Lanseria Atc Shocker

[CALCULATOR]

This post actualy found on another forum but worth discussion here as well.

On thursday was at lanseria on the taxi with my 172 and saw fire truck/emergency sevices racing to 06L. On the radio we were told to stop taxying and standby due to a inbound emergency?

There was a Comair 737 at the holding point 06L. Next thing we hear is the ATC telling Comair to line up 06L AND THEN GIVEN TAKE OFF clearence.As we looked up we could see the inbound Beech nineteen hundred with one motor feathered(the emergency traffic)at about 1 mile.

The nineteen hundred then had to do a single engine go around due to Comair still clearly on the runway-hadnt even started the take off roll/?

Luckely nineteen hundred turned out left on one motor and was able to land a while later safely.

We are tired of Comair getting priority at Lanseria-shocking controlling,and doesnt emergency traffic get priority.
Could have been a very different outcome if emergency traffic coudnt maintain for some reason.:=:=:=

[Wandering.Aviator]

LOL,

I can't believe it! In the US you would lose you ticket over that. Tell me does this kind of thing happen all of the time? I've flown into FALA a few times and the guys in the tower are way lax. When I flew in New York (JFK, LGA, and EWR) we had emergency all of the time. Everytime they received priority. Even in the busiest airspace in the world. What is wrong with those people!?

[Habari]

Had I been the pilot of the Beech 1900 I would have gone up to the tower and smacked the controller one in the mouth.

[126,7]

What about the Comair? What was he thinking? Certainly he looked out the window, saw the B1900 and still elected to go? Very bad controlling, poor airmanship by the comair crew on top of that.

[Sir Osis of the river]

When I operated out of FALA many moons ago, the ATC were professional, friendly and helpful. (Of course in those days there was no Comair ops from there.) I once had an engine failure in a Twin Otter out of there and they bent over backwards to get me back in first.

Not being in possesion of all the facts, I would not like to speculate exactly what happened.

However if the event took place exactly as described, something has gone seriously wrong in the new RSA ATC system and somebody deserves a good klap around the ears.:=

Glad to hear there were no major consequenses and the B1900 crew got down safely.

Sir O

[jojojett]

Not a very bright thing to do.. Especially since Comair are probably the slowest at just about everything they do.. Taxi,take-off, cruise, descent. Painfully slooooow in fact... :}

[nugpot]

Not a very bright thing to do.. Especially since Comair are probably the slowest at just about everything they do.. Taxi,take-off, cruise, descent. Painfully slooooow in fact...

Nope, they are definitely faster than Turkish and SAA's 319's.

[Gyro Nut]

But slower than SAA B738's.

[Romeo E.T.]

uhem F/O gyro....I have notched up a fair amount of B738's on JNB-CPT sector.

Back to the topic...

FALA has gnd and Twr freq, the Comair would have been on Gnd up to the holding point and may not even have been aware of the inbound emergency and its distance out from the field, on transfer to Twr at the hold probably got take-off clearance as ATC could have tried to expidiate the scheduled traffic departure before the emergency traffic "blocks" the runway, and then the timing and situational awareness snowballed to the point where the B1900 found it necessary to do a SE go-around.

CALCULATOR We are tired of Comair getting priority at Lanseria-shocking controlling....scheduled traffic always get priority over non-scheduled and GA aviation....except med emergency flights/emergency traffic etc/VIP etc.....if as you say you found this on another forum namely AvCom - Your Aviation Community (http://www.avcom.co.za) then please include a lot of the other posts made there...you make it look like Comair are the villains here.:=:=:=:=:=

the full story including the ATC side of the story hasn't even been mentioned yet.

[grizzled]

IF the facts as presented by the OP are correct, an official investigation should indeed be conducted. There is no case in which a controller should put an aircraft onto a live runway with an emergency inbound for the same runway at that distance.
Especially a twin with one engine out. :confused:

[NOTOT]

Where in the law does it state that, schedule traffic get priority over non-schedule???!!!:ugh:

[126,7]

I know that landing traffic always has priority over departing traffic.

[JCO7]

IFR traffic on a flight plan gets priority over VFR GA traffic not on a flight plan, which is the kind of flying I assume the original poster does in his 172 - no wonder Comair gets priority over him.

Regarding the incident, the Comair crew probably were not aware of the proximity of the emergency traffic and had they seen the aircraft on final approach it is difficult to judge whether traffic is on approach to the left or right runway until they are very close. There would have been no reason for them not to follow ATC instructions.

The culprit here is the controller who clearly jeopardised the safety of both the 1900 and the Comair aircraft given take-off clearance. Hopefully the appropriate reports have been filed and action will be taken. This is certainly not the first case of poor controlling at Lanseria.

[Heritage 1]

Where in the law does it state that, schedule traffic get priority over non-schedule???!!!


As an ex-ATC, this used to be in our procedures manual. Not sure if it still is. The priority has always been:
1)Emergency and VIP (State President)
2)Schedule traffic
3)Non-schedule traffic
4)Training flights

[Romeo E.T.]

Heritage 1...thats the way I had it when doing my Genaral R/T licence in 1985

thanks

[NOTOT]

Was this the law in 1985? Sure wasn't when i did my rt lic. in 1984!!!!

The pearls keep cumming!!!!

[EltorroLoco]

Hope u guys are also complaining to the powers that b and not just this forum. The email addresses at ATNS are easy, the first name with the 1st letter of the surname @atns.co.za all lowercase. E.g. "[email protected]" or the COO etc.

With just what's on here to go on it doesn't sound good, but there are are always 3 sides to a story.

As paying customers, u have the right to ask for the best service and explanations if there is not - and I'm an ATC.

Just be polite tho, nothing pisses everyone off more than some ranting know-it-all.

Good luck. Keep giving feedback to the powers, they have no idea, good or bad.

[oompilot]

I was recently doing some flying into Lanseria and was astounded to hear how irate and impatient on of the monkeys in the concrete tree was getting with what everyone could hear was a foreign student pilot. I could hear his confidents draining away as this palooka ranted on at him and could only listen in amazement as this controller took a potentially safe pilot and created a potentially dangerous scenario. Poor show.

We can only be thankful that the 1900 pilots weren’t Airlink graduates or who knows what could have happened. Well done to them for handling what was thrown at them, including Lanseria ATC.

[underneath the radar]

Has any one taken into account the current staffing numbers at FALA, i flew out of there during winter and noted that the ground frequency was only open for a few hours of the day and the rest of the time combined on tower 124.00. Its no excuse for poor controlling but with no leave given to the guys working there tails off during the year, its causes a good atc to make stupid decisions because exhaustion finally catches up.

We only complain about the times we get shafted around but rarely do we even give the atcs a thank you for a shorter routing or the left for landing without asking.

I wonder how it is gona be during the world cup cause from i heard on the news the other day the atcs are going work longer hours, less off days and foreign controllers who will earn R70 000 a month with expenses paid while the locals get half of that and for what? More stress, less sleep and a kick up the :mad: from the company that wont pay them enough to stay in this beautiful country!!!:ugh:

Sometimes in an incident like this we have to look out of the box and actually look at the causes....it might not be as straight forward as we think.