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On Tuesday the 21st of February, an A340 from TAP (Air Portugal - either
Flt 6077 or 185) landed on a taxiway at SBGR (Guarulhos, São
Paulo).
This incident is being investigated by the Brazilian authorities.
A lot of contributing factors can be advanced: Recent Rain; height of
the sun and it's direction at the time; ILS u/s; VOR u/s; phraseology
(Brazilian Portuguese).
The aircraft was inspected on site and was given an OK.
The crew are suspended until the conclusions of the investigation. It
was an A340 from TAP Portugal. Crew has been suspended.
TWR instructed them, at the last moment, to "go around" in Brazilian
Portuguese. However, go-around in Portuguese is a totally
different word.
Confirmation of
the incident from a pilot from Sao Paulo...
Indeed it happened during a planned landing Rwy27R. The TAP A340
landed on Twy B...after refusing to accept that
(and/or later insisting that he's not been given) any instruction to go
around. Both pilots were dead headed back to Portugal and removed
from duties pending further investigation. It was indeed a very serious
incident, as there was an American or United
aircraft taxiing back on the same taxiway. Damage happened only
to the understrength taxiway - which isn't prepared for landing shock
loadings [much less that of an A340...]
As for the causes, ..It was daylight good visual at the time, and even
though, there was allegedly bad sun glare on final approach
All photos above are looking up the approach (to the SE) - except the
Google Earth satellite image.
From the Google image you can easily see that in low visibility the
very significantly displaced threshold of r/way 27L could lead to an
honest mistake - i.e. you see just the squared (not curving) taxiway
threshold and the real 27R threshold to its left (although it wasn't low
visibility - just sun-glare - it nevertheless has the same effect,
particularly if the sun-glare is exacerbated by a wet reflective runway
& taxiway in the late afternoon).
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