French investigators have disclosed that a Nouvelair Airbus A320 had aligned for approach to the wrong runway before a serious conflict incident at Nice.
The aircraft, arriving at night from Tunis on 21 September, had been cleared to land on runway 04L.
But French investigation authority BEA says the aircraft lined up instead for the parallel runway 04R, on which an EasyJet A320 was lining up in preparation for take-off.
“[The Nouvelair crew] approached runway 04R until they flew over [the EasyJet aircraft] and then aborted their landing,” the authority states.
None of the occupants on board either aircraft was injured.
Nice’s runways 04L and 04R are separated by about 300m, with the threshold of 04L some 560m beyond that of 04R.
BEA has yet to determined the circumstances which led to the conflict. It has retrieved both cockpit-voice and flight-data recorders from each of the aircraft involved, and is analysing the extracted information.
It adds that it has gathered initial testimonies from crews and air traffic controllers, as well as meteorological data.
