ryr Landed In a taxyway by mistake in CAG

[twotters]

What's more confusing than Italian ATC? Irish ATC!

[Henry VIII]

About the ''lousy English'', the same could be said about a number of ATC around the UK who speak with strong regional accents, with no effort whatsoever to make the task easier for pilots from abroad.

trackone, if you continue to use this approach somebody will accuse you not to be professional enough and invite... "if you want to speak a more clearly english language you should work elsewhere"

[quixeven]

Originally Posted by Henry VIII

Avman, a NOTAM was issued to inform about the change.

This is the NOTAM in question, as previously posted by 89polaris:

B1003/09 - TRIGGER NOTAM

EFFECTIVENESS OF PERM PROVISIONS PUBLISHED LAST 04 DEC 2008 WITH AIRAC AIP AMDT 13/08 AND CONCERNING FLW ITEMS POSTPONED TO 09 APR 2009:

- RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF NORMAL OPERATIONS ON RWY 14/32
- NEW AERODROME LAY-OUT
- COMPLETE REVIEW OF INSTRUMENTAL APPROACH PROCEDURES

THEREFORE AIP SUP 20/07 WILL BE IN FORCE UNTIL 08 APR 2009

AIRAC WILL BE POSTED AND AVBL ON WEB SITE WWW.ENAV.IT

12 FEB 15:55 2009 UNTIL 22 APR 23:59 2009.

CREATED: 12 FEB 15:56 2009

The AIP Supplement 20/07 is available here. In a nutshell, what it says is: starting December 20, 2007 Cagliari ops will be a big mess, split into 4 phases. For a year or so (they were estimating December 31, 2008 at the time) the inner runway, called 32R/14L, will be in use and the main runway will be undergoing maintenance works. Instrumental procedures modified accordingly with a circling or a sidestep.

In preparation for the renewed main runway coming back into service, the new Cagliari procedures were then published on December 4, 2008, in the AIP AIRAC Amendment 13/2008 (page 18 to 40 of this pdf file, again from the ENAV website). The new procedures were expected to enter into force on January 15, 2009.

What the B1003/09 NOTAM quoted above says is, plainly: forget about the January 15 date, the ETA for the new procedures is now April 9.

This is the Italian ANSP side of things.

My questions are:

- did Ryanair's chart provider (Jepps I suppose) update the charts accordingly? (Not a very easy task considering the postponements etc.)

- did the Ryanair crew have the updated charts on board?

- were the crew aware of the NOTAM quoted above?

- what does the CVR say about the approach briefing? (How long is the CVR coverage by the way? Would that be enough to record the approach briefing?)

- what were the ATC instructions?

Whatever the answers, in my view this looks like a plain pilot error, but giving the blame is not my favourite sport, since I'm not a prosecutor.

Ryanair/ATC bashing leads to nowhere: it would be much more interesting (and useful) to find out which factors brought to the confusion (to name one: visibility was around 4000 metres by that time), and what could be done to prevent this from happening again.

[barrymah]

PS Barry - suggest you get yourself a dictionary.

I never need one, there is always someone on a forum who knows evertyhing... handy that. I'm a professional scrounger.

My mistake about Musso's status....

[Henry VIII]

Whatever the answers, in my view this looks like a plain pilot error, but giving the blame is not my favourite sport, since I'm not a prosecutor.

quixeven, i totally agree with you, expecially when you want to avoid to blame the crew only.
As like as all the accident/incident the failure of the crew can be due to a long list of swiss cheese holes beyond them, where local environment can be one of the facts, but not the only one.

Anyway we are, and we remain, the last barrier to stop the error chain, if we make mistake we have to admit it and learn from it.

[johnnyDB]

I have to agree with Henry, i know many non-native english speakers, who speak the language without fault, but have no chance at holding a conversation with groundcrew in the UK due to the fact that regional dialect can be a complete different language than english.
Mightn't be on topic...

