Tenerife incident

Grandeeod

Can anyone convert this to laymans terms. I'm not familiar with the terminology. Just wondering how serious it was. The electrical storms that day were ferocious.

http://www.aeroinside.com/item/3475/condor-a320-at-tenerife-on-dec-11th-2013-descended-below-minimum-safe-height

billie1b

Grandeeod wrote: »

Can anyone convert this to laymans terms. I'm not familiar with the terminology. Just wondering how serious it was. The electrical storms that day were ferocious.

http://www.aeroinside.com/item/3475/condor-a320-at-tenerife-on-dec-11th-2013-descended-below-minimum-safe-height

They were about 13km away from the runway, still over the Atlantic ocean, they should of been around a height of 2000 feet above sea level, they were at a height of around 500ft, 1500ft below their minimum height. Very serious incident indeed.

I'm open to correction on it but to me its very serious.

folbotcar

As Billie says they were too low too far out. Why is another question. They may have lost situational awareness or they may have deliberately tried to get under some weather on the approach path. Either way they got too low and the ground proximity warning system alert sounded and they had to go around.

When the ILS (Instrument landing system) glideslope became inoperative they no longer had any vertical guidance. In simple terms you follow the glideslope down to the runway. Without it they were supposed to use the localiser which is a radio beam leading you to the end of the runway horizontally and the DME (Distance Measuring Equipment) which tells you how far out from the runway. To use a simple example when ten miles out you had to be no lower than 2000 feet, five miles out 1000 feet etc until you reach the minimum stipulated altitude or height and hopefully sight the runway. Normally staying on the glideslope take care of all that.

Clearly something happened which caused them to descend below the minimum altitude. The reason it's dangerous is that all approaches are designed to ensure safe clearance over terrain. In this case it looks like they were too low over the sea, 435 feet while still descending. Depending on the rate of descent that can be seconds to impact.

Suasdaguna1

A very serious incident.....from the sketchy details did they decent (a) on QNE? (B) they looked to have been distracted by the weather / wind changes etc but absolutely zero excuses for such a dangerous altitude excursion. No tea, no biscuits in the chief pilots office for the debrief......maybe just their walking papers ?

ProfessorPlum

A frightening loss of situational awareness. At 453ft they were will below the MDA for a LOC only app (850ft according to jeppy).

Roblestone

Suasdaguna1 wrote: »

A very serious incident.....from the sketchy details did they decent (a) on QNE?

The Metars in the attached report show a QNH of around 1018mb so descending on a QNE could not have been the cause in this instance.

Suasdaguna1

I agree that being on QNE was not the reason for the incident but descending below the transition altitude on same is a violent no no. It certainly demonstrated the Swiss cheese model where all the holes lined up where errors were compounded by other errors giving the end result......a near crash

shamwari

I've been to all of the Canaries at various stages and one thing I never once experienced out there was anything remotely resembling an electrical storm. Have had quite a few enroute and around continental Europe but the Canaries to me have largely been sferic free. Pity the same can't be said about the cockroaches.... :eek:

Grandeeod

shamwari wrote: »

I've been to all of the Canaries at various stages and one thing I never once experienced out there was anything remotely resembling an electrical storm. Have had quite a few enroute and around continental Europe but the Canaries to me have largely been sferic free. Pity the same can't be said about the cockroaches.... :eek:

I don't wish to get into a dedicated off topic weather post, but they do happen out here. Visiting on holiday is very different to living here. On December 11th last, the date of this aircraft incident, it was a very volatile storm. It was an electrical storm and was classed as that by Aemet. Its actually very rare in the Canaries, but does happen. As for the coackroaches, they are indigenous, germ free and harmless.:P

Getting back on topic, I live on the flight path to runway 08 and landing aircraft pass over my house at approx 500ft, so its a pretty scary thought to think that this particular aircraft was at that height 7 odd miles away over water. On the day in question, it has been reported locally that the ILS was damaged by lightning. Planes were landing and taking off from the 26 runway set up that day, but some where indeed instructed to take the 08 approach. It was constantly changing over the course of the storm. I witnessed one aircraft take off on RWY 26 and make a very definitive turn south away from the storm front which is very unusual as they usually climb on a straight westerly heading before turning north around the island. I would be inclined to think that weather conditions played some role in this incident.

bkehoe

ProfessorPlum wrote: »

A frightening loss of situational awareness. At 453ft they were will below the MDA for a LOC only app (850ft according to jeppy).

They descended to 704ft according to that report. The MDA for TFS LOC Z 08 is 700ft.

I suspect the multiple changes in approach from ILS 26 to ILS 08 to LOC 08 played a part and somehow they ended up on a profile based on distance from the TFS VOR rather than the LOC. Weird as an A320 should have been doing a managed approach but perhaps with some confusion, weather, etc they used a V/S descent based on DME to the VOR.

ProfessorPlum

bkehoe wrote: »

They descended to 704ft according to that report. The MDA for TFS LOC Z 08 is 700ft.

I suspect the multiple changes in approach from ILS 26 to ILS 08 to LOC 08 played a part and somehow they ended up on a profile based on distance from the TFS VOR rather than the LOC. Weird as an A320 should have been doing a managed approach but perhaps with some confusion, weather, etc they used a V/S descent based on DME to the VOR.

My bad,looking at an old chart, and only scanned the report - hence read radio height over the ocean.

In any case, it doesn't change the first bit - frightening loss of situational awareness. The MSA for area is 5700ft, (rapidly increasing to 14500ft) and since they clearly weren't following the procedure, that is what they should have been at. Questions to be answered all round.