IndiGo plane almost lands on road thinking it was runway
 

Seconds from disaster... :ugh:


"was hardly 900 feet, or less than 1.5 minutes, away from touchdown when the enhanced ground proximity warning system (EGPWS) blared in the cockpit...when the aircraft was on finals during visual approach at runway 27 at Jaipur... The Captain-in-command immediately took a precautionary measure and carried a go-around. The aircraft landed safely on subsequent ILS approach on runway 27. "

Assuming it was an A320, runway threshold in the PROG page and extend the centre line problem solved.:ugh:

Do they have centre lines on roads in India?

"Both pilots have been grounded by the directorate general of civil aviation (DGCA), which has ordered a probe into the February 27 incident. "

It is a Feb 27 incident.

Well, at least aside from their initial error(s), they took heed of the EGPWS and executed a timely GA. The equipment did its job and they adhered to SOPS. That hasn't always been the case in some previous accidents.

Didn't BA have a similar incident with Bath Road? Unfortunately the skipper took his own life RIP

There is still the question: in a modern a/c with a MAP driven by GPS and thus very accurate, onto a runway with an ILS, in a cockpit with 2 pilots and 2 sets of eyes, how can you line up with anything other than the runway at 3nm. I understand the 'let's make a visual approach' element of any such screw up, but I have to assume the ILS was tuned and displaying the deviation pointers and that 2 pilots should have been checking its indications.
There is no mention in the article if it was day/night or the weather. One has to assume visual conditions, but night could make it confusing; all the more reason to be careful and not cut corners.
To say safety was not compromised is a little blasé. They say the GA was a consequence of an EGPWS warning. To me, so close to the ground, that means the pilots had put the a/c in a hazardous position. It strikes me that the root cause might well be lax MCC procedures and lax/non-compliance with SOP's. If visual, onto an ILS runway with all its associated approach lighting system etc. not to realise at 3nm that what you see out the window is not what you expect, and that the ILS deviation needles are not centred, it does make me wonder just what were they looking at: 2 sets of eyes?
Gash might be generous, but I welcome mitigating parameters. Was it that everything was 'switched off' and ONLY Mk.1 eyeball was in use. I'm all for visual flying using basics, but the instruments should still be in the scan. Was this a short cut onto a short base/finals? There may be something for us to learn.

See incident # 5 (page13) in the report below;
http://www.icao.int/safety/fsix/Libr...plus%20add.pdf

Rat5, I agree with everything you said, but it happens again and again, with guys landing on wrong runways and wrong airports. Like you said, hand and visual flying practice is commendable, but use of nav equipment to confirm position and runway is critically important, and until the gash attitude of not bothering with the nav kit is stamped out, these events will continue. Now, in this case, they may have had some sort of visibility issue - the article doesn't mention met or time, but if it was a night approach and the runway lights were very dim or even switched off, then you can see how this happens, but again, having the FMS or ILS set up would have helped.

Perhaps they had fallen asleep as the Hindustan Times is kind enough to explain that,

"The EGPWS is an audio warning in the cockpit capable of waking up a sleeping pilot.":ok:

Perhaps this is a good opportunity to remind ourselves of the debt of gratitude we all owe to Don Bateman. Those who have not heard of him and his great contribution to aviation safety may refer to the following link.

C. Don Bateman Awarded Lifetime Achievement Laureate | AWIN content from Aviation Week

Back in February the ALS was U/S due to runway extension work. Come to think of it, it might still be U/S. Also the runway markings were not available for a while due to recarpetting. Might have played a factor in the incident.

It has also happened in Dublin to an MD83 off a VOR approach:

http://www.aaiu.ie/sites/default/fil...al/11469-0.PDF

The only facts that stand out are that Indigo is intolerant of crews who make mistakes and appear to punish any who do. That's the way to control your future.

50 odd years ago I almost did it, not in an airliner but in a Canberra, on a dark and grubby night broke cloudbase near minimums and first lights I saw were the sodium street lighting on Watton High St! Whoopsie

I claim a record, which no-one has yet disputed, of doing it twice in one day in 1967; first landing my Prentice on Orange Military base instead of the (parallel) civil airport runway, while talking to the civil tower, having decided to make a precautionary landing due to violent squalls and zilch visibility, and much later in the same day, having been cleared to land at Ciampino, realising as I crossed the threshold that I was aiming for the more or less parallel runway at Fiumicino.

The penny dropped at Fuimicino when a B707 on its stately take-off run crossed in front of me; I turned left at 100 ft and flew to turn right and land at Ciampino. No-one said a word about the 10-minute delay between "Clear to Land" and the actual landing, and no-one spotted me at Fiumicino, I guess because they weren't looking in that direction.

I was navigating off a 1:500,000 map; there was only 1 runway shown at Orange, the civil one, and it was easy (!) to confuse the 2 Rome airports when one name was written above them, and the other below. If you don't like that excuse, I have others. Doesn't change the fact that it's a record. I think.

Is there a reason these guys don't go in for the usual r/w markings?

1. So much for the arguments to allow hand flying and visuals.

2. Even on a visual, with an ILS available, why wouldn't you be displacing the ILS??

2. Because I would be DISPLAYING the ILS. If it were displaced, I might land on a taxiway or road.

Does the EGPWS always go off on final approach with both gear and flaps down?
:ooh:

No similarity at all, the very serious incident you are thinking about involved a go_around after a miss_handled cat. 2 approach. The aircraft was not correctly aligned and the subsequent flight path by coincidence took it over the Bath Road which is parallel to the runway before returning to the centre line.

It became a major event partly because the captain did not initiate the g/a promptly after making his decision, as a result the aircraft descended to about 80 ft RA over the hotel between the runway and the road, which rises to 75 ft. But at no point was there any issue of mistaking road lights for the runway.

As far as I know answer is Yes but if road is wider then there is a separation between two lanes where you may see street lights or planted small trees on that lane.