Lufthansa lands on construction site at EPKT
 

Today at 15:45 ZULU a CRJ700 landed on a new strip at EPKT airport which is still under construction. Allegedly it was LH1360 from Frankfurt. 51 souls on board, nobody got hurt. There's no taxiway yet available for this runway, so the plane may stay there for a while.

Disaster waiting to happen. The new runway is far more prominent. At minimums sometimes it's the only thing you see with the crazy VOR offset.

There's a big X at the threshold.......and no markings on the runway. I find this incident highly embarrassing for LH or any airline for that matter. I see they now have to use the same runway to take off on as there are no taxiways to vacate.

Well at least they got the right airfield unlike many others.

Dyson.
Correct!

It's a start. :ok:

This is somewhat embarrassing; i remember a story from the good old days in the USofA in Huntsville, AL; VERY LARGE airport and massive parallel runways with terminal in the middle. When pilots were cleared to land on 36L coming from the East, they were landing on the taxiway of 36R....

The officials toured all the operators implicated on these mishaps, reminding gently that a runway has BIG F.. Numbers on it....:)

Just imagine the tone of this thread if it had been Ryanair.

LH got permission from Polish CAA for "technical take off" from EPKT.
I expect they will just fly the patten and land on the proper runway this time to pick up pax and return to Frankfurt.

Some images:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...levant_count=1

Clearly visible here:

http://blog.katowice-airport.com/wp-...014/04/nds.jpg

More images here:

https://www.katowice-airport.com/pl/...alerie/337126#

Since April 2nd ILS is NOTAMed as INOP.
VOR 27 approach has 11 deg offset.

http://wstaw.org/m/2014/06/05/VOR_jpg_750x750_q85.jpg

The PIC asked for visual approach and got it granted.
Landing against the sun in the evening certainly contributed to the confusion.
Luckily Saturday evening there were no workers or machinery on the RWY.

They were rather lucky that there was no construction equipment present on the runway. Also, if the picture above is representative of the runways completion state, the incomplete areas in the middle section were obviously avoided.

An opportunity for learning that came without damage to anything but some egos this time.

The picture is from April, the runway is wider now, they are in the process of adding safety strips on both sides.

I am afraid it will have much bigger consequences for the pilots.

So what does the runway look like now? It is physically completed and marked with crosses painted on both ends - is it blank otherwise or does it show other runway markings that might lead to a mix-up?

Technical take-off:
 

I would be much more concerned about landing on a closed runway with an "X" than the wrong airport.

Whilst I'm more accustomed to white (or in snowy countries yellow) "X"'s on that runway there are no threshold markings, no centreline markings, I mean there's not a drop of white paint to be seen, were they blindfolded when they landed?

wondering whether same crew executed the technical takeoff, or they're not allowed to fly until investigation is performed

Since the runway has not been commissioned, does it even appear on approach charts/ airport diagrams as a closed runway?

I'm assuming that a text type Notam was in the briefing for the flight, but without a visual presentation of the under-construction runway relative to the operational runway, the crew might not have had a mental picture of what to expect.

Add in a low sun angle and, Voilà, embarassment and potential for serious hazard.

It's Notammed but doesn't appear on any Jepp airport diagrams. As of today they now mention it on the ATIS!

Machinbird-17:45 local time at this time of year in Northern Europe and the sun would be still pretty high over the horizon, me think.

I flew into KTW on 24th June. The "works in progress" area was depicted on Jeppesen chart EPKT 10-8 which refers to the latest NOTAMs. One reads:

EPWW-E0505/14
A) EPKT KATOWICE
B) 2014 Apr 07 15:00 C) 2014 Aug 31 23:59 EST
E) CONSTRUCTION OF NEW RWY IN A DISTANCE 150M NORTH PARALLEL TO RWY
09/27. DO NOT USE NEW PAVEMENTS FOR OPERATIONAL PURPOSES.

