Separation issue involving Boeing 737, VH-VXH, and Airbus A320, VH-VGV, near Darwin
 

The ATSB is investigating a reported aircraft separation issue involving a Boeing 737 and an Airbus 320 near Darwin Airport on 5 April 2023.

It was reported that at 0017 local time, while the air traffic control tower was closed and Darwin Airport was operating with Traffic Information Broadcasts by Aircraft (TIBA) procedures, the Boeing 737 was outbound from runway 11 while the Airbus A320 was inbound to reciprocal runway 29.

As part of the investigation, the ATSB will examine the available evidence to determine the extent of coordination between the two aircraft and the actions of the air traffic controller of the overlying airspace, through interviewing involved parties, examining recorded data, reviewing relevant procedures and collecting other evidence as required.

A final report will be released at the conclusion of the investigation. Should a critical safety issue be identified during the course of the investigation, the ATSB will immediately notify relevant parties, so that appropriate safety action can be taken.

I thought Defence ATC was immune to this - just order someone to turn up for duty?

Who would have thought having RPT operations at non towered airfields was a bad idea?

Well, 'LOTS' of RPT ops into / out of many 'uncontrolled' / non towered airports in 'de good ole days'.......

Called 'AFIZ'.....Manned (&Womened) by.....F.S.

Even handled 'remotely' for a number of years or so......(in WA anyway)

And still the airline CEOs sleep soundly at night despite grand statements about safety being their number one priority.

IFR Student: Why do you have to advise centre of your departure runway?
IFR Instructor: You need to know what runway any inbound traffic is using, if someone is inbound on an RNP, opposite direction it puts you head to head.
IFR Student: Makes sense.

IFR Student forgets to transmit departure runway to centre.
Centre doesn't ask IFR pilot what runway they're using.
Safety occurrence, never followed up by anybody, until it's two jets at a 3rd world airport in a first world country.

Third world country but you can drink the water. Wait until the power fails.

toss, generally the case.

having a quick look at the LiveATC archive, this one appears the opposite. All parties from what I can tell are aware of everyone else, Flightwatch advised the departing aircraft on the ground about the inbound traffic (x2 Jetstar), including minutes out, the fact they are inbound for the reciprocal, and also advised the same to the inbound aircraft around the intentions for the departure. Rolling call was made. So in this case, everyone appears to know about everyone else and who is going where as confirmed by each crew.

Flightwatch started questioning the departure aircraft on upwind around turning intentions due to aircraft ahead, seemed a bit of confusion also.

Certainly would have been a bit closer if nobody was watching. Perhaps we should just stop CTAF ops completely for large RPT. I recall Tiger put a ban on operations into such airspace at one point. The stupid thing is, when these events happen, PR departments come out with the template ‘safety never compromised, underpins everything we do’. Well complete bull**** as Flightwatch saved what would have been a safety compromised accident. If a Chief Pilot went to an executive tomorrow and advised they wish to stop all operations unless tower controlled, they would probably get pushed out. Margins, profits, bonus schemes are top of the chart. Adding extra costs to the airways bill to ensure a operator is running under control at all times will be shot down, ‘our operation is now unviable’…Jetstar pulled that one at Avalon when asked about extra tower charges by the media.

Seems ATSB isn't immune from data entry errors (IDDE).

Aircraft Details
Departure point Sydney Airport, New South Wales
Destination Melbourne Airport, Victoria
Model A320-232
Serial number 4229
Sector Jet
Registration VH-VGV
Operation type Part 121 Air transport operations - larger aeroplanes
Damage Nil
Manufacturer Airbus
Aircraft Operator JETSTAR AIRWAYS ASIA PTY LIMITED

No mention of TCAS ? Any aural warnings from same?

Looking at the replay on the numerous ADSB sites, the two aircraft seem to be well apart (well, a lot further apart then aircraft have been at other RPT CTAF's without a concern in the world).

Seems like a bit of beat up by one of the crews to try prove a point I reckon.

I think this is more about, what was potentially about to be, both continued as per normal, controller stepped in alerting the departure aircraft around upcoming conflict and they then tracked north east. If they didn't, they likely would have continued upwind until they got a TCAS, that is my impression after looking at the archive, did not seem to be any concern re conflict, and both seemed to be aware of each other, both continued on as normal. They only started talking to each other when a separation issue was about to be raised by the controller.

This one might be a good example around airmanship, communications between other aircraft within the TIBA. If the departure aircraft decided to wait until the Jetstar arrival had landed, they also had another one to deal with behind, would have been 15 minutes wait at least. Sometimes you just gotta wait.

I reckon the controller might have lodged the case around this one not the crews.

The lack of a tower at Darwin overnight was suppose to have been rectified within 3-6 months. Well, it’s now 6 months and the NOTAM has been pushed out to the end of May at least. That makes it 8 months.

Townsville tower doesn’t open until 8am on weekends despite multiple early departures.

It’s pretty poor anyway you look it and is a recurring theme now in these kinds of incidents at CTAFs (or “TRAs”) around the place. It’s only a question of time until it goes badly wrong.

Or go off the other runway and climb above arriving traffic like everyone else does. Or coordinate to use the into wind runway if you need it and get the others to circle round for the into wind if that's why they had to use the reciprocal. Seriously who departs opposite direction to inbound traffic and does not arrange separation first. I almost get the feeling that Jet pilots seem to out of their depth if they have to visualize traffic and arrange safe passage without ATC. Worst case the pilots were assuming they could use TCAS to avoid the traffic as it got closer (I don't mean the alerting functions rather the display).

43. Correct. Chief Pilots should just call it a day and it’s controlled or nothing. I know the pushback they will get from that with the C suite, but do we really need to wait for a mid air before the call is made?

The whole TIBA thing complicates what should just be class G and CTAF procedures, after all it's just due to staff shortages, the repeaters, frequencies etc are all still operating. Just put out a NOTAM saying if ATS is available or not, and companies have to come up with suitable procedures for SARWATCH and traffic management if no ATS is available like it is at a lot of remote CTAFs out there. All you have to do is announce ATS not available, airspace is restricted to approved operators and CTAF procedures apply. All airports should then have a CTAF frequency based on tower in the ERSA and weather ATS is available on the ground in ERSA or via NOTAM where ATS is expected.

"Darwin Airport MBZ". Good one (16 minutes into the tape).

Or ASA could maybe get some more staff? Just an idea.

The QF says they are departing via, what sounds like, "the PEGVU departure" (18 minutes in). It appears no such departure exists in the DAPs on the ASA website. Is this a proprietary QF SID?

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.