Harrison Ford lands on taxiway KSNA
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Whilst accepting that "anyone can make a mistake" I struggle to see how this happened. Even on the poor quality image posted above 20L is immediately obvious to someone who has never seen the place before, taxiway C looks nothing like a runway to me and additionally is not immediately adjacent to 20R. I've looked on Google Earth and again struggle to see how a well marked runway (albeit visual markings, but clearly defined markings nonetheless) can be confused with a narrow taxiway adjacent to the apron.
Equally, shouldn't the jet parked on it's "threshold" have indicated some other plan of action?
Still, hardly the end of the world, is it?
Equally, shouldn't the jet parked on it's "threshold" have indicated some other plan of action?
Still, hardly the end of the world, is it?
HF's landing in the golf course has been raised in the media and here. Hmmm. I fly a PT-22 occasionally, and while it is fun to fly it glides like a skillet, and has a propensity to have severe stall characteristics, meaning that a stall as often as not results in a departure into an incipient spin. An engine failure in a confined space that doesn't end up badly is hardly something to bitch about. HF is out there keeping private aviation, and historical flight alive in the U.S. Personally I am impressed by the guy.
Landing on a taxiway? at SNA? This is not the first time, nor will it be the last. Remember the neat security cam video of the B738 zipping down the taxiway in a foreign land? As long as taxiways are closely aligned in heading and spacing to the runway human beings will end up with mistakes occurring. You can shoot the victim of poor design, or work on improving the design. One will make you feel superior, the other mitigate the problem.
I have 25K hours, fly my own jets and vintage heavy aircraft as well as aerobatic aircraft. I've learnt enough in 40 years of professional flying, military, RPT, flight test, human factors research, and accident investigation to be careful about the next mistake I make, as I am human, which makes me open to error. I wish I was as perfect as those who are prepared to be disparaging about HF in this or the Cornell engine failure. Personally, I think that he is an inspiration, and would be happy for him to fly any of my aircraft anytime. Right now, I would think HF is the person least likely to ever land on a taxi way again.
Landing on a taxiway? at SNA? This is not the first time, nor will it be the last. Remember the neat security cam video of the B738 zipping down the taxiway in a foreign land? As long as taxiways are closely aligned in heading and spacing to the runway human beings will end up with mistakes occurring. You can shoot the victim of poor design, or work on improving the design. One will make you feel superior, the other mitigate the problem.
I have 25K hours, fly my own jets and vintage heavy aircraft as well as aerobatic aircraft. I've learnt enough in 40 years of professional flying, military, RPT, flight test, human factors research, and accident investigation to be careful about the next mistake I make, as I am human, which makes me open to error. I wish I was as perfect as those who are prepared to be disparaging about HF in this or the Cornell engine failure. Personally, I think that he is an inspiration, and would be happy for him to fly any of my aircraft anytime. Right now, I would think HF is the person least likely to ever land on a taxi way again.
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fdr:
one almost crashed on top of me when I was 12 years old. He stalled out of his third loop showing off in front of his g/f's parents.
I fly a PT-22 occasionally, and while it is fun to fly it glides like a skillet, and has a propensity to have severe stall characteristics, meaning that a stall as often as not results in a departure into an incipient spin.
Psychophysiological entity
At his age, should be even be driving a car on busy roads let alone flying a high performance aircraft ?
The Americans still seem to allow a mix of GA and Airline where possible but here in the southern UK it seems largely barred. Having come from an era when I could and did commute into all the London airfields*, I find it sad, but I can see why it had to stop. Pity, it only cost ten and sixpence to land at LHR and half a crown at Stansted.
(*well, not City, it was still a dock)
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"Was that airliner meant to be underneath me?"
From an HF (Human factor) standpoint that was an important sign, it is a very important characteristic for a pilot to admit your mistakes, be open about it and not cover them up. Everybody makes mistakes but the important thing how to move on after that. HF (Harrison Ford) 
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A local GA airfield (no airline service) with two parallel runways and three parallel taxiways, handles about 1000 operations per day. The tower chief reported at one of the monthly meetings, "Last month we had 12 landings on taxiways, and 3 taxiway takeoffs. The taxiway landings we can blame on the pilot, the takeoffs....we in the tower should have prevented those."
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And didn't Dan Air land at the former RAF Nutts Corner on approach to Belfast (Aldergrove) back in the eighties.
