Runway Incursion at JFK
 

ABC news reported a runway incursion at JFK.

The takeoff was then delayed for 3 hours while the cockpit crew changed their shorts (my interpretation).

JetBlue: Flight Forced to Abort Takeoff at Kennedy Airport - ABC News

If that's the second in a few months, then maybe they need to install traffic lights on the intersections....

they might have had to wait for the brakes to cool after a max weight, high speed reject.

Nah, that's why the French fitted hair dryers to the wheels! :ok:

Oddly enough I was behind a Caribbean Airways flight departing from Heathrow 27R a few years back before they changed the taxiways in that corner and he drove onto the grass and got firmly stuck! Caused equal amounts of chaos there as well.

Personally I find JFK is a mess and this sort of incident is always an issue. Kudos to the Jet Blue guys who reacted pretty well IMHO.

comms
 

Asking from a communications engineer perspective-

Tower is heard calling the #526 without replies, yes?

I'm hoping that's not due to radio issues as that would be SO 20th Century.

Failure to receive or listen to taxi clearances would seem to be the highest risk to success during this phase of flight.

So is it a rarity for a crew not to hear a call like that?
Are there other factors that enter in?

And yes, a simple red light seems like a good idea to me. Not a total solution but another slice of cheese with not many holes.

Commentator remarked: "We haven't put any new technology in"
Exactly!
Does JFK have red STOP bars? I can't remember, but it would surely cost less than a high speed collision between two A380s.

Tricky to tell from the synopsis whether the Caribbean was on the taxy way or whether it was performing 'Land hold short' ops. The details will come out in the report I'm sure.

There are technologies available for taxy way warnings of incursion. Manchester trialed them for quite some time. Also RAAS would help if it was made mandatory for operations at high density traffic airfields.

Just my musings.

Reports are that the CAL flight was told to hold short of 22R which they acknowledged.

Kennedy is in line to get Runway Status Lights in 2017. I was involved with the prototype installation at DFW in 2005. Normal government delay.


And they don't do LAHSO at JFK.


https://www.faasafety.gov/files/noti...1/Aug/RWSL.pdf

Not so sure about that, I've been advised of LAHSO during a Carnasie approach onto 13L at JFK that I had to decline.

Perhaps it's changed but it was always a procedure that I wasn't allowed and maybe it's been withdrawn. (hopefully)

LAHSO
 

Why does an Airline have to get permission to accept a LAHSO clearance? What is so special about the actual manoeuvre?

Authority (or lack thereof) for LAHSO is in the Ops Specs specific to the particular airline. A LAHSO clearance issued by ATC even when allowed by the book is still ultimately accepted at the Captain's discretion.

JFK can be a bit of a jungle but at times you have to wonder if everyone actually has the taxi chart out and is not just relying on ambiguous yellow signs and the tender, thoughtful instructions given by ground control to stay on the straight and narrow.

From the LiveATC.net recording, Caribbean landed 22L and JetBlue was taking off from 22R. The taxi clearance is not on the recording but there are two calls from the Tower, one calling for Caribbean to hold short and then another to stop (controller sounded anxious by now), there was no reply to either. The Tower then called for JetBlue to abort their take-off.

JetBlue exited at G so I presume Caribbean was crossing 22R at H or J.

I was basing that on the fact there are no LAHSO markings on the current taxi chart and no LAHSO distances on the flip side.

It appears that the Caribbean airliner was on the wrong frequency, and maybe never received the hold short .......but who crosses a busy active parallel ry without clearance to do so?...
There isn't stop bar lights as far as I remember but I believe it has Ry guard lights( Amber flashing).
As previously mentioned this wasn't a "lahso" but rather exit 22L, taxi 100 meters on hi speed turnoff followed by another right turn ...taxi 200 Meters before crossing a well marked runway perpendicular to taxiway

Here is a link to the LiveATC.net recording of the incident. Pleas note this recording has been edited from the original recording from a scanner.

http://youtu.be/qraWv5WHqGU

As I suspect you may know I'm pretty sure the default for that runway set up at JFK (ldg 22L, take offs on 22R) is for tower to issue an initial taxi clearance to landing aircraft as they exit 22L which always terminates with a "hold short 22R" and the controllers (rightly) get pretty grumpy if you don 't acknowledge the "hold short...."...you normally stay with tower frequency until you've crossed the left :\ :

As you say no stop bars but there are guard lights.

.
Quote.... but who crosses a busy active parallel ry without clearance to do so?...


I would also add... Who crosses a runway without looking through the side windows?...
.

That was what led to my question at #5 above.

one of 3 things happened:
a) for whatever reason the pilots ignored instructions that were physically audible. (distraction, language, whatever)(
b) wrong frequency
c) technical failure.

(a) would fall on the folks with headsets on,
(c) is on the engineers

but (b) falls on both, yes? That's a 1900's technology problem. Given the importance of ground control communications at this phase of operations it just shouldn't happen. One might say comms takes precedence once you turn off the runway. If you don't have comms fix that first?

So what in pilot's experience would be likely reasons for Caribbean 526 to miss those calls? Not that it has happened to you, of course.

MrDuck

Sadly as RobShan says the recording posted earlier starts too late for us to hear the taxi clearance that the tower controller almost certainly would have issued to the Caribbean flight so it's hard to draw any definite conclusions..... That said we can perhaps guess at some elements in the chain of events :oh:

FWIW we landed on 22L the following night and we got the standard (for us) "J,Z, G, hold short of 22 right" as we were stowing the reversers and negotiating the high speed exit in the pouring rain..........:hmm: