Originally Posted by
ATC Watcher
That could be just a journalist interpretation , who also apparently was wrong when he says that the crew did not know they were involved an incident until they reached London. , the ATC audio clearly shows otherwise. That they did not realise the seriousness of it, that I can believe, but they were informed they did not follow the taxi instructions.
The AA crew was informed there was a deviation and told to make a phone call. The male pilot, presumably the Captain, intimated they were cleared to cross 4L when their instructions were to cross 31L at Kilo. Tower controller was remarkably calm, said we will listen to the tapes, but that they were using 4L for departures. I haven't seen any report on the length of the "phone call " or what was said. But AA 106 sat at the end of 31L for about 30 minutes. While they may not have realized how close they were to disaster, or how much notoriety was in store, they had to know they screwed up.