Originally Posted by
ATC Watcher
No he did not challenge the line up clerance, he accepted it , Listen to the R/T , he knew he was 3 NM out and got the traffic info on the SW. and continued CAT III. What he questionned later is if he was still clear to land. . A very different question , especially under LVP. Ops.
The preliminary NTSB report makes clear that the FDX pilot’s cleared-to-land query was “because he was concerned about the Southwest traffic.” That query was transmitted after WN708 received its takeoff clearance. One lesson to be learned from this incident for both pilots and controllers is to be as clear and concise as possible with communications. If the FDX pilot’s concern was separation from the departing 737, he should have stated that in his query. Yes, that’s implied in a cleared-to-land query, but there’s no guarantee how the LC will interpret that query. In this incident, the LC took no apparent immediate action to verify separation based on the FDX cleared-to-land query. It wasn’t until approximately 40 seconds later that the LC queried WN708’s status.