THE licenses of two air traffic controllers were revoked and 13 air traffic control officials were punished for a near miss at Hongqiao airport last week, China’s civil aviation authority said yesterday.
A China Eastern Airlines passenger aircraft nearly crashed into another plane, owned by the same carrier, during its takeoff on last Tuesday.
He Chao, the captain of the China Eastern’s A320 aircraft, was granted a “first-class merit,” along with other rewards because he successfully defused the crisis, the Civil Aviation Administration of China announced on its official website.
“The air traffic controllers on the control tower were to blame for the ‘serious accident symptoms,’ who forgot the planes’ movements and gave wrong orders to the pilots,” the administration said.
The licenses of the controllers, who were manning the commanding and monitoring seats, were revoked — in one of the cases for life. The controller in the commanding seat was banned from ever undertaking any air traffic control jobs, the administration said.
Thirteen officials with the East China Air Traffic Management Bureau as well as the bureau’s air traffic control center and safety management department were either given Party warnings, serious warnings, had demerits recorded or faced losing their positions, the administration added.
According to a detailed operation record, the A320 moved out from the boarding bridge at 11:54am and entered 36L runway at 12:03am following orders from the air traffic control tower. The controller then gave permission to take off a minute later, and the aircraft began its maneuvering.
The A320 captain and copilot spotted the A330 was about to taxi across the runway when their aircraft’s speed had reached about 200 kilometers per hour. The copilot of A320 initially braked before the captain took over the controls and triggered maximum acceleration to fly over the A330.
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