near mid air collision KLAS?

[bomarc]

a friend who was piloting a 757 into KLAS yesterday (aug 12) witnessed:

SWA 737 cleared for takeoff...second southwest cleared for takeoff to maintain visual sep with preceeding SWA 737...rolled while preceeding 737 still on ground but accelerating for takeoff.

Third swa 737 was cleared to land on intersecting runway, but for unknown reasons went around.

ATC yelling to second SWA 737 to stop climb (100 to 300 feet agl) and they did...the third SWA 737 went around over the top of the second.

phew.

anyone hear about this incident?

[dvv]

At what time did it happen?

[bomarc]

don't have the time...my friend is enroute KLAS to KMCO right now so I can't check.

figure it was in the afternoon.

[dvv]

Anyway, http://www.liveatc.net/archive.php might (or might not) have something. Just narrow the time down a little bit.

[heidelberg]

Looks like the gambling at the Casinos has transferred to the TWR!!!!

[Navy_Adversary]

Do you find that misunderstandings regarding call signs are more prevelant when there is company traffic about?
For example, the pilot of the second SWA may have been flying the first flight the day before and mixed up his call sign.
I know that this wasn't the case, but Southwest and other airlines having so many flights these days it must become confusing at times.

[poorwanderingwun]

Something that I think many of us have experienced over there is that sometimes the controllers try to be just a bit too slick and leave too little room for contingencies... On one occasion (Omaha) we were told twice that we had a 73 close behind on finals and to keep the speed up which we did.. we landed and while on the roll-out heard the 73 going around... turned out that the twr had cleared an MD83 to line up after we'd touched down ! Then I was asked by the tower to contact them by phone and told that they were forwarding a report to the FAA on the basis that our a/c did not clear the runway quickly enough ! The FAA guy listened to the tapes and came down on the twr controllers like a Machine of Fate.. apparantly the previous couple of hours on the tape had been a catalogue poor handling.

[Dave Gittins]

I've never haerd that one before .. as a mere PPL perhaps I haven't been in the right places.

My opinion is that if I am legitimately on the runway then everybody else has to wait for me to move (unless I have parked and got out to shoot rabbits or something.)

If ATC have put somebody too close behind me .. and the other guy (who as aircraft commander still has to exercise good airmanship) hasn't said "hey we are getting a bit close - we wanna go round" .. it's up to them to sort out.

DGG

[poorwanderingwun]

DAVE GITTINS

That was exactly the comment made by the FAA guy to me when he came back after writing the report... "when you land that's YOUR runway... the rest is THEIR problem" ... Obviously this has to be taken sensibly, no one expects you to bring an aircraft to a halt on the runway while the NHP reads out the after landing checks but yes... it's their problem and in this case they created the problem.

[bomarc]

poorwonderingwun

quite right...there is always a chance a plane will abort a takeoff, blow a tire, or a much more serious problems.

especially at airports like KLAS...higher elevation, very hot, short turn around times and you might have overheated brakes/tires etc.

pilots must always have an alternative course of action ...but sometimes it seems that the only alternative that ATC has is a collision.

I stand by the story I posted, as my friend of some 27 years, that I taught to fly, made the report and witnessed it from his jet.

[dvv]

bomarc (http://www.pprune.org/forums/member.php?u=161653), who is it your friend flies for and where was his flight to LAS from? I think we can find the time of the incident without bothering your friend too much.

[ATC Watcher]

Third swa 737 was cleared to land on intersecting runway, but for unknown reasons went around.


That is the main reason why most controllers and pilots around the world do not accept LAHSO . It is a pity that we will most probably have to wait for a collision to happen for this silly procedure implemented for pure gain of capacity reasons to be scrapped .

As to pushing departures beyond limits ( not to mention wake turbulence ) this is another serious but separate problem . But as long as airport managers will praise ATC for getting 60a/c an hour out of a single runway and use this as a commercial advantage, this is not going to stop but also is going to end up badly one day.

There was a time , not that long ago, when the USA were the leaders in the world as far as ATC was concerned . What happenned ?

[120.4]

Bomarc

I believe you are correct. We have got so used to routine operations that it is easy to forget that things do go wrong; errors of judgement are made; failures happen. Loading the runways and ATC system to maximum capacity is therefore unwise because it leaves no boltholes. It is time for the industry to recognise that.

.4

[bomarc]

ATCwatcher:

where did america go wrong? I'll tell you of three Federal Govt. decisions that have lead us here:

1. late 1970's, President Carter signed deregulation of the airline industry into law.

2. early 1980's President Regan fired all the air traffic controllers (FAA started from square one, FAA agenda was to never let this happen again...therefore spend money on machines not people)

3. 2000...Congress did away with slot controls at major US Airports...anyone can fly anywhere in the US...FAA slot restrictions for ATC purposes are just reccomendations. Airport X can handle 60 movements an hour...schedule 80 or 90 and things will always run late.

Welcome to capitalism in the jet age.

120.4...what is a bolthole? I think I know what you mean, but we are seperated by a common language.

In the US, the industry won't get it, unless we re-regulate the industry...Airport X can handle 60 movements an hour...the New Civil Aeronautics board says: fine, we will allow 50 schedules flights, we will demand no planes smaller than 110 seats, and encourage connecting flights through hub airports an hour away. Things will run on time, prices will go up and I would be happy to pay more for a flight that runs on time.


