Aena playing the 'it's not our fault it's someone else's' card. You can guarantee the ground frequency and the Argentinian were speaking to each other in Espanyol. I've been into BCN and MAD when their A340s are kicking about. It's standard practice. I'll also add there are other incidents similar to this one that have occurred in BCN. Anyone from the Easyjet 737 era will clarify :eek:
Also Aerolineas contributed to a fine loss of separation event in BCN not so long ago. You need to bring your A game going into that place.

Still trying to remain open minded

so far I hesitate to conclude that ATC carries the blame unless I've missed a transcript of the incident somewhere?

I stand to be corrected, but there appear to be some windows in the front of that A340, not sure what they might be there for though.

But do you know what they saw out of the windows? The taxiway crosses the runway at an oblique angle - the LHS pilot would have to rely entirely on the lookout from the RHS pilot I would suggest. At that angle was the wing or the winglet obscuring an uninterrupted view of the approach path to RW 02?

Don't get me wrong I'm not making excuses for inadequate lookout if that was the case but I see a lot of people on this thread jumping to conclusions and making wild accusations against both pilots and air traffic without being in possession of the facts - all based on a video taken with a telescopic facility.

Human beings do the best they can with the resources available to them at the time (this includes but is not limited to experience, training, fatigue level etc).

Think there may be a bit of training going on at BCN at the moment. The other day a Lufthansa A321 was told to hold position just before he was taxiing past a 757 at G1 (first hold point I think that you come to). It sounded from the urgency as if there may have been a clearance issue. Almost straight away an Alitalia Airbus half way through his takeoff roll was cleared for takeoff despite already receiving that clearance.....situational awareness seemed non-existent from ATC for a few minutes and from the tone of the Alitalia crew it had affected their concentration.

As someone who operates into BCN regularly, it is evident that something went wrong on this occasion. Firstly, ATC cannot clear anyone to land until runway crossing traffic is fully vacated - so there must have been an error either by ATC or the Aerolineas crew or both (and you never ever cross an active runway without a positive check that your way is clear, so what the A340 crew were doing is anyone's guess!).


Secondly - video foreshortening or not, the go-around quite clearly occurred very late and not within normal acceptable safety margins, regardless of what AENA might or might not have said. If everything was fine, then an investigation is not required. If an investigation is under way then everything was clearly not OK.

Aargh! FFS!

I don't know where to start, here. Just, no!!!

Without having the record of the communications between the ATC controllers and the AR crew we can not blame anyones fault.

For the AR crew, the angle between the taxiway M and the runway 02 is more than 120° so it is almost impossible from the RHS to have a clear view to the approach path.

According to ICAO Manual of Prevention of Runway Incursions,

4.5 AIR TRAFFIC SERVICE PROVIDERS AND
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS
-4.5.16 When using multiple or intersection departures, oblique or angled taxiways that limit the ability of the flight crew to see the landing runway threshold or final approach area should not be used.

If there were no reports filed, will there be an investigation?

optical illusion of distance or not, they seem quite a bit lower than 250...not even wingspan in height.

seems more like a balked landing scenario...

Nice CAVOK & daytime, not a big problem.

Without hearing the tapes ? who knows, but I guess not so nice at night , or in low vis, but one hopes in these circumstances ATC wouldn't have rolled the dice (if it was them that orchestrated this & not a simple RW incursion)

Without the appropriate ATC feed/transcript we are p*ssing in the dark however, so, lets see what/if (anything) comes up from AENA.

Go around - meh.
It's worse when it happens whilst you're doing 100kn on the takeoff roll :eek:

Given that a balked landing is synonymous with a go-around, I think you could be right.

COSMICCOMET: strictly speaking, as it reads, that wouldn't be applicable in this scenario since the AAR was not departing from 02.


UNDERFIRE: I don't follow you. Can you elaborate on that?

Who's to say the captain didn't look? If the map posted above is correct, he may not have been able to see the traffic on final approach unless he opened the window and stuck his head out.
As for who is at fault, I'll wait for the report.

don't hold your breath. At the most the facts will be collected and dissiminated locally and you'll never hear anymore of it. Any blame will be left to others.

Avweb reports that the 340 had been cleared to cross and the 767 cleared to land. On that basis it would seem to be the 767 crew exercised discretion and went around with the belief that margins were being eroded. That's what's supposed to happen - isn't it? As some would say, move along, nothing to see here. That's if the official is to be believed, and no reports filed by either airline.

767 Go-Around Video Goes Viral - AVweb flash Article

Not from a design perspective, balked or rejected landing is different than go around/missed approach.

Go around procedure should not be initiated below 100' agl.

So what does one do on a Catt3a/single with no vis contact at 50 ft?