If you have a look on Google, Aldergrove and Langford are only a few miles apart, and the runways are almost on the same heading...
Poor Harrison...looking at Google, it's easy to see how it happened...
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Guys, you don't have to go as far back as Dan-Air. Plenty of more recent examples.
Remember this one, just to name one (taken from the AvHerald):
Incident: Thomson B738 at Paphos on Sep 21st 2011, landed on taxiway
By Simon Hradecky, created Thursday, Sep 22nd 2011 07:59Z, last updated Thursday, Sep 22nd 2011 08:22Z
A Thomson Airways Boeing 737-800, registration G-CDZH performing flight BY-3350 from Doncaster,EN (UK) to Paphos (Cyprus) with 192 passengers and 7 crew, was on approach to Paphos' runway 29 cleared to land on runway 29 when the aircraft aligned with the parallel taxiway and touched down on that taxiway, no other traffic was on the taxiway at that time. The aircraft rolled out safely and taxied to the apron.
Remember this one, just to name one (taken from the AvHerald):
Incident: Thomson B738 at Paphos on Sep 21st 2011, landed on taxiway
By Simon Hradecky, created Thursday, Sep 22nd 2011 07:59Z, last updated Thursday, Sep 22nd 2011 08:22Z
A Thomson Airways Boeing 737-800, registration G-CDZH performing flight BY-3350 from Doncaster,EN (UK) to Paphos (Cyprus) with 192 passengers and 7 crew, was on approach to Paphos' runway 29 cleared to land on runway 29 when the aircraft aligned with the parallel taxiway and touched down on that taxiway, no other traffic was on the taxiway at that time. The aircraft rolled out safely and taxied to the apron.
Human Factors
My view on Harrison Ford is stated previously but I reiterate, he is an inspiration to the aviation community. That is similar to another great who recently passed, R.A. Hoover. "Bob" was a superlative pilot, and inspired me when I was 15 years old, when I did some aeros with him in the puke green T-28B. (It was later in the same day I went flying in A P-51D of a lesser known aviator of great talent, Bob Love). How much was I inspired? I own a T-28B and still enjoy presenting that aircraft to the younger generation, and to the guys who flew it in service, most of who have never got old in heart. Bob Hoover bellied in an aircraft after it was filled with Jet A, while the plane unfortunately had pistons. Blaming people for being human is to discredit the fact that being human is why we have achieved the amazing art of flight.
It will be interesting to see what the FAA's local FSDO's response is, however there has been a sea change in the FAA that has gone unnoticed in recent times. The ASI task has emphasis on compliance still but without the mandatory punitive enforcement policy that poisoned what is arguably one of the premier regulatory authorities on the planet. The original aim of the FAA in the Act was to promote aviation, and that sadly remains defunct, but at least the FAA is getting back to what they do best rather than being the local arm of law enforcement. They will still take punitive action when circumstances warrant such, and so they should, but being human in this day of understanding of human behaviour and risk mitigation should not invoke penalties without Mens Rea.
Human error events highlight opportunities to improve system safety. Punitive action hides the truth by suppressing open reporting. Harrison Ford will be angry with himself, he has that level of personal awareness and integrity; wish there were more people with those ethics around.
It will be interesting to see what the FAA's local FSDO's response is, however there has been a sea change in the FAA that has gone unnoticed in recent times. The ASI task has emphasis on compliance still but without the mandatory punitive enforcement policy that poisoned what is arguably one of the premier regulatory authorities on the planet. The original aim of the FAA in the Act was to promote aviation, and that sadly remains defunct, but at least the FAA is getting back to what they do best rather than being the local arm of law enforcement. They will still take punitive action when circumstances warrant such, and so they should, but being human in this day of understanding of human behaviour and risk mitigation should not invoke penalties without Mens Rea.
Human error events highlight opportunities to improve system safety. Punitive action hides the truth by suppressing open reporting. Harrison Ford will be angry with himself, he has that level of personal awareness and integrity; wish there were more people with those ethics around.
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I truly cannot believe how many of you professional pilots are excusing this incident with the old "it happens a lot" argument, and then bringing up commercial airliner incidents. There is no comparison.
Ford was landing a GA airplane at an airport with a lot of commercial traffic. This should be a "high attention" environment for the recreational pilot. He was directed to the short runway, likely the one Rec pilots almost always use there. He knew the field well, and lands there a lot.
