Westjet Runway Incursion at LAX

[dfish]

A packed WestJet plane from Calgary nearly collided with another airplane that was barrelling down a Los Angeles runway at 240 kilometres per hour, officials said Friday.

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/08/17/westjet-miss.html

Dave F.

[Brian Abraham]

LAX seems to be building a reputation. How many is that in quite recent times?

Edited to answer my own question. 8 times this year says the article.

[PaperTiger]

I've asked this before and never got a satisfactory answer. Specifically at LAX (SEA, ATL and others) why are arrivals on the outer parallel and departures on the inner ? Swapping the usage would mean incursions such as this would be impossible.

Anyone ?

[Idle Thrust]

Excellent question Tiger.

Also the US generally requires you to stay on the tower frequency until clear of both (or all) parallels. This is not always true internationally, in fact most airports want you on ground immediately after clearing the active upon which you just landed.

Why can we not have standardization? Or do I make a funny?

[RobertS975]

Paper Tiger asked: "I've asked this before and never got a satisfactory answer. Specifically at LAX (SEA, ATL and others) why are arrivals on the outer parallel and departures on the inner ? Swapping the usage would mean incursions such as this would be impossible."

The answer is really quite simple... using the outer parallels for landing allows for simultaneous instrument approaches. Using the inner parallels would not work as they are too close to each other.

[Danny]

Anyone wondering what happened to the pots that have disappeared, please go to a copy of this thread at http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=288585. There, the usual culprits, you know, the ones that have an interminable habit of inserting their own, not quite honed points of view but with a subtle and obvious distraction from the content of the thread can harp on about something not related to it. :ugh: :rolleyes:

[cossack]

The practice of landing the outer, departing the inner is much preferred to the other way since the controller has control of when to roll the departure with reference to the crossing traffic (assuming everyone does as they're supposed to) as opposed to crossing a stream of arrivals with every departure, many of which will be heavily laden. We use simultaneous IFR approaches as our runways are about 2 miles apart.
At YYZ we too require all arrivals to remain with tower for the crossing of the inner runway. Occasionally some will call ground in between and be "educated." Some controllers have adopted a "stay with me" phrase but we shouldn't have too, it just adds to the assumption that unless your told to "stay with me" its OK to change.
Unless you're given a frequency change, don't change.

[boofta]

The outers are shorter, the heavies need more length for takeoff.

[dfish]

I think I'm losing it, I could have sworn there was a post here, that said YYZ is one of worst airports around. I wanted to inform them the YYZ is ranked 17th in N. America. Oh well.............

Dave F.

[barit1]

NTSB preliminary (http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20070821X01217&key=1)

[bomarc]

a recent report in the national post paper of canada indicates quite clearly that the problem appears to be with LAX FAA/ATC.

Westjet appears to have even asked again if he was cleared to cross the runway.

FAA was looking for a written regulation that Westjet had violated but couldn't find one.

controller has been suspended or something akin to that...pilot is still flying.

YOU ALL BE CAREFUL AT LAX!

[Brian Abraham]

From Avweb
Blakey Urges LAX to Fix Runways

FAA Administrator Marion Blakey urged Los Angeles officials to get on with the job of putting more distance between two heavily-used parallel runways a week after two airliners came within 40 feet of colliding at a runway/taxiway intersection."I'll put it plainly," Associated Press quoted her as telling a lunch meeting of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. "However you decide to fix the airfield, get it done.

"The problem here is that the parallel runways on the north side are too close together," she said. "A landing aircraft that leaves the outward runway on a high-speed taxiway literally has only a few feet to stop before crossing the inner runway hold line." On Aug. 16 a WestJet Boeing 737 stopped just short of a runway being used by a Northwest A320 for takeoff and the wingtip of the Airbus passed 37 feet from the nose of the 737. And it now appears the ground controller handling the WestJet plane will take the full rap for the incident even though the FAA insists the Canadian pilot was partly to blame.

FAA spokesman Ian Gregor told the Calgary Herald that the unnamed pilot will avoid blame because there's no regulation covering the error he made in switching from the tower frequency to the ground controller before being told to do so. Gregor said it's "standard procedure" to wait for authorization from the tower before switching to ground but it's not a formal reg. In Gregor's mind, that doesn't leave the pilot off the hook. "It is our position that the actions of the WestJet pilot contributed to the incident by creating confusion in the air traffic controller's mind," Gregor said. WestJet was happy to fly through the loophole, however. Spokesman Richard Bartrem said that while such handoffs are mandatory in Canada, they aren't in the U.S. "There's an inconsistent application in the U.S. as to when that handshake, if you will, takes place," he said. "We didn't receive authorization, but it's not required," he said.

[llondel]

There's an inconsistent application in the U.S. as to when that handshake, if you will, takes place," he said. "We didn't receive authorization, but it's not required

Now there's a nice big hole in the cheese. The FAA needs to get its act together and make it a mandatory requirement before there's an incursion leading to a crash. They've had their warning.

[bomarc]

we all know that getting off the runway on a hi-speed turnoff/taxiway is something used to expedite the flow of traffic...so here the head of the FAA wants the whole darn airport to be changed...lots of money

<<< "A landing aircraft that leaves the outward runway on a high-speed taxiway literally has only a few feet to stop before crossing the inner runway hold line." >>>

of course safety could be enhanced by just :
1. closing hi-speed turnoff and using the next regular turnoff, or rebuilding the hi speeds into normal slow speed turnoffs, this would encourage taxiing at slow speed to avoid inadvertantly crossing the inner runway.

2. or, advising on ATIS...do not change frequency without ATC authorization.
Yes, traffic won't flow as expeditiously...but, then whart are our priorities?

[PaperTiger]

Now there's a nice big hole in the cheese. The FAA needs to get its act together and make it a mandatory requirement before there's an incursion leading to a crash. They've had their warning.Nobody's died yet though. FAA = Fix After Accident.

[westhawk]

It's absolutely true that the "procedure" of waiting to be instructed to switch to ground frequency is inconsistently applied from one US airport to the next. That should be corrected.

And while they're at it, the time is long past due to eliminate the "implied" runway crossing clearance. Explicit clearance to cross each marked runway should be required. Only in this way will pilots always be conditioned to stop for any holding position sign or marking unless specifically cleared to cross that particular runway. Had such a policy been in effect, this particular occurrence and multitudes of others like it could never have happened.

The big runway collision that is nearly sure to happen at some future time under the current policy would be prevented. That's not to say that the elimination of this particular hazardous practice will solve all problems, but it would go along way toward eliminating one very serious hazard with a simple policy change.

Get with the program FAA!

Best,

Westhawk