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.

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. :ugh:
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.

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.

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?

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.

A manned TWR would alleviate any of these how exactly? Does the inbound airborne invasion or bomber fleet require a clearance to land?

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....

Uuum maybe by showing the world that we actually give a ****?

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

ATSB - Loss of separation between aircraft in Australian airspace
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.

Well. when you get too close for missiles, we all know what to do next!

It's a Defence-operated tower. Nothing to do with Airservices.

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.

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.

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.

Very old data - January 2008 to June 2012. Pity this sort of report of isn't routinely done by ATSB, every 2 years covering the previous 4 years would provide comparisons and trends.

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.

There is a procedure to maintain runway track until contact and clearance from BN centre.

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.

That is my exact point and the only ones who really know what combinations of SID/STAR is compatible are the ATC responsible for the airspace. There is no guidance for pilots as to which SID/STAR are safe for traffic separation OCTA, even less protection if an aircraft flies a wrong altitude or track which would be alerted to a controller in CTA. So pilots assigning themselves SID/STAR OCTA is fraught with danger and assumptions that you have separation standards, when those standards only apply when the right selection of SID/STAR are assigned by a controller. You can say the QF pilot should have taken off in the other direction? Why if the Jetstar is still 50nm away, how would they know there is a SID conflict at 30nm, and there in lies the problem of using them OCTA (that being a theoretical case if the RUSKA vs VEGPU was the issue).

Why can’t they just be pilots and fly the SID/STAR most appropriate to them and separate themselves vertically? :rolleyes: