for departure by ATC for separation!
In hindsight, I can easily understand how this could be missed.
It appears the most serious incidents are on C&T flights these days - no data on that - but make of that what you will. 🤷‍♂️

Not all aircraft have Mode S EHS transponders, sleeve of wizard.

If the QNH is 1013 and I set 1033 in my steam driven altimeter then fly at 6,100' indicated and report maintaining 5,500', what is my steam driven 'blind' encoder squawking as my altitude and how would ATC know what QNH I've set on my altimeter?

And if the set QNH is reported on aircraft fitted with Mode S EHS, why TF does ATC require readback of the ATIS QNH after the crew of the aircraft fitted with that gizmo have reported receipt of the ATIS information code which includes that QNH? Surely ATC will know if the correct QNH has been set, via information given to ATC via the gizmo.

Perhaps there is a systemic issue as I believe that a reduced runway length notification is required for landing aircraft with the landing clearance as issued by the Tower controller (aside from ATIS being notified to Approach) e.g. "REDUCED RUNWAY LENGTH IN OPERATION, LAST AVAILABLE EXIT TAXIWAY XX) whereas for a departure there is no requirements to notify "REDUCED RUNWAY LENGTH IN OPERATION" with the take-off clearance.

Pretty easy to standardise across all Towers (Civil and RAAF) to cater for all combinations of reduced runway length including where there is a displaced threshold for arrivals (kcboy I feel your pain).

C'mon DROPS. You know, better than most, the point I'm making.

So here’s a question Drops: if ATC is so captivated by our altimeter settings why do you insist on serving up a frequency change exactly when we are supposed to be switching to QNH?

Sadly, that's typical of the overly prescriptive approach adopted by the aviation regulators here in Australia; an approach that focuses entirely on following the "rules", with little or no thought given to the practicalities, or safety. Up until several years ago, ATC in Perth would often report the wind recorded at the top of the control tower, along with the "official" wind recorded on the ground. It was very useful for pilots during the strong summer easterlies, when the wind at 200 ft could be very different to that on the ground. They stopped doing it because, we were told, it wasn't within the "rules". :ugh:

ICAO has already defined the abbreviation as NOtice TO AirMen or NOtice TO Air Ministries so that horse has already bolted.

Put's me in mind of that Billy Connolly skit about "Just ask you're 'Wait Person'. "It's not a f--king wait pair-sson, it's a f--king WAITER!! AND, BTW, It's nooo a 'pairsson hole cover' either, it's a f--king MAN Hole COVER, sooo teek yar sh-tty language an' f--k off!!!!!!!".