ATC - Potensielt farlig situasjon under landing i Portugal - Curt Lewis

 Incident: TAP A21N at Ponta Delgada on May 13th 2022, cleared to land on occupied runway

A TAP Air Portugal Airbus A321-200N, registration CS-TJI performing flight TP-1869 from Lisbon to Ponta Delgada (Portugal) with 180 passengers and 6 crew, was cleared to land on Ponta Delgada's runway 30 and was already in the flare when the pilot monitoring spotted a white van at the right hand side of the runway about 650 meters down the runway (just after the last fixed distance marker), the crew initiated a go around. Only after the aircraft initiated the go around tower advised of the vehicle on the runway. The aircraft climbed to 5000 feet, positioned for another approach and landed without further incident, the vehicle had sped off the runway after being overflown by the Airbus, about 15 minutes after the go around.

Portugal's GPIAA reported the estimated separation between aircraft and vehicle reduced to 280 meters/920 feet, the occurrence was rated a serious incident and is being investigated. Tower had cleared the maintenance vehicle, tasked to perform scheduled maintenance work on the glidepath transmitter of ILS runway 30, onto the runway about 30 minutes prior to the approach of the A21N.