Originally Posted by
Allioth
Knowing Italians, there's a HUGE possibility that someone on TWR has guided that poor plane onto the taxiway!!!
Ok, no need for an investigation anymore: it's now official, the Tower controller was PF on the Ryanair flight
Seriously now...
Carmoisine
Thanks for the very informative reply. Couldn't agree more, by the way: seems like Cagliari has a few operational flaws that spoil the overall 'customer experience'. You may know that Roma ACC is civilian and Cagliari Approach is military: not to say that either is better or worse, but this may contribute to the poor coordination between the ATS units (a poor coordination which, let's be clear, I'm far from excusing).
Generally speaking, I believe the (several changes to the) runway setup in Cagliari were a blatant contributory factor to the incident. I'm not blaming ATC for not realising the 737 wasn't aligned with the proper runway, because a) I don't know whether they have a radar presentation in the Tower and b) in case they haven't, it is far from obvious to spot the error (in time) on such tightly spaced approach paths - the centerlines are approx 180 meters apart.