Mahan A306 at Yerevan on May 17th 2015, touched down before active runway threshold

Last Update: November 18, 2017 / 19:26:07 GMT/Zulu time

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Incident Facts

Date of incident
May 17, 2015

Classification
Incident

Airline
Mahan Air

Flight number
W5-1150

Destination
Yerevan, Armenia

Aircraft Registration
EP-MNI

Aircraft Type
Airbus A300

ICAO Type Designator
A306

A Mahan Air Airbus A300-600, registration EP-MNI performing flight W5-1150 from Tehran Imam Khomeini (Iran) to Yerevan (Armenia) with 195 passengers and 16 crew, landed on Yerevan's runway 09 but touched down before the active displaced runway threshold, collided with a number of threshold lights and rolled out without further incident. There were no injuries, the aircraft sustained minor damage.

The occurrence aircraft was able to depart for the return flight W5-1151 after about 7 hours on the ground with a delay of about 6 hours.

The French BEA reported in their weekly bulletin that the threshold of runway 09 was displaced by 1450 meters due to maintenance work in progress. The occurrence was rated a serious incident and is being investigated by the Authorities of Iran.

Iran's CAO released their final report concluding the probable causes of the incident were:

The main cause of this incident was “Human Error” of the pilot to review required flight documents before flight to prepare condition of flight for the destination .

Contributive Factors:

- Human error of the dispatcher for enough crew briefing

- Lack of attention of the copilot to warn the pilot about displaced area

The CAO reported the captain (58, ATPL, 21,500 hours total, 4,800 hours on type) was pilot fling, the first officer (34, CPL, 2,200 hours total, 900 hours on type) was pilot monitoring. On approach to Yerevan the crew was cleared for the VOR/DME approach runway 09, the crew inquired about the ILS runway 09 and was told that ILS runway 09 was not in service. The approach controller also advised that according to NOTAM A001/15 the threshold runway 09 was displaced by 1450 meters. About 6nm before touchdown the flight was cleared to land on runway 09 by tower. About one minute later Tower called the crew advising they were too low, the crew advised they had the new runway threshold in sight. Tower instructed the aircraft to stop the descent, which was acknowledged by the crew. About 2 minutes later the aircraft touched down on runway 09.

A runway inspection revealed the aircraft had touched down before the displaced threshold and had damaged two elevated temporary runway threshold lights.

The CAO analysed: "On 17 May 2015, at the morning time of the day both pilots were attended in Dispatch office of Mahan Air in Imam Khomeini Airport (IKA)/Tehran. The dispatcher delivered flight document bag to the pilot without concentration about EVN NOTAM. The crew briefing has been done in the dispatch but the pilot did not pay attention to the available NOTAM in flight documents so far coordination between him and his first officer was not done."

The CAO further analysed:

Then, the flight was vectored to descend to 5100ft for VOR/DME for RWY09. According to mentioned NOTAM the final approach fix point (FAF) position displaced about 1.5 KM near to the RWR 09 of EVN airport.

FOR IAC VOR/DME 09:
-FAF DISTANCE FROM ZVR 12.5KM CHANGED TO 11KM.

With this correction, the flight should be level off from 5100 feet about 7 DME from the threshold but the pilot began it from 8 DME according to JEPPESEN available approach chart in his IPAD and the text of NOTAM was not considered by the pilot so he made VOR/DME approach chart for RWY 09 based on uncorrected chart. While the pilots were informed about displaced runway , the pilot decided to continue flight at visual approach and use maximum length of the shorten runway so the flight path shows below glide path. Since provided NOTAM have not been read completely by the cockpit crew, so they were not fully informed about the situation mentioned in the NOTAM AT 05:40:55 about 6 miles on final, the flight was cleared to land by the tower controller.

At 05:42:00 and elevation of about 3500 ft., the pilot was advised by TWR controller that A/C is well below and the flight replied that we are approaching visual with sign of new threshold insight. So far the pilot decreased the rate of aircraft descend and observed continues of the flight via visual condition.

The pilot did not recognize the temporary approach elevated lights so his concentration was on threshold elevated lights .Finally at 05:43:48 the aircraft has landed just before threshold of RWY 09. The touch points of MLG wheels were just before threshold and the touch points of NLG wheels were after threshold so aircraft main wheels have collided with RWY thresholds lights during landing on the ground. Then the aircraft vacated the RWY via taxiway C. Visual inspection by aerodrome safety personnel has indicated that the A/C landed just before displaced threshold.

Although considering those mentioned matters for the real root cause of the incident; there were not enough closed marking signs before threshold lights to prevent landing in this unauthorized displaced area according standard criteria in Annex14. It was recommended in annex 14 that:

7.1.1 A closed marking shall be displayed on a runway or taxiway or portion thereof which is permanently closed to the use of all aircraft.

7.1.2 Recommendation.— A closed marking should be displayed on a temporarily closed runway or taxiway or portion thereof, except that such marking may be omitted when the closing is of short duration and adequate warning by air traffic services is provided.
Incident Facts

Date of incident
May 17, 2015

Classification
Incident

Airline
Mahan Air

Flight number
W5-1150

Destination
Yerevan, Armenia

Aircraft Registration
EP-MNI

Aircraft Type
Airbus A300

ICAO Type Designator
A306

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