LET alone avoid the pushing of ATC controllers to keep things moving at the expense of near mid airs...or worse.

fly safe!

B

[120.4]

Hi Bomarc

A bolthole is a safe haven, shelter, place of retreat; i.e. somewhere to run to when it's all gone "pearshaped", as we say over here (i.e. instead of perfectly round).

I think you sum things up pretty well. Unfortunately, the bean counters see spare capacity as wasted capacity whereas we all here see it as the bolthole that gives you a way out when things have gone wrong. The fact is that we have all got so very good at delivering the very maximium physically possible off a runway that it is now expected to be the norm.

Heathrow is the only sector I know in the UK where the traffic is deliberately and openly flowed above the capacity of the runway (usually the forecast landing rate, plus 2 per hour) with the specific intent of pressurising the system into high landing rates. I have nothing at all against efficiency - in fact I called for improved ATC performance at Gatwick a number of years ago because spacing was nothing like as good as Heathrow - but that does not mean backing ATC into a corner that they have no way out of.

I am sure it will be exactly the same in the US. We need a system-wide change in our attitude to capacity.

.4

[Larry in TN]

Unfortunately, the way ATC looks at it you're cleared to land, not cleared to go around. They aren't required to protect the airspace that you'd occupy in the event of a go around in VMC.

LAHSO isn't the problem, either. You could shorten both LAS runways just enough so that there's no intersection and the problem would be the same.

[ATC Watcher]

Bomarc, I was sarcastic when I asked what happenned , but I agree with you.

On the fact that modern managers do not know the nature of the job they are in : I do not like much politicians and management in general , but one has to remain realistic as to the game being played and who to shoot at for what goes wrong.

I have met on 2 occasions your current administrator, Marion Blakey , first in San Diego, in 2002 when she was just nominated , and more recently in France.

At the begining she was full of good intentions and was led to beleive she could change things, and she had some good ideas . " It's time to bing America back into the international Aviation Communauty in a leading role " she said then if I remember.
When I met her recently she had been burned by many years of desillusion and political battles lost in your congress . 80% of her job is on getting things funded and convincing people that you need money to run a proper ATC. Most of the other 20% is fighting internal fights within the FAA, extinguishing fires ( your vist to Mrs Garvey fell into that category I guess) and people management.
Do you need to be a pilot or a controller to do this, or can a (good) Lawyer do this better ?

The real issue is what you said : we live in a world which is getting more and more liberal, and money and return on investment runs the show. The Southwest story here is just an annecdote .Nobody other than the end of the line operators ( pilots and controllers) get burned. Only when 2 hit each other and the media gets in , do the real players get shot at.

But they almost all survive to make another movie , just like in Hollywood.

[A310driver]

Was witness ...and almost participant... in a similar situation at KDCA years ago. Departing behind a 727 on 36(that was the rwy # then); it rolls while a previously cleared-to-land DC 9 about to touch down on 33 decides to go around. (we were holding in position on 36 waiting for the 9 to clear downfield). The two aircraft crossed at the intersection with what apperaed to be about 20 ft vertical separation ( forget who was on top but think it was the -9)while we were expecting to see aluminum and other parts falling out of the sky in front of us.

Stuff happens and happened then too....15 or so years ago.

[shredder110]

Remember guys, 19's and 25's operate on different tower freqs. The aircraft on 19L was given a go around by tower due to crossing takeoff traffic on 25R. Tower let one too many aircraft takeoff then told the 19 landing plane to waveoff, but now you have two aircraft both climbing thus the conflict.

[bomarc]

shredder110

were you there...you seem to have special knowledge...and yes, different tower freqs

[Avman]

I remember being at Schiphol watching arrivals on 18R & 18C with departures on 24 and wondering what the GA procedure for 18R/18C was. I'm not au fait with SPL ATC procedures and it could well be that 24 deps are staggered in relation to arrivals - but somehow I doubt it. Can any SPL ATCOs comment?

[bomarc]

by the way, the time for this incident was aug 13 at or after 12:45pm local time in las vegas (1945z) but before 1 pm local (2000z)

if anyone pulls the tapes off a web site, try to get both tower freqs

my friend was in 797 (you will figure out the airline if you get the tape)

[ok1]

I figured out that your friend was in the USAir 797 that landed at 2051z according to flightaware.com, last contact they made on the approach frequency was at 20:47:40, before switching to the tower that handles 25R. Unfortunately, liveatc.net cycles between all these frequencies, so there's no record of the incident itself:

KLAS TOWER 19R - 118.75 25R - 119.90
DEPARTURE SOUTH - 125.90
NORTH - 125.025 - 125.05
APPROACH WEST - 133.95
EAST - 127.15,119.40,135.00,118.40
VFR FINAL - 120.45
METRO - 123.825
UNICOM - 122.95
EMERG - 121.50

[bomarc]

ok1

good try and thanks...you were right about my friend's flight.

be well and fly safe!

[dvv]

The one going around must've been SWA81 at 50 minutes after the hour - see http://flightaware.com/live/flight/SWA81/history/20070812/1532Z/KBUF/KLAS/tracklog and his unhappy remark about his gas situation in liveatc.com archive file. Too bad we cannot get the tower tapes as easily.