VY3154 - Report: Vueling A320 at Palma Mallorca on Oct 11th 2024

A Vueling Airbus A320-200, registration EC-MGE performing flight VY-3154 (call sign VLG4CX) from Jerez De La Frontera,SP to Palma Mallorca,SP (Spain) with 157 passengers and 6 crew, was on final approach to Palma Mallorca's runway 24L having been cleared to land. The preceding landing, a Netjets Embraer Phenom, had not yet vacated the runway, when the A320 overflew the threshold and touched down. About 5 seconds after the A320 had overflown the threshold the Embraer vacated the runway. The minimum separation between the two aircraft was 0.9nm.

Spain's CIAIAC rated the occurrence an incident and released their technical report concluding the probable causes of the incident were:

The investigation has determined that the cause of the incident was that the air traffic controllers and the crew of the Airbus A320 with registration EC-MGE accepted, without taking any corrective action, the loss of separation between this aircraft and its preceding aircraft, the Embraer Phenom 300 with registration CS-PHG, which caused the two aircraft to overlap on the runway.

A contributing factor was the delay in reducing speed by the crew of the Airbus A320 with registration EC-MGE.

The CIAIAC analyed with respect to speed control of the A320:

The final approach sector controller instructed the aircraft to adjust its speed to 210 knots.

Thirty-one seconds later, he instructed it to set it to 190 knots. In that time interval, the aircraft had not reduced its speed, which was 220 knots. Since it was about 12 NM from the ILS DME, its speed was higher than the speed published on the ILS Z RWY 24L instrument approach chart.

Then, 14 seconds after the second instruction to control the speed, the controller asked it to set the speed to 160 knots. The IAS of the aircraft was 210 knots. Finally, 22 seconds later, he instructed it to set it to minimum approach and informed it that the preceding aircraft, NJE288B, was at 3 NM and flying at an indicated speed of 140 knots. The IAS of VLG4CX was 200 knots and it was about 10 NM from the ILS DME. When it was 9 NM from the DME ILS, its IAS was 190 knots as the published speed.

Therefore, on up to four occasions the final approach sector controller attempted to slow down the aircraft in order to maintain the distance to the preceding aircraft, NJE288B.

However, the aircraft was unable to reduce its speed to the rate requested by the controller and moments later, it lost the 3 NM separation with the preceding aircraft. Following the loss of the minimum horizontal separation, the final approach sector controller contacted the aircraft to inform it that the preceding aircraft was at 2.5 NM and flying at an indicated speed of 130 knots. The aircraft responded that it was flying at an indicated speed of 140 knots and could not reduce it any further. Later, the local controller informed VLG4CX that the preceding aircraft was under 2 NM away and to expect a late landing clearance.

Therefore, the crew of the aircraft, despite receiving information from air traffic controllers that the separation to the preceding aircraft was decreasing, were unable to reduce their speed at the same rate as the preceding aircraft. However, from the communications exchanged with the air traffic controllers, at no time did the crew raise the option of a missed approach and continued to receive clearance to land when it was practically over the runway threshold and with the preceding aircraft, NJE288B, still on the runway.

It is considered that the safest course of action would have been a missed approach given the close separation to the preceding aircraft.
Related Flight: VY3154, Vueling News