What happened
On August 24, 2024, a DA-40NG aircraft, registration B-88003, operated by the Anjet Flight Training Center, was conducting an instrument flight training mission. The flight originated from Taitung Airport, with planned stops at Tainan Airport and Songshan Airport, before returning to Taitung. During the flight, the crew intended to perform touch-and-go landings on runway 36R at Tainan Airport using a VOR approach.
As the aircraft transitioned from instrument to visual approach at approximately 700 to 800 feet, the crew mistakenly identified runway 36L as the intended 36R. The aircraft subsequently performed a touch-and-go landing on runway 36L, which was closed for construction at the time. Following the landing, the air traffic controller notified the crew that they had landed on runway 36L. The aircraft continued its training mission to Songshan Airport and returned safely to Taitung; there were no injuries and no damage to the aircraft.
The investigation
The Taiwan Transportation Safety Board (TTSB) examined the navigation procedures, cockpit instrumentation, and air traffic control monitoring. The investigation focused on why the crew failed to recognize the closed runway and why the aircraft's path deviated from the intended centerline. The investigation also reviewed the Garmin G1000 electronic flight instrument system (EFIS) database and the effectiveness of the runway identification training provided by the operator.
Findings
- The crew utilized a non-precision VOR approach, which lacks the high accuracy of an ILS approach, contributing to a lateral deviation from the intended 36R centerline toward 36L.
- The flight crew lacked sufficient operational experience with parallel runway configurations and demonstrated insufficient situational awareness regarding the risk of runway misidentification.
- The crew experienced attention tunneling during the landing phase, failing to notice runway markings or visual aids indicating that the runway was closed for construction.
- A discrepancy was identified in the Garmin G1000 database, where the preset final approach course for the Tainan VOR procedure was 005 degrees instead of the correct 004 degrees. This error could lead to inaccurate navigation if not manually corrected.
- The air traffic controller and the crew both failed to immediately recognize the runway error during the final approach phase.
Safety action
Following the incident, the flight training center implemented several corrective measures, including revising instructor and student syllabi to include specific runway identification training. The operator also updated standard callouts to include a mandatory runway identification step and has temporarily suspended the use of the Tainan VOR 36R approach procedure until the database discrepancy is resolved by the manufacturer.