Aviation: Australian Transport Safety Bureau says AirAsia X flew too low.

The two flights involved the same aircraft. " On 4 and 29 May 2010, an Airbus A330-343E aircraft, 9M-XXB, was being operated by AirAsia X on scheduled passenger services from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to the Gold Coast, Queensland. On both occasions, there was low cloud and reduced visibility on arrival at the Gold Coast," says the ATSB in its report published 10 February 2012.

There is no action planned against the airline. The ATSB says that it has modified its training for non-precision instrument approaches to ensure that similar incidents do not happen.

The aircraft were not in express danger of crashing or making a hard landing.

The ATSB said in a statement:

" During non-precision instrument approaches conducted at Gold Coast Airport on both days, the flight crews descended the aircraft below the segment minimum safe altitudes. As a result, the aircraft descended to an altitude where there was no longer separation assurance from terrain and aircraft operating outside controlled airspace.

"While those operational non-compliances occurred prior to the final approach fix for the instrument approaches and not below 1,200 ft above aerodrome height, they were indicators of a minor safety issue regarding the operator's training of its flight crews.

"In response to this incident, the aircraft operator made a number of changes to flight crew procedures when conducting instrument approaches. The operator also modified the recurrent simulator training program to include more complex non?precision instrument approaches."

The classification of the incidents as "operational non-compliance" indicates that actual safety was not an issue and passengers were not at risk, although it is marked as "serious."

The full report is at http://www.atsb.gov.au/media/3543827/ao2010027.pdf

In each case, the aircraft was under the direct control of the captain. Initially, on each occasion, the plan had been to make an instrument landing but the beacon did not lock on.

In the first incident, the aircraft went around twice. On a third approach, the captain did a fly-by, decided conditions were too poor to risk a landing, and diverted to Brisbane.

In the second incident, with a different crew, again in bad weather, a first landing was aborted but a second was successful.

Both captains - and their first officers - were highly experienced in A300 series aircraft.

Although the report makes mention of proximity to terrain, the Ground Proximity Warning System did not activate, proving that the aircraft was not in any imminent danger.

Low flying into Gold Coast is a common event: 21 occasions have been reported. 15 of those have been by un-named Australian based carriers.

The ATSB says "The aircraft operator’s flight crews were probably not adequately equipped to manage the vertical profile of non-precision approaches in other than autopilot managed mode. [Minor safety issue]"

It goes on "In response to these occurrences, AirAsia X developed a simulator training session that specifically targeted the Gold Coast approaches and emphasised the preference for pilots to conduct managed approaches. All flight crews were required to complete this training prior to further operations into the Gold Coast." Additional measures were also put in place.