On the evening of the 21st of September, a Nouvelair Airbus A320 flew less than 25 feet over an EasyJet Europe aircraft lined-up for departure at Nice Côte d’Azur airport. The French Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses pour la sécurité de l’aviation civile (BEA) has released its initial report, which presents the facts known at this time.
Note that this article is a summary of the official report and not an opinion piece about the facts or the causes.
Visual approach at night and in bad weather
An important aspect of the incident is that it took place at night, with some bad weather close to the airport. The Nouvelair flight, like two flights which landed ahead of it, requested an “RNP A RWY 04L” approach. This shortened approach made it possible to avoid cumulative clouds in the airspace further west of the airport. When flying this approach, pilots must have visual contact with the ground when passing the MN04A point and fly visually from there.
In particular, the pilots must line-up visually with the correct runway. The usual concept of operations in Nice is that the northern runway (04L) is used for landings and the southern runway (04R) is used for take-offs. In comparison, the RNP Y approach has a longer final approach and a much closer missed approach point (MAPT).
Facts established in the report
Initial reports never indicate causes or contributing factors but simply establish known facts and identify multiple relevant points:
- While further out, the pilots identified convective clouds around “LEMPU”, the point at the beginning of the RNP Y approach and requested the RNP A approach.
- The air traffic controller (ATCO) cleared the pilots for the RNA A approach to runway 04L, which the pilots read back correctly.
- After passing MN04A, the crew confirmed having visual contact with the ground, continued the approach and disengaged the auto-pilot, which is consistent with this type of visual approach.
- The safety net systems on the ground were triggered in two stages, giving first a warning and then an alert.
- According to the operations manual, ATCOs can decide how to react to such an alert. There is no standardised procedure as the tool is considered a supporting tool.
- Shortly after the alert, the ATCO asked the Nouvelair crew to confirm they were lined-up with runway 04L, which the crew confirmed.
- The ATCO instructed the Nouvelair crew to go-around shortly after they overflew the EasyJet aircraft which was lined-up on the runway.
The report highlights interesting additional facts which could be relevant for the second part of the investigation:
- Before lining-up, the crew of the EasyJet aircraft did spot the Nouvelair aircraft on final approach, was surprised, but did not identify the potential conflict.
- The two runways have different lighting systems and possibly have significant differences in brightness, making it hard to properly identify them at night. The distance between the runway is small, approximately 305 metres from centreline to centreline.
- The glide-slope (the vertical part of the instrument landing system) of runway 04L was out of service.
- Similar incidents have previously been reported.
The first part of the incident involved the line-up with the incorrect runway and the second part was the failure to notice that the runway was occupied. Identifying an aircraft’s light in the middle of all the other lights in and around a runway is not easy, especially at night and in bad weather.
Short timeline and temporary measures
As often with such incidents, the timeline is very short, with 42 seconds from the first safety net warning to the overflight, during which the ATCO asked the Nouvelair crew if they were lined-up with runway 04L:
- 21:31:41 – The first safety net warning in the tower was triggered.
- 21:31:57 – The alert level was triggered and the ATCO asked the Nouvelair flight to confirm they were lined-up on runway 04L, which the crew confirmed.
- 21:32:23 – The Nouvelair aircraft flew over the EasyJet aircraft.
- 21:32:25 – The ATCO instructed the Nouvelair aircraft to go-around.
The investigation to establish the cause(s) of this incident continues. It will cover technical aspects, examine the procedures, and also check which human factors played a role.
The French Air Navigation Service Provider DSNA has decided to suspend the use of this type of visual approach at night when both runways are in use, as a precautionary measure.