Hard to miss... The VOR approach is offset by 11°... so what? If properly briefed, then it shouldn't come as a surprise. Late afternoon, ie facing the sun? That should be part of the briefing too.

Cheers :cool:

Technically speaking, it was not Lufthansa but Lufthansa CityLine. And the article does not quote a Lufthansa spokesman (why would Lufthansa speak for a separate entity?). The correct translation is along the lines of "At Lufthansa, the word is ...".

Do the subsidiary airlines of LH these days get pilots from the same school as mainline? Do they operate to the same SOPs and overall safety philosophy?

An old Spiegel article from more than 30 years ago implied that this was not the case back then.
DER SPIEGEL 10/1993 - Anflug verpatzt

At that time, in an expanding market, LH was bringing in already existing airlines to fly for them, much as the legacy carriers in the US did and still do.

Similarly, in the 90s, Crossair had some incredible lapses that were several notches below Swissair's high standards.

Typical German arrogance. Always other to blame, we are the best.

How could the runway be "fully lit", when the taxiways are still under construction, side pavements of the runway are still not ready.
There are also no approach lights installed yet.

There was NOTAM, there was ATIS, there was CAVOC.

Instead of blaming others, do apologize and make sure, it will never happen again.

(BTW: Close to the airfield there is a motorway under construction.
Also straight and wide, and no crosses, be careful.)

But they've all gone through the DLR assessment.. so I guess it's alright then ;)

This is simply what every operator in the world would do to protect his company from claims by looking for reasons why others may be to blame as well. This is totally independent of nationality (and I don't say that because I happen to be german myself).

According to ICAO, a closed runway is supposed to be marked with one or more crosses along the centreline, so this little cross offset to the side that we see in one of the earlier postings might indeed be a bit misleading.

http://www.skybrary.aero/images/CLSD...Y_markings.jpg

BRE, it was Lufthansa:

Bei der Lufthansa heißt es, dass die Kennzeichnung des Flughafens irreführend gewesen sei. «Nach unserer Information war die Bahn nicht wie im Weltluftverkehr üblich durch Kreuze gekennzeichnet», so ein Sprecher zu aeroTELEGRAPH. Zudem sei sie voll beleuchtet gewesen, sodass die Crew den Eindruck haben musste, die Bahn sei nutzbar.

It was Lufthansa spokesman, quoted here.

"...the crew must have had an impression (Eindruck), the runway were in use."

I would prefer they would fly according to procedures and knowledge, not "impressions".

They shouldn't start blaming others for their own clear cock-up.

Let's wait for the preliminary report of the Polish AAIB (PKBWL) to have all the relevant facts.

Regrading Lufthansa and Lufthansa CityLine, I was flying few weeks ago to MUC with LH, and back with CityLine.
There was clear difference (by the same ticket price) in quality of on board service between the two. It could be assumed there might be the same difference in other aspects of procedures between the two operators.

The key word here is "closed runway".

Closed runway, per definition, is a runway once in use, present in older maps and approach charts, which shouldn't be used any more, for whatever reason.

The "runway" in question was just a construction site, a straight strip of concrete, changing it's appearance every day, as new layers were put on top of older one.
There were no centre line markings, no threshold markings, no old paint.

The crosses you refer to are usually put on "closed runways" to avoid confusion, when the remains of old markings are still there.

Nevertheless, as seen on the image posted above, there were crosses present. If they are to small or to big, is irrelevant. It was not "closed runway", it was a construction site.

I would be glad to know, that pilots are not inclined to "have an impression" that a 2 miles straight strip of concrete is a runway, when there are no ICAO crosses on it.

In Poland military is still using parts of motorways as emergency runways. When under construction, they look very much like a normal runway, with turning tarmac on each end, and parking tarmac in close vicinity. And there are no crosses. So, be careful, flying next time to Poland.

No mention of RAAS or EGPWS TCF. City line ejects have it. What about the CRJs?

