For those of you advocating landing without a clearance at an Australian airport, bear in mind this incident:
- Conditions were IMC, weather fluctuating about the ILS minima - ie, sometimes it was below minima.
- A Dash8 was lined up 1/3 down the RWY after a preceding landing. A 747 was on final, on TWR freq.
- The Dash was cleared for TKOF. No reply, no movement of the aircraft.
- It rapidly became apparent that the TWR freq was inop, both primary and secondary. (Long tech story, now resolved. Suffice to say it was inop, but in the critical few moments of the incident, no-one knew why.)
- All other TWR freqs (SMC x 2, Clearance Delivery, spare VHF) attempted to call both a/c, no result.
- The light signal to vacate the runway was given to the Dash - no action resulted.
- The 747 appeared out of the murk at the minima.
- The light signal to go around was given to the 747.
- The 747 went around, just before crossing the landing threshold.
Subsequently, the crews of both the Dash and the 747 said they never looked for nor saw the light signals.
The 747 crew said they did not see the Dash on the runway
and went around only because they didn't have a landing clearance.
Which makes being cleared to land when the runway is not clear and you are not #1 (a la USA and, apparently, CDG) aviation safety b u l l s h i t.
We were so close to a LA DC10/Metro tragedy ....
If our outdated procedures saved 300 people and two aircraft, then I for one am proud of and thankful for them. As, I suspect, are the two crews. And their pax, if they know about what nearly happened to them.
AA