Incident to the Airbus A320 registered F-HEPB operated by Air France on 10/02/2022 at Pointe-à-Pitre

During the night descent, estimating that the weather conditions were favourable, the pilots requested a visual approach, which the controller cleared.

After starting to prepare the aeroplane, before turning onto the base leg, the PF disconnected the automation, including the A/THR. He asked the PM to “manage speed” in order to have the speed targets calculated by the FMS. The approach phase was not activated. The PM activated the approach phase via the MCDU.

He then carried out the actions associated with the landing gear extension (arming the ground spoilers, switching on the lights, announcing the imminent landing to passengers) before extending the flaps to position 3. Throughout this period, which lasted more than one minute, the PM’s workload did not allow him to monitor the path sufficiently.

Fifteen seconds after switching off the automation, the PF initiated a right turn towards the base leg and then the final. Faced with a few cloud banks and precipitation, the PF lost sight of the runway for a few moments. The initial bank angle of 15° finally increased to 28°. With this bank angle and a north-easterly wind, the aeroplane stayed within the desired path. In addition, the vertical speed increased to -2,000 ft/min. The erroneous path in the vertical and horizontal profiles and the high vertical speed were not detected.

When the controller announced and then repeated the information about the MSAW warning, the crew realised their mistake. They checked their position using the ND and, realising that the aeroplane was not aligned with the runway centreline, they decided to go around. After radar vectoring and an ILS approach, the landing took place without further incident.