Fatigue and high workload resulted in airprox incident between Citilink A320s

Indonesia’s safety agency has underlined the risks of high ATC workload after an air proximity incident between two Citilink Indonesia aircraft. The incident came about as two Citilink Airbus A320s (PK-GLH/3147 & PK-GTA/7466) converged on Surabaya’s Juanda International Airport in darkness conditions around 18:20 on 17 January 2018, says the National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC) in its final report into the incident, which it designates as serious. PK-GLH had departed from Pontianak’s Supadio International Airport and PK-GTA from Balikpapan’s Muhammad Sulaiman’s International Airport. Both aircraft carried six crew and 180 passengers. An air traffic controller, who at the time was handling five aircraft, assigned both aircraft to hold over waypoint EMARA at 20,000ft. At 18:31, the horizontal separation between the two aircraft was 5nm, with negligible vertical separation. One of the pilots notified ATC of a TCAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance System) alert. The controller immediately deconflicted the aircraft. The flights continued uneventfully and there were no injuries. Story has details.<br/>