Incident Details
On 5 and 10 November 2020, two serious incidents (designated 2020/3561 and 2020/3562) occurred at Piotrków Trybunalski airport (EPPT) during traffic pattern operations.
Incident 2020/3561 (10 November 2020)
At the time of the incident, six aircraft were flying the traffic pattern, and another was approaching from point ECHO (from the east). The pilot of that aircraft received clearance to join the pattern at the third turn, making it impossible to maintain proper separation between aircraft in the pattern. Due to the high traffic volume, the flight coordinator could not manage radio communications regarding separation between individual aircraft.
Incident 2020/3562 (5 November 2020)
Six aircraft were flying the pattern: three Tecnam P2008 (cruising speed 215 km/h) and three Tecnam P2006 (cruising speed 250 km/h). Because of intense radio communication between aircraft in the pattern, the flight coordinator limited transmissions to position reports only on final approach. This hindered maintaining separation, leading to a dangerous proximity between two aircraft during approach to landing. One crew aborted the approach and executed a go-around.
Cause
The cause of the incidents was a problem with ensuring separation of aircraft in pattern flights, resulting from the inadequacy of the pattern size relative to the number of aircraft flying in it.
Contributing Factors
A contributing factor was the limitation of air traffic control capability due to intense radio communication from aircraft flying the pattern.
Preventive Actions
The airport operator implemented the following preventive measures:
- Changes to the airport's operational procedures (INOPL EPPT) concerning the construction of the glider and aircraft traffic pattern, and parachute jumps.
- Establishment of limits on the number of aircraft simultaneously flying the pattern.
- Internal discussion of the incident within the LFA organization through the SMS system.
- Inclusion in the SMS bulletin of information that during training pattern flights, the supervising instructor on the ground should be in a location with unobstructed visibility of the student performing operations.
No additional safety recommendations were issued.