Airbatic7eca
Like I said before, landing one airplane on top of another airplane has absolutely no excuse, regardless of the country in which it occurs. I have only seen this happen one time, and it was in the UK.
Did you actually see an aircraft land on top of another in the UK ... or just a close call ? Some UK airfields can use a conditional clearance to land, where the landing pilot provides his own separation against the specified departing traffic. I don't know if Southend does have this procedure or not. Alternatively, it could have been an error or misjudgement on someones part. It happens all over the world.
We, in Europe, are all very lucky to have such a good ATC system. Although in my opinion it doesn’t compare at all to the US system,
If we come away from the generalisations, the US Air 737 being cleared to land on top of a Skywest Metro and killing 20+ people at LAX in 1991 is not exactly a shining beacon to the world. Runway incursions continue to be a threat in the US system, albeit not the fault of ATC most of the time.
There are good and bad examples of ATC in any system anywhere in the world. Most accidents however seem to have an element of pilot error as a cause, the percentage of those with an ATC aspect are considerably smaller. Discussion and debate such as this one can help raise awareness and let those being criticised do one of 2 things --- either be a victim (it's someone else's fault, there is no problem, you're all wrong) or take the bull by the horns and review the perceptions and reported issues and provide a resolution. Which improves the safety of aviation for us all ???