[Sirus]

CAG

I find this whole prattle by the "Experts" interesting, facts, it was Notamed, ATC is lousy, really lousy, clueless, really! apparently they might have been cleared to land on Rwy 32R, the now closed RWY, i.e. taxiway. Yes maybe they should of been more alert, whom here has never went , oops that was close! Luckily no one was hurt, the pilots will obviously have to face the music and in general every organisation, company, etc will do their best to preserve there own integrity , probably at the expense of the pilots, i.e. demotion, fired, who knows. I feel sorry for them. I have operated in here for years and at times I feel like pulling my hair out after the many approach changes, bad english, poor instructions, vague replies I have received from CAG and Roma, completely sub standard for an EU country, the blame is most definitely shared, and I for one can only feel for the Crew, knowing the place well it was waiting to happen!!!!

[captplaystation]

Maybe, just maybe, the cheapskate habit of using home made photocopied Jepps has bitten.
Easter weekend and all that.
Was the person charged with updating the Jepps in the Crew room around ? if not, when were they last there ?
Of course, ultimately the buck will stop with the crew, as all the signing on , signing here, signing there , accepting this, accepting that will most definitely cover checking the date & validity of the Jepps, notams (regardless of how many printers were/were not working ) etc etc.
Sign here. . . . . "IT'S MY FAULT" just once a day would cover it, rather than the plethora of signatures required.

[PA28Viking]

Didn’t anybody notice this bit from Aviation Herald (not a 100% reliable source, but anyway):

“As the taxiway was clear and there was no danger of a collision, air traffic control did not order a go-around. The landing was safe.”

If this is true, then even though the flight crew made an error on their approach, it was noted by the ATC, but they did NOT intervene.

Strange …

[RAT 5]

I have spolken to a friend who is based in GRO with RYR and has flown into CAG mamy times in the past few months since the maintenance work has converted a taxi-way into a rwy. They did receive dubious Notams, and I still say I did not undertsand them fully. His opinion is that this was an incident waiting to happen, & it did.

[fireflybob]

Firstly this crew has all my sympathies and of course the final responsibility rests with the Commander.

It can be easy without realising it to end up in "reactive management" as opposed to "proactive management". If the Notams are that ambiguous (and I wouldnt be surprised if they are in this case) then perhaps the best decision would be to divert before even departing. Of course this would not be very popular. In the late 1960s BALPA named various airports as Black Star Airports due to, for example, a lack of basic approach aids like no precision approach or even VASIS on certain runways. Within a very short period of time these airports were brought up to standard. Perhaps it is time for BALPA to conduct a similar exercise to name and shame airports which do not meet certain basic standards.

[Carmoisine]

RAT5

Incompetence, NOTAMs which did not at all acurately portray the actual conditions on the day, sometimes unreadable, scruffy photo copied plates. A lack of working printers is an ever present problem, this is leading to rushed departures and a lack of understandings of all NOTAMs.

Questions:

1) Did we as crew do what we always do? Pull out all the stops to cover others not doing their jobs and do it for them, continue to cover up operational defeciencies to keep the show on the road?

2) Did we write enough reports or any at all? I know I didn't and deeply regret letting my Girona colleagues down by doing so.

3) Why is there a reluctant culture of report writing?

[Nicholas49]

Carmoisine, whose incompetence?

[vino]

why do the printers/faxes never work at 4 am in locos?
Am I onto something here?
Maybe a new career path....?
The low cost travel market (post9/11) has many benefits, and some downsides. The ramifications of these, despite the best efforts of some very experienced (and not) crew, are subtle and pervasive.

[OFSO]

why do the printers/faxes never work at 4 am in locos?

Can't speak of others but guess at FR they turn them off outside office hours. UK banks started doing same thing when the crisis hit - it "reduces" number of complaints received.

[Carmoisine]

Nicholas49, ATC incompetence is what I meant to type but I haven't missed what you were trying to imply. To that, let's see. Please note the sheer volume of real life Airline Pilots who have appeared on this thread in vocal support of the CAG ATC and see what I'm trying to imply.

