No inquiry into ‘near miss’

Press, 10 December 1981, Page 1

No inquiry into ‘near miss’

No move has been made to start an official inquiry into what experienced air travellers have said was an unnecessarily dangerous crossed landing by two aircraft at Christchurch Airport on December 2. A research economist at Lincoln College, Mr Tonj’ Beck, yesterday supported assertions by two fellow passengers that an Air New Zealand DCIO had crossed a runway intersection barely 10 seconds after their Boeing 737 had passed the intersection at right angles. He said, “It was not immediately clear that we were, going to miss the DCIO. The flight crew might not have been worried but that is not much consolation to the passengers. What worries me is that the margin for error was reduced to a minimum." Mr Beck said that a reported statement by an official of the Civil Aviation Division that the two aircraft had crossed the intersection 50 seconds apart was nonsense. Mr Beck said, “The time lapse would have been no more than 10 or 15 seconds. The whole thing should be looked into." The Boeing 737, from Wellington, and the DCIO, from Sydney, were both logged by Christchurch air traffic control as having landed at 6.47 p.m. The Boeing landed on the east-west runway, into a north-westerly wind, and the DCIO landed’ on the main runway, from south to north. The regional director (air operations) of the Civil Aviation Division, Mr F. A. Cox, said yesterday that he had not meant to say on Monday that the two aircraft had crossed the intersection 50 seconds apart. He said. “I meant that they could have been up to 50 seconds apart but I am

satisfied that the aerodrome separation standards were maintained at all times." He emphasised that the DCIO, as it had made its final approach, had not been given clearance to land until immediately after the Boeing had crossed the intersection. "The DCIO was in a safe position to carry out overshoot procedure's right up until clearance to land was given." As far as he was concerned, the “vital consideration” was that the captains of the two aircraft had not filed an incident report. “Had there been any danger, the skipper of the DCIO, being the bigger aircraft, would have been the first to complain." He had spoken to air traffic controllers, who had confirmed that there had been no danger of a collision. Mr Cox said on Monday that the DCIO had been “a good quarter of a mile from the start of the runway" when the Boeing had crossed the intersection and that 50 seconds had passed between the crossings. In 50 seconds, at its average landing speed of 140 knots (260 km/h), according to an Air New Zealand official a DCIO would have travelled about 3.5 km and would have been more then 3 km away from touch-down when the Boeing crossed the intersection. Had the time lapse been 10 seconds, as some passengers have alleged, the DCIO may have been about 700 metre’s from the runway's threshhold when the smaller jet crossed its path. Had the DCIO been a quarter of a mile from the start of the runway when the Boeing crossed, it would have covered the 1620 metres to the intersection in about 22 seconds at 140 knots.