From yesterday's LA Times:
LOS ANGELES - Several mistakes by a pilot and a controller caused a corporate jet to land last week on Los Angeles International Airport runway that two other aircraft had already received permission to use, federal aviation authorities said.
The appearance of the corporate jet forced a commuter flight taxiing toward the runway to slam on its brakes. It came within 2,000 feet of a turboprop crossing farther down the runway.
It was the second runway mix-up at the airport in three months.
"The incident did not pose a threat to any of the aircraft involved," said Greg Martin, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration. "Nonetheless, it did involve incursions into our very stringent standards."
The controller who handled the corporate jet has been taken off the job, pending an evaluation, federal officials said.
The event last Wednesday night came one day after the National Transportation Safety Board tried to draw national attention to runway safety problems by releasing video animation of a near-collision between two commercial jets at Los Angeles International on Aug. 19.
The board used the incident to emphasize its calls for a new warning system that would alert pilots if they were about to enter a runway already in use.
In the Aug. 19 event, an Asiana Airlines Boeing 747, arriving from South Korea with hundreds of passengers aboard, came within 185 feet of hitting a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737. The planes had been cleared for the same runway.
Los Angeles International averages 1,800 takeoffs and landings a day.
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