Aborted landing and low flying the last straw

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This was published 12 years ago

Aborted landing and low flying the last straw

By Jim O'rourke
The view from the control tower at Avalon Airport.

The view from the control tower at Avalon Airport.Credit: James Davies

FLIGHT TT6207 from Sydney to Melbourne was making its final approach to Avalon Airport when it ran in to serious trouble. Just after 11pm on Thursday, air-traffic controllers at Melbourne's Tullamarine Airport saw the aircraft, which can carry 180 passengers, flying dangerously low as it approached from the north.

It was 15 kilometres from the runway when it was tracked flying just below 500 metres in a zone where the minimum safe altitude is 760 metres.

The aircraft had already aborted a landing, pulling up when it reached 243 metres. It headed south across Corio Bay, about five kilometres away, before circling back to the airport to land.

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The Australian Transport Safety Bureau was immediately informed.

Stephen Kitchen of Torquay, who was on the flight, said he thought the plane pulled up from a much lower altitude, maybe 100 metres or so. The pull-up was very steep, he said.

''That minute when we were going very steeply up, there was just dead silence … We were all just sitting there going, what the hell's going on … none of the flight attendants moved a muscle. It was pretty tense.

''Then there was a garbled message (from the pilot) about a tailwind. It wasn't clear whether the tower had stuffed up or whether they had.

''It was very obviously an aborted landing. There was a lot of relief when we finally landed the second time.''

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Mr Kitchen said that after the plane had landed there was a second ''contrite'' message from the pilot about the tailwind.

An experienced commercial pilot said it was likely a terrain alarm would have sounded in the cockpit as the plane dipped below the minimum altitude levels.

''I would have thought the aircraft would have been radar-vectored on to final approach, making sure it kept the required altitude,'' the pilot, who asked not to be named, said.

It was the second time this year the Singapore-based budget airline had breached the low flight limits.

On June 7, another A320 - cleared to descend to 760 metres north-east of Tullamarine Airport - dropped to just above 600 metres over the outlying Melbourne suburb of Epping.

The low-flying incidents came after the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) issued the airline with a show cause notice on March 23 as to why its air operator's licence should not be withdrawn. Yesterday CASA grounded Tiger's domestic flights until Saturday.

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