Description

On 27 May 2018, after a series of seven go-arounds in 10 minutes at Madrid due to an excessive tailwind component on the ‘preferred configuration’ parallel landing runways in use, it was decided to change runway use to one providing landing runways more suited to the prevailing wind conditions. This change was then followed by 4 losses of separation between 8 different aircraft during final approach in day VMC each involving aircraft failing to meet the prescribed minimum of 2nm radar separation when vertically separated by less than 1000 feet and on approach to dependent parallel runways. All the aircraft involved were operating scheduled passenger flights.

Investigation

An Investigation was carried out by the Spanish Commission for the Investigation of Accidents and Incidents (CIAIAC). All the required information was obtained from ATC and Meteorological sources and no recorded flight data was taken from the aircraft involved.

What happened

The event involved four separate losses of separation whilst runways 18L and 18R were both in use as designated landing runways (‘South Configuration’) following an earlier unscheduled change from operations with runways in ‘North configuration’ (landing on runways 32L and 32R). This change followed seven go arounds in northerly runway configuration due to unfavourable wind conditions (tailwind component and/or wind shear) in a period of 10 minutes.