Serious incident to the Airbus A321 registered TC-OBZ operated by Onur Air on 26/09/2013 near Deauville

The crew of charter flight OHY 1985 (non-scheduled commercial IFR flight) was about to begin the descent to Deauville in VMC conditions. The aircraft was flying in controlled airspace. The crew was preparing for an ILS approach to land on runway 30. The captain was flying the aircraft; it was his first flight to this aerodrome.

On first contact with the Deauville approach ATC, the crew was informed that the runway in use had changed and that another aircraft was preparing to take off towards them. Several options were available for landing on runway 12: a GNSS approach, an ILS 30 approach followed by visual manoeuvring (circling) or a visual approach.

The crew announced a visual approach on the radio but prepared for a visual manoeuvring procedure. When the controller requested the crew to call back at the beginning of the downwind leg, the PF interpreted this message as an order to turn right. From this point on, the crew no longer followed a standard procedure but mixed up the visual manoeuvring (circling) procedure with the visual approach procedure. They descended to the MDA (1,100 ft AAL) in the downwind leg and then continued the descent in the final turn under the final approach slope. The minimum recorded altitude was 528 ft (i.e. 49 ft above the aerodrome) at a distance of 3 NM from the runway threshold.

The controllers did not watch the aircraft's flight path on the final approach. The crew's response to the occurrence of TAWS alerts probably prevented a collision with the coast.

The BEA issued a safety recommendation to EASA to promote recurrent training on visual approach procedures.