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Old 24th Sep 2011, 21:42
  #99 (permalink)  
Prober
 
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: New Forest
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It happens!

All the excellent suggestions could be incorporated and they may well save the odd incident. In many years of ops, I experienced two near ‘misses’ in this arena. One going into Ovda, VOR let down, breaking cloud on limits, 30 degrees offset. 2 parallel r/ws and a narrow parallel taxiway. One r/w was completely dug up (Notamed). Almost sunset, r/w wet, sun reflected off the taxiway giving the appearance of lighting. At about 2 miles, serious doubt flooded in – it looked frightfully narrow. I realized the error just as the tower said “That’s the taxiway!” A quick side-step saved the day and, fortunately for me, the CAA inspector who was on the jump seat, said that he had been fooled as well. Phew!
The other occurred at LHR. Absolutely inexplicable and well may be in the same category as the Paphos incident. LHR Easterlies land only on the Left of the two parallels. T/O’s are from both. ILS idented AA for L and BB for R. With 2 very (very) experienced operators, we established on the R until Tower (many, many thanks), queried it. We had both idented the ILS, both were based at LHR and both had operated there for at least 20 years. Why? I have often wondered and tried to analyse this, but to no avail. I am afraid that, every now and again, sh*t happens.
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