[backofthedrag]

There are some airline environments where the despatchers would have been aware of what was going on, the Station Manager would have been in regular contact with the airport authorities and would have kept the Operations department in the loop. They would have issued a RED Flight Crew Notice. Concerns with ATC would have been promulgated throughout the fleet. On the day the despatcher , who is responsible for reading all the Notams ( in conjunction with the Captain ) would have briefed the crew. This lo-cost model seems to have some bits missing.

[quixeven]

Here's my (probably poor) attempt to translate an article published in today's edition of "L'Unione Sarda", a very popular newspaper in Cagliari.

------------------------------

He mistook the taxiway for the runway. On Easter, a Ryanair 737 landed on the wrong tarmac strip. The captain was lucky: had another airplane been on the taxiway, or a fuel truck, or any other airport vehicle, the consequences would've been different.

RUNWAY IN SIGHT - It is shortly past 1115 on Sunday, when the Irish Boeing approaches Cagliari airport. Arriving from Girona (Barcelona), it is now in the final phase of the flight, assisted by Decimo Approach (the ATS unit managed by the Italian Air Force). It's a cloudy day and visibility is less than perfect, but that's not a problem for the crew. Runway 32 is in use in Elmas: that's the main runway, officially opened on April 9th. Before that date, traffic would land on the parallel runway, now used as a taxiway. To make sure that all crews were informed, the runway switch was published in the NOTAMS. In any case, the taxiway has two huge crosses on each end, indicating that takeoff and landing is prohibited. On top of that, the main runway is lit. These signs are not enough. The pilot, who never made contact with Elmas' Tower, follows a procedure that was used before the main runway reopened: once established on the ILS and abeam Santa Gilla's Auchan (local mall, FYI ), he leaves the instrument approach and makes a right turn to align with the runway: the taxiway, that is...the "wrong runway".

PANIC - The Tower controllers immediately realise that something's not going right. About 1300 metres from the runway, the Boeing leaves the glide slope and veers a few degrees away from the original course. The controllers are not in contact with the captain, still tuned on Decimomannu's frequency because of the poor visibility, and cannot contact him - procedures advise against this, as it would distract the pilot in the most critical phase of the flight. They call Decimo for more information, but in the mean time, the aircraft has already landed. All's well that ends well. But what would've happened if a fuel truck or another airplane had been on the taxiway?

THE INQUIRIES - The Italian Air Force, ENAC (the Italian CAA) and ENAV (the Italian ANSP) have their reports ready to be sent to ANSV (the Italian AAIB), who will open an investigation on this matter. We had no luck trying to establish the Irish company's version of the story: our calls were left unanswered.

ANDREA ARTIZZU

[Nicholas49]

Carmoisine - With a brother who's a captain at FR, I certainly wasn't implying what you thought I was. I just wanted to know whose incompetence you were referring to. Thanks for clarifying.

[eastern wiseguy]

As a controller I hear from pilots that it is THEIR responsibility for the aircraft(sometimes I am told a controller is there in an ADVISORY capacity)........funny how you now seem to want to hang the Italian guys out to dry(not that there might not be some degree of culpability but who wants to wait for the facts to appear).

I wonder if there seems to be a history of mis-identifying runways/taxiways or over runs in a particular company then there would appear to be SERIOUS questions which need to be addressed by that company's chief pilot.

[QUOTE]The Tower controllers immediately realise that something's not going right. About 1300 metres from the runway, the Boeing leaves the glide slope and veers a few degrees away from the original course. The controllers are not in contact with the captain, still tuned on Decimomannu's frequency because of the poor visibility, and cannot contact him - procedures advise against this, as it would distract the pilot in the most critical phase of the flight. They call Decimo for more information, but in the mean time, the aircraft has already landed. All's well that ends well. But what would've happened if a fuel truck or another airplane had been on the taxiway?[QUOTE/]

I have just read the above.....if true...what could the CAG tower controller do realistically?