Created Monday, Sep 12th 2022 10:55Z, last updated Monday, Sep 12th 2022 10:55Z
An Aeromexico Connect Embraer ERJ-170, registration XA-ACQ performing flight 5D-2268 from Queretaro to Monterrey (Mexico) with 38 passengers and 4 crew, was on approach to Monterrey's General Mariano Escobedo International Airport runway 11 but managed to touch down on runway 11 of Monterrey's del Norte Airport. The crew managed to slow the aircraft safely.
A passenger tweeted that they unexpectedly landed at del Norte Airport rather than the International Airport, the crew subsequently explained there had been an obstruction of the runway at International Airport forcing them to divert to Del Norte.
Another passenger tweeted that they landed on Del Norte's shorter runway 11 and were lucky to stop in time.
The aircraft departed del Norte Airport about 10 minutes later and landed safely on International Airport.
On Apr 5th 2016 Mexico's Pilot Union (ASPA) reported that the flight from Del Norte to International Airport was performed without a flight plan and therefore was illegal. In addition, the flight departed from Del Norte without clearance by Air Traffic Control. The pilots were suspended pending the investigation carried out by Mexican Authorities, contrary to rumours circulating on the Internet the pilots have not (yet) been dismissed by the airline.
Monterrey's International Airport features a runway 16/34 length 1800 meters/5900 feet and a runway 11/29 with 3000 meters/9840 feet length.
Del Norte Airport features a runway 02/20 of 2011 meters/6600 feet length and a runway 11/29 of 1540 meters/5050 feet length and serves General Aviation. Del Norte Airport had been Monterrey's primary airport up to 1970, when the new International Aiport was opened on Nov 25th 1970 about 8nm southeast of del Norte Airport.
In September 2022 Mexico's SCT (Civil Aviation Authority) released their final report in Spanish only dated Jun 7th 2016 (Editorial note: to serve the purpose of global prevention of the repeat of causes leading to an occurrence an additional timely release of all occurrence reports in the only world spanning aviation language English would be necessary, a Spanish only or no release does not achieve this purpose as set by ICAO annex 13 and just forces many aviators to waste much more time and effort each in trying to understand the circumstances leading to the occurrence. Aviators operating internationally are required to read/speak English besides their local language, investigators need to be able to read/write/speak English to communicate with their counterparts all around the globe).
The report concludes the probable causes of the serious incident were:
- Loss of situational awareness by the commander regarding his flight position and distance to the destination airport
- Lack of adherence to the cockpit resource management CRM:
+ Lack of monitoring of flight progress and instrument scan
+ failure to rely on information available from navigation equipment
- failure to request landing clearance from Monterrey Tower
The report does not contain any meaningful analysis, the analysis contains almost word by word just what is being said in the conclusions. The report provides an abstract stating, the aircraft with destination Monterrey International Airport was on a visual approach to runway 11 but landed on del Norte Airport's runway 11 without landing clearance from del Norte's Tower and without being in contact with del Norte's Tower requiring coordination of del Norte's tower with Monterrey's tower. After the towers relayed a frequency change to the crew, the crew reported at del Norte's tower and was cleared for departure from del Norte's runway 02 to continue to Monterrey International Airport.
In a more detailed narrative of the sequence of events the SCT describes the various communications and clearance on descent from FL190 down to 3500 feet and onto a heading to intercept the extended runway center line of Monterrey's runway 11. Subsequently radar services were terminated and the aircraft was handed off to Monterrey's tower frequency at about 13DME on radial 300 of Monterrey MTY VOR. The report does not mention whether or not the crew reported on Monterrey's Tower frequency but only reports there was no communication on del Norte's Tower frequency and continues to report how the towers coordinated to have the aircraft switch to del Norte and get a departure clearance there. The report mentions that the crew did not notify the SCT about the occurrence.
Map (Graphics: AVH/Google Earth):
