The crew of the 767 MUST have seen the A340 approaching their active runway at high speed and they should have been watching them very closely, I fail to see why they left it so late to go around..........?

Anyway it's made all the news channels....

Any reason for a HD camera to be positioned so accurately where this was at the time including having a complete pan and follow thru of the AA aircraft? Very well choreographed film with a human at the other end of the camera...just wondering if this is normal practice at BCN or any other airport.

I am curious how someone was able to get all of those different views on video....

Keen spotter

To me it looks like they were filming on airport grounds, and their website looks like a semi-official site of the airport (Google Aerobarcelona). Might well have been a coincidence, doing a video shoot and then seeing this situation unfold.

As a photographer I can just say that using telephoto lens can dramatically change the perception of distances which is also the case in this great video.

Just from a curiosity my question to pro's: from what distance would a pilot decide to GA when observing a moving object blocking his runway which is about to vacate it? Or is it rather a rule of 500 or 1000 ft agl for stabilized approach?

Depends on company i guess. If the runway is in sight and we do not have a landing clearance by 50ft AGL it's a mandatory go around. If the runway is blocked it is the decision of the crew at the day, although as mentioned above on many airports it is quite normal that the runway is still occupied at 200ft with the previous traffic usually just leaving the runway.

I guess that makes sense. What doesn't (to me) make any sense is a taxy route which effectively crosses an active runway no less than 3 times when the route K, J, E and M would only necessitate 1 crossing. Seems a strange procedure, albeit without knowing all the facts of course.

More than a distance we talk about an altitude...MDA , minimum decision altitude, where you decide to continue for landing or go around. ;)
From the video they look very close but can be just an optical perception, things like this happen every day worldwide.

Argentinas A343 at Barcelona on Jul 5th 2014, runway incursion | AeroInside

HT, the "route K, J, E and M" seems nice, but it's only one route.
What if you have two ways taxiiing traffic to manage?

(only a guess)

So, no possibility of:

"XXX expect late landing clearance, traffic crossing"

"YYY expedite crossing, traffic on short final"

"XXX Go around I say again go around acknowledge"

Or (given the recent thread about use of English) the Argentinian talking in Spanish to the controller and the aircraft on final not understanding the transmission and electing to go around as the safer option.

How well does your tin foil hat fit?

There are thousands of spotter videos on you tube. The spotter was filming the A340, then the B767 on final, and panned out as the Airbus crossed the hold and entered the runway. It's been edited and snipped to make a shorter video. Much as I don't see the appeal in standing in a field watching aeroplanes, it's pretty clear there is no conspiracy or choreography here.

Absolutely, and most likely the reason. Nevertheless it does beg the question about a procedure which requires a heavy jet to cross an active no less than THREE times at a busy international airport when there are other options, even if it does mean holding inbound traffic to the most southerly gates of T1.

Might be an idea to extend J to M for starters.

From an ATC perspective this sounds correct. Lander told to expect late landing clearance while the crosser was told to expedite the crossing. Did not look like the crosser was going to clear the runway in time so the lander went around. No dramas and not an unusual event at very busy airports.

This surprises me very much because in the video it seems that the UTair would have touched down before the A340 would have cleared the runway. So if the Aerolineas would have got stuck with some problem we would have had disaster.

My experience with Barcelona is that they never clear you to cross when an airplane is that close. One note though, BCN have reduced their seperation margins and now have something called like intense traffic or so. Therefore the margins are smaller, and runway 02 is a runway that needs to be crossed...

Spotter Video
 

from the credentials of the video it seems to have originated from an avid spotter who is setup permanently at BCN.

AeroBarcelona: Toda la actualidad del aeropuerto de Barcelona

Answers my question of being at the right place at the right time with good equipment. Puts to rest any further queries on this issue from my end. :ok:

I'm sorry but that reply from AENA is nonsense to me.

It's one thing to issue a conditional landing clearance "land after", though I'm not sure if Barcelona are able to issue such clearances? it's a different thing entirely however to expect an aircraft to actually touch down with another still infringing the runway within his landing zone whether it's a km from the threshold or not. To me it is clear that the Utair would have touched down with the Argentinas still infringing had they continued.

I also can't comment for anyone else here, but I personally wouldn't cross a runway with the landing traffic that close to crossing the threshold whether ATC had cleared me or not!

Certainly not "ops normal" as they imply in my opinion, especially considering the amount of time I've wasted in my life taxiing the long way around 25R due to "insufficient separation" on the landing traffic.

So did they just go around for sh!ts and giggles? An honest mistake from ATC and dreadful airmanship from the Argentinian crew.

With a fin that high and possible sink on g/a I don't think I would push it too far!