And then, he fails to see the big numbers on the end of the runway, or to grasp the visual image of the runway and its width in front of him, and lands on a very narrow taxiway instead.
No. Sorry. He lost the plot. Should have gone around.
Ford was landing a GA airplane at an airport with a lot of commercial traffic. This should be a "high attention" environment for the recreational pilot. He was directed to the short runway, likely the one Rec pilots almost always use there. He knew the field well, and lands there a lot.
And then, he fails to see the big numbers on the end of the runway, or to grasp the visual image of the runway and its width in front of him, and lands on a very narrow taxiway instead.
No. Sorry. He lost the plot. Should have gone around.
Chicken House
Do you know anything about a Husky?
Hint: tandem seating
From the picture of vapilot I hardly get he should have missed the runway. He flies there frequently and he flies a lot and will know that airport very well. Was there a young blonde Indyfan on right seat?
Hint: tandem seating
Also I have a feeling Air Malta had a problem at Gatwick over confusion between the runway and parallel taxiway, again in the eighties.
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Obgraham
I don't think anyone is trying to minimise the potential of a collision landing on a taxiway ?
I found it hard to comprehend how the Airbus landing with two professional pilots on a disused airfield could do so?
Ok some way out it's understandable but surely two sets of eyes must have picked up visual clues that this was a disused and not an active runway
Yet they landed off that
There is a huge similarity
Commercial airline mistakes were used to combat the tone of the thread relating to his age and to identify why even experienced professional pilots will do such crazy things under pressure
The airline examples were used to highlight a problem which works across the board rather than just to the inexperienced or old GA pilot
I don't think anyone is trying to minimise the potential of a collision landing on a taxiway ?
I found it hard to comprehend how the Airbus landing with two professional pilots on a disused airfield could do so?
Ok some way out it's understandable but surely two sets of eyes must have picked up visual clues that this was a disused and not an active runway
Yet they landed off that
There is a huge similarity
Commercial airline mistakes were used to combat the tone of the thread relating to his age and to identify why even experienced professional pilots will do such crazy things under pressure
The airline examples were used to highlight a problem which works across the board rather than just to the inexperienced or old GA pilot
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He knew the field well, and lands there a lot.
Are you certain of that? Ford's hangars and airplanes are all at KSMO.
Are you certain of that? Ford's hangars and airplanes are all at KSMO.
Do you know anything about a Husky?
Hint: tandem seating
Hint: tandem seating
Hint: sideslip and observation.
A better "commercial" analogy to this would be the jet that nearly landed on the Bath Rd having mistaken it for the runway.
Mr Ford's question "Was that jet supposed to be underneath me" suggests he was happy that he was accurately lined up on the landing strip - as indeed he was, until something out of the ordinary at the last moment told him something wasn't right. It just wasn't the right strip. Somehow he convinced himself that the strip he lined up on was the correct one but he evidently didn't verify that sufficiently in the first instance and then failed to reverify it throughout the rest of the approach all the way to touchdown. (= fat, dumb and happy. Complacency is a poor place to be at a complex international field) But why carry on to touchdown after seeing that? Suggests to me the antennae weren't sufficiently deployed to immediately think something's VERY wrong here, so Go Around!
I do agree that HF is probably the least likely person on earth to make that mistake again so nowt worse than a rather publicly hard-learned lesson.
Psychophysiological entity
"Bob" was a superlative pilot, and inspired me when I was 15 years old, when I did some aeros with him in the puke green T-28B. (It was later in the same day I went flying in A P-51D of a lesser known aviator of great talent, Bob Love).
Aircraft flown entirely by Roberts
Apologies to NTNOCN
After one of our pilots landed at the wrong airport ( I know of 3 such incidents during my employment ) our esteemed Manager threatened the next criminal with the sack. He then went and landed at USAF base Burtonwood instead of Manchester Ringway. He didn't sack himself.
One incident involved the crew landing at Cartierville (? name ?) GA airport just
north of the then Dorval Montreal international airport. A private pilot in a Cessna saw the landing and thought " The mighty XXXX airline can't be wrong" so he went and landed at Dorval !
One incident involved the crew landing at Cartierville (? name ?) GA airport just
north of the then Dorval Montreal international airport. A private pilot in a Cessna saw the landing and thought " The mighty XXXX airline can't be wrong" so he went and landed at Dorval !
