A320 / A320, en-route, northeast of Surabaya Indonesia, 2018

A320 / A320, en-route, northeast of Surabaya Indonesia, 2018

Summary

On 17 January 2018, two Airbus A320s both inbound to Surabaya at night were vectored to the same waypoint to hold, one at FL210 and the other at FL200 but the one initially given FL210 was then re-cleared to also descend to FL200. The two aircraft subsequently received and followed coordinated TCAS RAs which restored prescribed separation. The Investigation found that before the conflict, the experienced controller involved had made several transmissions to aircraft other than the intended ones and noted that the usually-available ATC conflict alerting system had been temporarily out of service without any consequent mitigations in place.

Description

On 17 January 2018, an Airbus A320 (PK-GLH) being operated by Citilink Indonesia on a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Pontianak to Surabaya as CTV678 and an Airbus A320 (PK-GTA) being operated by Citilink Indonesia on a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Balikpapan to Surabaya as CTV635 lost separation in night VMC whilst in the same holding pattern under radar control but coordinated TCAS RA responses resolved the conflict. The normally available ATC conflict alerting system was temporarily out of service.        

Investigation

An Investigation was carried out by the Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC) - the Komite Nasional Keselamatan Transportasi (KNKT) using recorded ATC data. Both two-person flight crews involved held valid licences and endorsements and the approach radar controller involved had 15 years experience. 

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