Sriwijaya B733 at Padang on Oct 13th 2012, landed at wrong airport
Last Update: October 10, 2016 / 14:53:22 GMT/Zulu time
Incident Facts
Date of incident
Oct 13, 2012
Classification
Incident
Airline
Sriwijaya
Flight number
SJ-21
Departure
Medan, Indonesia
Destination
Padang, Indonesia
Aircraft Registration
PK-CJT
Aircraft Type
Boeing 737-300
ICAO Type Designator
B733
The airline confirmed the aircraft landed on the old Padang Tabing airport, which had been in use until 2005 and was then replaced by Padang's new Minangkabau Airport (identifiers remained unchanged). Both captain and first officer performed their first approach to Padang. Despite navigation equipment fully functional at both the International Airport and the aircraft both flight crew thought they were seeing their intended destination on overflying Tabing Airport while approaching Minangkabau Airport from the south and performed a visual approach to Tabing Airport.
Tabing Airport, now exclusively used by Indonesia's armed forces, features a runway 16/34 of about 2100 meters/7000 feet length, the Minangkabau International Airport features a runway 15/33 with a length of 2750 meters/9000 feet length.
On Oct 10th 2016 Indonesia's NTSC released their final report concluding the probable causes of the serious incident were:
The unclear significant information in the copy (black and white) of the ILS approach chart might have missed by the pilot and might reduce the pilot awareness to the adjacent airport with similar runway direction and dimension.
- The previous experience of false VOR might have made the approach was continued in an un-stabilized approach condition.
- The information of incorrect runway was not provided during the abnormal approach as it was not observed.
The NTSC reported that the aircraft performed an ILS approachto Padang's Minangkabau International Airport's runway 33 in instrument meteorological conditions, when the commander (58, ATPL, 15,500 hours total) saw the aerodrome 10 degrees to their right, they were above glide. Based on previous experience of false VOR indications the commander believed, the localizer signal was erroneous, and performed a visual approach to the visible runway.
The NTSC analysed:
The PIC assumed that the ILS runway 33 was error which was based on his experience of false indication during conducting VOR approach at Pangkal Pinang Airport. This experience might have affected the judgment to the instrument approach procedure. However according to the predicted flight profile, when the aircraft established to the localizer runway 33 Minangkabau, indicated that the aircraft was on proper flight profile. There was no report of ILS malfunction from the pilots of two aircraft conducted ILS approach runway 33.
The available approach chart in the aircraft was a black and white photocopy. The information available in the approach chart of “Tabbing (can be mistaken for minangkabau intl)” was not clearly readable and was not mentioned during the crew briefing.
The occurrence flight was the first flight for the PIC approach on runway 33 Minangkabau. These conditions might have made the pilot did not sufficiently familiar with the approach environment of runway 33.
Incident Facts
Date of incident
Oct 13, 2012
Classification
Incident
Airline
Sriwijaya
Flight number
SJ-21
Departure
Medan, Indonesia
Destination
Padang, Indonesia
Aircraft Registration
PK-CJT
Aircraft Type
Boeing 737-300
ICAO Type Designator
B733
This article is published under license from Avherald.com. © of text by Avherald.com.
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