Description

On 13 December 2011, an Airbus A320-200 being operated by Aeroflot on a scheduled passenger flight from Frankfurt to Moscow Sheremetyevo was cleared for a daylight take off in normal visibility from a runway parallel to one where an Airbus A380-800 being operated by Lufthansa on a scheduled passenger flight from Tokyo to Frankfurt was about to touch down but this aircraft then commenced an own initiative go around. The A320 take off clearance was not cancelled and due to subsequent proximity of the respective aircraft flight paths, the standard wake vortex separation minima were breached and the A320 was exposed to the risk of encountering wake vortex turbulence. However, no such encounter actually occurred.

Investigation

An Investigation was carried out by the Bundesstelle für Flugunfalluntersuchung (Germany) (BFU). Notification of the event to the BFU by the ANSP was not made until the following day. Although neither Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) nor Flight Data Recorder (FDR) recordings from either aircraft were available to the Investigation, access to QAR data from both and to ATC recordings facilitated a detailed reconstruction of both aircraft flight paths. It was noted that each of the two adjacent runways had a dedicated TWR controller seated adjacent to each other in the VCR and using different R/T frequencies.