ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 219730
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| Date: | Monday 27 June 2016 |
| Time: | 16:56 LT |
| Type: |  Airbus A319-111 |
| Owner/operator: | Air France, opf HOP! |
| Registration: | F-GRHX |
| MSN: | 1524 |
| Year of manufacture: | 2001 |
| Engine model: | CFMI CFM56-5B5/P |
| Fatalities: | Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 132 |
| Aircraft damage: | None |
| Location: | near Marseille Provence Airport, Bouches-du-Rhône 13 -
 France
|
| Phase: | Approach |
| Nature: | Passenger - Scheduled |
| Departure airport: | Bordeaux-Mérignac Airport (BOD/LFBD) |
| Marseille-Provence Airport (MRS/LFML) | |
| Investigating agency: | BEA |
| Confidence Rating: |  Accident investigation report completed and information captured |
On June 27, 2016, at 16:45 hours local time, the crew of flight HOP25PG, an Airbus A319, was performing a visual approach for runway 31R at Marseille-Provence Airport, France.
At the same time, a Eurocopter Cougar helicopter (F-ZWBS) was returning from a VFR flight to the east of the facility, and was descending to 1,500 ft to the aerodrome circuit entry point. Since the transponder of the helicopter failed during the flight, the air traffic control only had primary radar contact.
While on base leg, the Cougar crew hovered without informing the controller. Primary radar contact with the helicopter was lost at this stage. The Cougar moved towards the MS beacon and the two aircraft crossed each other without the crews having received information about their respective presence. Visual contact between the crews of both aircraft was established after crossing. The minimum separation values were 0.19 NM (350 m) horizontally and 240 ft (73 m) vertically.
The near-collision resulted from the combination of the following factors:
- the absence of separation measures by air traffic control over the Cougar without a transponder, in dense airfield traffic where the compatibility of IFR and VFR traffic is based on traffic information and visual contact between crews;
- non-compliance with the altitude of the aerodrome circuit by the Cougar crew;
- the failure of the Cougar crew to provide information on its hovering and inaccurate position reports which led the controller to construct an erroneous mental representation of the situation and to provide this makes unsuitable traffic information;
- the lack of provision of information to the controllers on the existence of zones of non-visualization of primary radar echoes.
Contributing to the serious incident:
- the absence of an overall strategy for sequencing VFR and IFR traffic on arrival;
- the workload that did not allow the tower controller to sufficiently anticipate the arrival of the HOP flight;
- excessive flexibility in the management of parallel runways;
- a high occupancy rate of the tower frequency due to traffic density, also favored by the use of non-standard phraseology, which did not allow the HOP flight crew to intervene and benefit traffic information in a timely manner;
- a possible overconfidence between the tower controllers and the Cougar crew, professionals based on the platform, which may have led to less rigor in the accuracy of the position reports and the use of them for the traffic management.
Accident investigation:
 |
|
Sources:
http://aerossurance.com/helicopters/a319-cougar-airprox-at-mrs/
https://www.bea.aero/en/investigation-reports/notified-events/detail/event/incident-grave-dun-airbus-a319-immatricule-f-grhx-exploite-par-air-france-et-dun-helicoptere-as532/
History of this aircraft
Other occurrences involving this aircraft
| 25 July 2016 | F-GRHX | Air France | 0 | over Castricum aan Zee, Noord-Holland |  |
non |
| Near miss with other aircraft | ||||||
Images:
Revision history:
| Date/time | Contributor | Updates |
|---|---|---|
| 19-Dec-2018 20:04 | harro | Added |
| 19-Dec-2018 20:09 | harro | Updated [Operator, Total occupants, Narrative, Photo] |
| 02-Feb-2019 16:35 | Aerossurance | Updated [Source] |
Corrections or additions? ... Edit this accident description
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