Air Berlin B738 at Nuremberg on May 14th 2015, near collision with sail plane

Last Update: September 23, 2015 / 14:52:25 GMT/Zulu time

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Incident Facts

Date of incident
May 14, 2015

Classification
Report

Cause
Near collision

Airline
Air Berlin

Flight number
AB-3665

Departure
Antalya, Turkey

Destination
Nuremberg, Germany

Aircraft Registration
D-ABKT

Aircraft Type
Boeing 737-800

ICAO Type Designator
B738

An Air Berlin Boeing 737-800, registration D-ABKT performing flight AB-3665 from Antalya (Turkey) to Nuremberg (Germany) with 113 passengers and 6 crew, was on approach to Nuremberg's runway 28 descending through about 6500 feet when the crew noticed an object at about their altitude, slightly left of their flight path in what appeared to be a climbing right turn, the crew assessed that the flight trajectories of their aircraft and the object would cross, disconnected the autopilot and turned left stopping their descent at 6200 feet at the same time. About 10 seconds after the crew noticed the object they recognized a sailplane, that passed their aircraft underneath their left wing at an estimated vertical separation of about 150-200 feet and an estimated horizontal separation of 150-200 meters/500-650 feet. The Boeing 737-800 continued for a safe landing on Nuremberg's runway 28.

Germany's BFU released their final factual report into the occurrence rated a serious incident without conclusions reporting, that there was no radar target visible for the sailplane on both secondary and primary radars. The sailplane could not be identified.

The BFU reported that below 5000 feet MSL the weather was CAVOK, there were scattered cumulus clouds with ceilings between 6500 feet and 7000 feet with light turbulence underneath these clouds. VFR traffic is expected to observe a minimum vertical separation of 1000 feet and a horizontal separation of 1500 meters to clouds.

The BFU annotated that the sailplane was operated without a working transponder, therefore the aircraft remained invisible to air traffic control (using secondary radar) and to the traffic and collision avoidance system (TCAS) on board of the Boeing 737-800.
Incident Facts

Date of incident
May 14, 2015

Classification
Report

Cause
Near collision

Airline
Air Berlin

Flight number
AB-3665

Departure
Antalya, Turkey

Destination
Nuremberg, Germany

Aircraft Registration
D-ABKT

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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