Incident Details
The Polish State Commission on Aircraft Accident Investigation examined two serious incidents (2020/3561 and 2020/3562) that took place at Piotrków Trybunalski Airport (EPPT) on 5 and 10 November 2020. Both incidents occurred during circuit traffic.
Incident 2020/3562 (5 November 2020): At the time, six aircraft were flying in the circuit: three Tecnam P2008 (cruising speed 215 km/h) and three Tecnam P2006 (cruising speed 250 km/h). Due to intensive radio communication among aircraft in the circuit, the flight coordinator limited radio calls to position reports on final approach. This hindered maintaining separation, resulting in a dangerous proximity between two aircraft during landing approach. The crew of one aircraft abandoned the approach and executed a go-around.
Incident 2020/3561 (10 November 2020): Six aircraft were operating in the circuit, with an additional aircraft approaching from point ECHO (east). The pilot of that aircraft received clearance to join the circuit at the third turn, which made maintaining proper separation impossible. Given the traffic volume, the flight coordinator could not manage radio communication to ensure separation between individual aircraft.
Cause
The cause of both incidents was a problem with ensuring separation of aircraft in circuit traffic, resulting from the circuit size not being adapted to the number of aircraft operating in it.
Contributing Factors
A contributing factor was the limitation of the flight coordinator's ability to manage traffic due to intensive radio communication among aircraft flying in the circuit.
Preventive Actions
The airport manager implemented the following corrective measures:
- Changes to the airport's operational manual (INOPL) concerning the structure of the glider and aircraft circuit, and parachute jumps.
- Establishment of limits on the number of aircraft simultaneously operating in the circuit.
- Internal discussion of the incident within the LFA organization through the SMS system.
- Inclusion of an informational note in the SMS bulletin: during training circuit flights, the supervising instructor on the ground should be positioned with unobstructed visibility of the student performing operations.
No additional safety recommendations were issued.