Royal Air Maroc B738 at Paris on Jul 4th 2009, touch down off runway and go-around

Last Update: January 21, 2013 / 14:56:13 GMT/Zulu time

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Incident Facts

Date of incident
Jul 4, 2009

Classification
Report

Airline
Royal Air Maroc

Flight number
AT-764

Departure
Casablanca, Morocco

Destination
Paris Orly, France

Aircraft Registration
CN-ROC

Aircraft Type
Boeing 737-800

ICAO Type Designator
B738

A Royal Air Maroc Boeing 737-800, registration CN-ROC performing flight AT-764 from Casablanca (Morocco) to Paris Orly (France), was on approach to Orly's runway 24 when about 8 minutes prior to estimated arrival approach control inquired whether the crew could accept an ILS runway 24 circle to land runway 20. The crew accepted, the controller advised the glidepath to runway 24 would be too high for making runway 20 with no PAPIs available recommending to descend below the glidepath for the circling approach to runway 20. The crew configured the aircraft for a landing with flaps 30, a Vapp of 152 knots and Vref of 147 knots. Descending through 850 feet AGL the captain, pilot flying, disconnected the autothrust at 155 KIAS, at 400 feet AGL he began the turn to align with the runway 20 center line however overshot the centerline. Still turning left the aircraft crossed the runway threshold. At 85 feet AGL the aircraft reached a heading of 184 degrees (runway heading 201 degrees) and began a right hand turn to establish at 201 degrees, the aircraft descended through 20 feet AGL at 14 degrees right bank angle. The aircraft finally touched down at a heading of 210 degrees, both main gear outside the left runway edge, right bank angle of 10 degrees, vertical acceleration +2.14G. After a brief bounce the aircraft rolled over soft ground for about 200 meters before the aircraft became airborne again as result of the go-around initiated. The aircraft climbed out without further indication and positioned for another approach to runway 24 that was completed with a landing on runway 24 without further incident.

The French BEA released their final report in French concluding the probable cause of the incident was:

the late decision of the crew to abort the landing, which led to the aircraft touching down aside of the runway.

Contributing factors were:

- the late proposal by the approach controller to land on runway 20, which left little time to the crew to prepare for the landing and thus posed a significant risk of destabilizing the aircraft at low altitude

- the absence of a specific approach procedure for runway 20 - the RNAV procedure for runway 20 has been introduced only on Nov 17th 2011

The French BEA reported that runway 08/26 was closed that day due to work in progress. Takeoffs and landings were thus performed all on runway 06/24 which led to the saturation of the runway. Procedures introduced in preparation for the closure of runway 08/26 had assigned runway 24 for takeoffs and landings, however, also had specified runway 20 was to be used for departures in peak hours. The BEA analysed that using runway 20 during peak hours would have avoided saturation of runway 24.

The BEA further analysed that runway 20 was not foreseen for landings. PAPI's were not turned on. CN-ROC was the only aircraft that was directed towards runway 20 that day, runway lighting and PAPIs were off. In addition, the operator had set the criteria for a visual stabilized approach to be met at and below 500 feet AGL, which was not achievable on circling to runway 20 from the localizer runway 24.

The BEA further analysed that the introduction of a specific LLZ/DME runway 24 circling runway 20 procedure, which would guide the aircraft about 300 feet below the glideslope of runway 24, would simplify the visual maneouvering.
Incident Facts

Date of incident
Jul 4, 2009

Classification
Report

Airline
Royal Air Maroc

Flight number
AT-764

Departure
Casablanca, Morocco

Destination
Paris Orly, France

Aircraft Registration
CN-ROC

Aircraft Type
Boeing 737-800

ICAO Type Designator
B738

This article is published under license from Avherald.com. © of text by Avherald.com.
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