Medium Transport; Low Wing; 2 Turbojet Eng
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Situational Awareness; Distraction; Workload
ATC Issue All Types; Conflict Airborne Conflict; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter CFTT / CFIT
General None Reported / Taken
Airport; Environment - Non Weather Related; Procedure
This report is about an EGPWS and TCAS alert/advisory received while on a visual approach into Aspen; CO for runway 15. Conditions were day VFR; visibility was 10 sm or better with light winds. I was pilot monitoring. We approached the airport from the south and were given vectors for a visual in left traffic. Once cleared for the approach the captain lined up for final before DBL/Red Table VOR. We had to clear a mountain or go around it; proceed down the valley and then re-line up for final or stay on our extended final with the runway. The option was to stay on the final and proceed to descend as a departing [corporate jet] was going to conflict with our approach if we didn't descend early as the procedure he flew had him eventually turn in our direction. Upon descent we received an EGPWS caution for 3-4 seconds followed by an EGPWS warning which lasted for 2-3 seconds. We were visually clear of the terrain as visibility was very good. The captain was familiar with the airport and it did not bother me or put me in a position of discomfort. Continuing the approach the departing aircraft while climbing turned late per the ATC instruction and we received an RA to descend to avoid conflict. We had the aircraft in sight from when it departed the runway and we were able to watch it pass over and off our left side by 1-3 nautical miles. We never had a doubt about a potential mid-air as he was climbing aggressively and we were descending. He would have had to make an extremely steep bank and descent to come near us; let alone contact us. We viewed both of these as non-events regarding safety for us; our passengers; aircraft; those on the ground; etc. We contacted an Assistant Chief Pilot on duty and also a union representative. We concluded it was best to file the ASAP report despite the non-event that occurred. After discussing the issue at hand; we felt that the changes to the visual procedure we did could have been to 1. Go around the mountain; down the valley (of which we weren't sure about due to a potential conflict) 2. Stayed higher for a longer period of time; then proceed to descend. The drawback is a steep descent at slow airspeed in mountainous terrain. Regarding the RA; we did not feel that any other changes in flight would have changed the outcome as we were not in an unsafe position with the conflicting traffic.
A fractional operator flight crew reported that during an approach into Aspen; CO was advised of departing traffic and to descend early to avoid conflict. The flight received both EGPWS and TCAS RA alerts while the airport; terrain; and other aircraft were in sight.