My, what an axe you have to grind with Germany and Lufthansa, Ptkay :eek:

Topped up with an ever so slightly contradictory statement:

No doubt a single X meets the legal requirements but a series of Xs for the first few hundred metres wouldn't exactly cost a great deal and make the situation more obvious.

And I notice on that photo that the single X is offset from actual centre line. It's 15+ years since I flew professionally so maybe I should shut up. But it does strike me as odd that the symbol isn't on the centre (or extended centre) line precisely where a pilot looks when landing.

EDMJ, you got me. :)

Forgetting the NOTAM, not listening to ATIS and landing off the runway is probably not a clear cock-up.
Maybe there were really clear runway numbers and threshold markings and full lighting on the stripe of tarmac. So:

...let's wait for the preliminary report of the Polish AAIB (PKBWL) to have all the relevant facts.

I would say again, it was not a "closed runway". The piece of new tarmac in the place, were there was no runway before is not "closed runway", because it was never "open" before, not in any charts, Jeppesen or maps.

They did, what they could, taking into consideration, that multiple layers of concrete and asphalt were put on top of each other, and putting crosses all the way down on every layer would be little troublesome.

Also on the image you can see, they are still adding width to the left side of the tarmac, so nobody actually knows, where the central line is...

It's not that complicated. Do your due diligence and you won't land on a construction site. If this had been RYR, EZY or WZZ I'm sure our German colleagues wouldn't have been so understanding as they appear to be in this thread.

Admit the mistake, all of us should learn from it and move on. I mean, KLM also took off from a taxiway in their own home base a while ago. That stuff happens. I don't think they were trying to make the excuse that the runway wasn't marked well enough. Don't blame the Poles for building a better runway instead of that roller coaster they have there now. If you fly in somewhere and you're not familiar, do your homework.

There I go pre-empting the 'relevant facts', yet somehow this situation feels very obvious to me.

@ FE Hoppy...
 

"No mention of RAAS or EGPWS TCF. City line ejects have it. What about the CRJs?"

IMHO, RAAS or EGPWS would not have helped in this case because their software would not have been updated yet with the new status of that airport.

I was in Calgary (CYYC) last week and they have a fully operational new runway and we did not get the RAAS warning for it.

We also didn't get the normal warnings at a Middle-East airport last year (can't remember which one).

So the manufacturers of the equipment needs the info to load it up in their database.

@JJA4

I'll be surprised if they didn't get a too low terrain from the EGPWS TCF but you could well be right about RAAS.

@ FE Hoppy...
 

"I'll be surprised if they didn't get a too low terrain from the EGPWS TCF but you could well be right about RAAS."

Again I believe when it comes to EGWPS it only looks at the airport that's in the data base and it is not runway specific.

So if you have programmed in your FMS that you are landing at XXXX but in fact you are landing at YYYY (or an airport that is non-existent anymore), then yes you would get a warning.

However if the aircraft is fully configured to land at XXXX the EGWPS doesn't know which runway you are landing on thus wouldn't give a warning... Case in point a circling approach which cannot be programmed in the FMS.

Tut, tut ,PTKAY
A bit harsh on our German cousins , shades of beach towels on the
sun loungers and all that.
Maybe they wanted to be the first Deutsche sponsored aircrew
(who says they were German Nationals?) to land on newly formed
Polish soil...

The EGPWS data bases do appear to know the runways too. It would not know which one you were landing on, but it does change the protection. Did a lot of work with KFJK 4L/4R in a level D simulator and found that the database did have an error.
Per an EGPWS database web site:
COUNTRY CITY AIRPORT_NAME AREA ICAO RW_ID
POLAND KATOWICE PYRZOWICE EEU EPKT
POLAND KATOWICE PYRZOWICE EEU EPKT RW09
POLAND KATOWICE PYRZOWICE EEU EPKT RW27
New runway is not there, nor would I expect it.