Close call at Taipei

[Ye Olde Pilot]

Taipei (dpa) - A Japanese and a Taiwanese passenger jets nearly collided Sunday at Taoyuan International Airport due to the Japanese jet's delayed takeoff from the runway, a newspaper said Monday.

The incident occurred at about 3:10 pm Sunday when a Japan Asia Airways (JAA) aircraft was taxiing on a runway for takeoff to Japan, and a China Airline's Boeing 747 was preparing to land on the same runway, the China Times reported.

As the JAA jet was taxiing, its engine died and its takeoff was delayed, but the CAL jet was not immediately notified, and it began to descend to land.

The airport control tower alerted the Boeing 747 about the JAA jet's delayed takeoff when the Boeing 747 was about 200 metres from the JAA jet. The Boeing 747 pulled up its landing gear, delayed its landing and prevented a possible head-on crash.

The China Times said that aviation authorities suspect that the JAA pilot's lack of experience and the airport control tower's failure to immediately notify the CAL Boeing 747 about the JAA jet's delayed takeoff caused the near-collision.

[Catabolic IBS]

Sounds like a pretty standard Go-around can't see where the excitement is:confused:

[Herc Jerk]

Yes but what our highly knowledgeable reporter friend forgot to mention in his/her haste to break this riveting story is that both airliners are manufactured in the USA and as such are subject to rigorous testing, including head on collisions up to 35mph.

Of course everyone knows that only Boeing airliners come fitted with passenger side factory standard airbags so the likelyhood of any casualties would have been very low...

HJ

[canadair]

uuhh,
Ye Old Pilot, not sure how it was in Ye Old Days,
but nowadays, we tend to actually look at the runway before we land.
Therefore NOT landing on top of the aircraft which has yet to commence the roll.
Were we to use your reporting criteria, every landing at a busy major airport would be a potential collision averted, by the amazing fact that the preceding took off!
whatever.

[SMOC]

Exactly, that bloody inexperienced JAA pilot should have taken off with with dead engine, I can't believe they're allowed in the skies, lucky the China Airlines was there to save the day. :eek:

[OldChinaHand]

I cannot understand how they managed to write that without the word Hero appearing multiple times, my condolences to the dead engine and its family.

[cwatters]

> The airport control tower alerted the Boeing 747 about the JAA jet's
> delayed takeoff when the Boeing 747 was about 200 metres from the JAA
> jet.

So presumably that translates as the 747 was down to 600 feet/200 meters when they got the GA?

[calsar]

A go-around due to a blocked runway is a normal procedure. After operating out of Heathrow where the seperation can be down to 2 1/2 miles on approach and the USA with the ATC that thinks you are flying a C172 not a B747-400 go-arounds are not uncommon. But saying it was a China Airlines aircraft doing the go-around, I work for them, then that in its self is a dangourous manouver as has been proved many times in the not so distant past. Do not mention Honolulu!

[barit1]

then that in its self is a dangourous manouver as has been proved many times
Not as dangourous :) as NOT going around...:}

[nudger]

Then again..... CAL and go-arounds!!! :eek:

[MrBernoulli]

Calsar - "Do not mention Honolulu!"

OK, I won't :}

[remote]

barit 1

"not as dangerous as not going around".

In the real world perhaps. CAL proves otherwise.

Remember that 3 week old -400 that went "splash" the end of RWY 13 at Kai Tak after failing to go-around when he probably should have..
loss of life...two or three out of a relatively full ship, if I remember. Lucky.

Aircraft ended up with a few scratches and a dit damp, but HKCAB decided to blow the tail off (as it was limiting airport ops) and hence an expensive write off for CAL.

This may have promted a never before heard of "if in doubt..go-around culture at CAL" (perhaps with a "you better have a good excuse to save face" clause attached).

Then a few years later were a couple of identical A300-600 go around attempts in perfectly serviceable aircraft at NGO and TPE...loss of life...all on board (300ish in both cases).

I guess back then the training dept at CAL had failed to take note of that new ops philosophy and include go-arounds in the training...and from the way CALSAR puts it here, if onboard CAL he'd still rather take his chances in a slightly bent aircraft off the side/end than hear those donks spooling up at 500' .

And what happened in HNL?

[barit1]

Thanks for making my point. Go-arounds are occasionally required for any number of reasons. Like any other ops they must be trained & practiced to put everyone on the same page, and assure as safe an execution as possible.

[Globaliser]

Remember that 3 week old -400 that went "splash" the end of RWY 13 at Kai Tak after failing to go-around when he probably should have..

loss of life...two or three out of a relatively full ship, if I remember. Lucky.Actually even luckier - no fatalities (http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19931104-0). (And just said for pedantic correctness.)

[calsar]

Only those pilots in China airlines are allowed not to know about it!