A319/A332, vicinity Barcelona Spain, 2012

A319/A332, vicinity Barcelona Spain, 2012

Summary

On 8 February 2012, a TCAS RA occurred between an Airbus A330 and an Airbus A319 both under ATC control for landing on runway 25R at Barcelona as a result of an inappropriate plan to change the sequence. The opposite direction aircraft both followed their respective RAs and minimum separation was 1.4 nm horizontally and 400 feet vertically. The Investigation noted that the use of Spanish to communicate with one aircraft and English to communicate with the other had compromised situational awareness of the crew of the latter who had also not had visual contact with the other aircraft.

Description

On 8 February 2012 an Airbus A319 being operated by Brussels Airlines on a scheduled passenger flight from Brussels to Barcelona and established on the Instrument Landing System (ILS) Localiser for runway 25R and an Airbus A330-200 being operated by Iberia on a scheduled passenger flight from Madrid to Barcelona and following radar vectors received and responded in day Visual Meteorological Conditions (VMC) to co-ordinated TCAS RAs to descend and climb respectively.

Investigation

An Investigation was carried our by the Spanish investigation agency, CIAIAC. Late notification of the event meant that “there was no possibility of retrieving any of the information on the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) or Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) of either aircraft involved". QAR data from the A330 only was obtained. The tracks of the two aircraft were as shown on the diagram below in which the aircraft are identified by their callsigns (IBE is the A330 and BEL is the A319) and which also shows the No 1 aircraft, a Delta Airlines Boeing 777. The indicated aircraft positions on the diagram are those at the time the TCAS RAs were received by the two Airbus aircraft.

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