An easyJet passenger airliner carrying 179 people came within just 178ft (54 metres) of another flight as it tried to land in Bordeaux after a controller ‘forgot’ a plane was already on the runway, a report has concluded.
The Airbus A320, travelling from London Gatwick, was preparing to land at the Bordeaux-Mérignac airport on New Year’s Eve last year when an error by air traffic control saw it authorised to land as another aircraft was preparing to take off.
Now, a French investigative body has deemed the encounter a ‘serious accident’ which they pinned on ATC forgetting the smaller DR400 was on the runway while clearing the 123ft A320, weighing up to 172 tonnes, to land on the same strip.
Only seven seconds after telling the easyJet flight it was clear to land, a controller instructed them to abort the approach, the plane now just 40 metres (131ft) above the ground.
The investigative report by BEA cited several contributing factors allowing the near-disaster to unfold, including a ‘significant decrease in staffing levels’ which left one controller running four stations at the same time ‘potentially leading to the oversight’.
It concluded the ‘awareness and proactive action’ of the DR400 pilot, intercepting communications and warning ATC, prevented the mistake from becoming a potentially devastating accident.
Image shared by the BEA shows the airliner descending with the DR400 still on the tarmac
File image of an easyJet A320 Airbus. One of the firm’s planes was carrying 179 passengers when it descended on the Bordeaux airport in December last year, narrowly avoiding disaster
A shocking photo included in the BEA report showed the approach of the huge A320 airliner with the DR400 still on the runway.
The investigation, translated from French, reviewed that the controller cleared the DR400 to move to the runway but hold its position due to wake turbulence as the easyJet A320 awaited landing clearance.
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As traffic became ‘very dense’, the controller then authorised the A320 to land, ‘forgetting the presence of the DR400 at the threshold’.
‘The DR400 pilot, having understood that the A320 was authorised to land while still at threshold 23, reported to the controller who immediately ordered the A320 to abort the approach’.
The controller reportedly looked ‘lost’ as the Airbus requested guidance.
The airliner, now at a height of 232ft and 3280ft (1,000 metres) from the threshold of runway 23, soared over the DR400 at a height of 178ft, according to the report.
The DR400 was later cleared for takeoff and the A320 made a safe landing on the second attempt ‘without any particular event’.
The report noted the crew piloting the Airbus were both ‘experienced in their functions’ – one with 9,000 and the other with 2,100 hours of flight time – although one ‘indicated that he does not understand French well’ while awaiting clearance to land.
But it was the quick thinking of the DR400 pilot that averted disaster; the pilot, out flying recreationally, was not qualified for English language telephony but understood that the controller was authorising the Airbus to land while he was getting ready to take off on the same strip.
‘The sequence seemed strange to him,’ BEA noted. At the time, he did not imagine the controller could have forgotten he was waiting to take off and ‘believed that situational awareness was shared’.
But nonetheless he fed back that he was still on the runway – giving the team seconds to avert disaster.
The F-GTZY DR400 that was on the runway when an airbus came in overhead last December
The incident took place in ‘good weather, with little wind’, the report noted.
was unable to reach easyJet for comment.