Description

On 24 October 2020, an Airbus A350-900 (9V-SMU) being operated by Singapore Airlines on a scheduled international passenger flight from Barcelona to Milan Malpensa took off without clearance from runway 07R in day VMC and lateral separation with an Airbus A320 on approach to runway 02 - which involves a low level overflight of runway 07R - was reduced to 2.8 nm. 

Investigation

An Investigation was carried out by the Singapore Transport Safety Investigation Bureau (TSIB). On arrival at Milan, the 2 hour CVR was removed and downloaded but all relevant data was found to have been overwritten. Relevant ATC data was made available.

The 49 year-old Captain had a total of 9,807 hours flying experience which included 313 hours on type and the 41 year old Senior First Officer, who was acting as PF for the sector involved had a total of 5,066 hours flying experience which included 251 hours on type. During the preceding 90 days, they had respectively recorded 97 and 140 flying hours. One of the two flight deck supernumerary crew seats was occupied by a 48 year-old Senior First Officer who was one of the crew who were rostered to operate the next sector of the flight, from Milan to Singapore, who had a total of 11,699 hours flying experience which included 1,750 hours on type and had recorded 94 flying hours during the preceding 90 days. Neither he nor the Captain he would later be operating with, who was not on the flight deck, had any assigned role on the Barcelona - Milan sector.