On Saturday (April 11, 2026), a serious crash occurred in Barcelona (LEPA) on Runway 06L/24R, forcing the runway to be closed for hours. Fortunately, I had positioned myself on Runway 02 as an alternative and watched the drama unfold with interest.
At that point, the Bluescan aircraft was on a short final approach to the active runway 06L and reported its final approach. The weather was exceptionally nice, though there was a 17-knot headwind. Shortly thereafter, another aircraft with the call sign NN93740 reported its final approach to runway 24R (see screenshot).
Completely baffled, I checked to see if I was on the expert server. And then the inevitable happened. Both planes crashed head-on in the middle of the runway! I managed to take off just before the airport was closed.
The whole incident annoyed me unexpectedly, so much so that it really ruined my own flying experience. I wondered why a Category 3 “pilot” would approach an inactive (red-marked) runway, disregarding all the rules (even though he was coming in from the southwest anyway), why no one switched to the parallel runway, and why no one had considered calling for a “go-around.”
Unfortunately, in my experience, such selfish incidents are becoming more frequent—including when it comes to taking shortcuts and cutting across flight paths. And, of course, it then occurred to me, much to my annoyance, why one is penalized for a year for speeding, but not for crashes or flying through a stationary aircraft. In my opinion, this situation urgently needs to be addressed.
Thank you very much for your attention to this matter.
Dennis
Staff received a lot of feedback to improve the expert server. I hope they will address this issue as well. In fact, something like this can be considered, the runway is determined correctly by the game and aircrafts that takeoff or land from the opposite runway will receive a level 1 violation.Maybe other solutions..
This usually stems from users not wanting to deviate from their fpl. Unfortunately, this is a long standing issue that ATC also deals with far too frequently. IRL, most aircraft do not file approaches, but instead just file the STAR and then allow ATC to vector them onto a final.
As for this scenario, red does not indicate an inactive runway, just that the winds are not favorable to land. This could have been avoided if the user had just made a 360, noticing the spacing, or filed a new fpl (which as I said above, IF pilots cling to their fpl like a lifeline, so this rarely happens).
Unfortunate, and I really do wish the ES soon becomes more professional.
I’m in the bunch that changes their FPL an hour to landing or some mins before descent if I realise the landing runway’s turned red. NAV 1 changed, arrival and approach changed. It’s not that much work to alter it, better still if you’re using Simbrief
But it’s practically not possible because at hubs, it becomes difficult to change the traffic flow and if the tailwind is 1 or 2 knots, it’s acceptable and ATC don’t look to change the runway in use. If this feature comes, a lot of things might change.
Whilst I do not agree with both aircraft approaching opposite runways, there have been instances when the game shows the runway as red however due to the headwind/tailwind being very small real world operations use the ‘red’ runway. So pilots trying to be realistic will follow the real world operations.
Your views are interesting. Everyone seems to have a different take on what constitutes a sense of reality. I don’t know how things work where you are, but in Europe, a red traffic light isn’t a suggestion. So why use colored indicators at all? And what, in that sense, is still considered professional?
Because in the sim, a red runway doesn’t indicate stop, it indicates that there is currently a tailwind greater than, I believe, 5 knots. However, there are many airports that directly go against this. One of the most common ones is LAX, where westbound arrivals and departures is almost always the norm, and it is rarely switched to the reverse.
The runway colors are particularly helpful when flying GA, as lighter aircraft are more susceptible to tailwinds than commercial aircraft.
@captain_omer the above is why an automatic system doesn’t work. Many airports operate with slight tailwinds, or have no choice but to operated certain runways given specific terrain or environmental situations.
Last time I was approaching OMDB Dubai. As everything in a sim is about reproducing reality, I wanted to land the same way they were doing IRL, which means with 6-7kts tailwind.
However, 2 other players were using the runways marked green, so I changed to use the runway the same way as them.
But it’s a tiny example to show that its not that simple to create a regulation regarding this.
And you also have airports such as LIRQ Firenze where you can nearly only takeoff facing sea disregarding the tailwind (while including it very cautiously into your TO perf calculations ofc)
