Runway Incursion - Dusseldorf
 

So what really happened? :confused:
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Feb. 6 An Alitalia SpA plane and an aircraft operated for Deutsche Lufthansa AG came dangerously close to each other this morning on an airport runway in Dusseldorf, Germany, the country's DFS air-traffic control agency said.

The Italian plane's pilot confirmed air-traffic control instructions to stop his Embraer 145 plane yet still crossed the runway as an Avroliner B463, operated by Eurowings for Lufthansa, was taking off, DFS said in statements today. The German carrier's pilot managed to lift off and fly just above the other plane, DFS said.

The agency said it registered the ``runway incursion'' with Germany's aviation accident investigation office, which plans to examine the event as a ``severe disturbance.''

A spokesman for Rome-based Alitalia, who declined to be identified, said there was ``absolutely no danger,'' as the Italian pilot had waited for visual confirmation that the Lufthansa plane had passed. The Alitalia Express flight left Milan's Malpensa airport at 6:50 a.m. with 20 people on board, landing in Dusseldorf at 8:15 a.m.

``There was no near-collision because the Alitalia pilot didn't cross the runway until he'd seen that our plane had taken off,'' Heinz-Joachim Schoettes, a Eurowings spokesman, said.

The most probable cause is the spanish pride and culture, also the use of the spanish language on the radio and, mainly, the lack of professionalism of the spanish ATC. (Does it make sense? Now change "spanish" for "german". Does it still make sense?) I will probably be banned forever, but the BCN close call thread showed so much racism in this forum that it will be quite an honour.

RW incidents
 

Here we go again. PLEASE, PLEASE folks leave nationality out of it:=:confused: There is only one application here, this is THE AVIATION COMMUNITY WHO STRIVE TO OPERATE IN A SAFE AND PRUDENT MANNER:ok::ok::ok:. Stop the whinge profile and please make our industry safer than it is today. Joe public reading this stuff must be laughing! Thanks from an oldie who wants to get older.

I'm pretty shure that in Dusseldorf they use only English in their ATC communication.

Taken from a german atc web forum (www.atcnet.de) the alitalia received and read back a hold short instruction and entered the runway nevertheless.
Most probably theres gonna be a BFU report about that incident, would be surprised if it isn't in the next bulletin.

As for English only, yes, for IFR operations, for local german only VFR traffic german can be used, but then you get normally pretty good traffic information.

Unconfirmed second hand information indicates that the EMB145 crew somehow mistakenly thought that they were cleared to cross behind the departing BAe146. When the 146 passed in front and well above, they crossed the runway. At no time was seperation compromised, but as the EMB145 in fact crossed without ATC clearance this constituted, and was reported as, a runway incursion.

Thank you, Sobelena, for your sensible response. :ok:

Many places in Europe use their own languages during ATC. What makes me laugh, as an Englishman, is understanding the ATC in the UK is so much harder then in, say Germany or France. We have terrible accents and many dont speak clearly. To be honest, our procedures, in my opinion, are poor. Fly to Vienna or most German airports. Things are just better planned out. The UK airspace is no fun to fly in.

The other funny point to me is that as Englishmen we never really learn a foreign language well. We get mad at other cultures for not speaking English but oh if the tables were turned and we all had to speak Russian or Spanish on ATC..

Enough of this petty stuff. Keep your eyes open, report incidences without emotion and understand that one of the best things about being European is learning and excepting other cultures.

Hope you mean accepting...but well said otherwise.

A.

I will probably be stoned for this post. I am an African, flying in Europe at the moment, but spent quite a few years in africa and the middle East. As pilots, atc etc, we should have a certain level of command of the english language. If we do, why the :mad: do we not just speak english. It will cut out all confusion, and prevent incedints as mentioned. There is nothing as uncomfortable as sharing the sky or runway with another ac, when you have absolutley no idea of were he/she is, or what they are doing. Not a dig at the german/french or spanish! As for the mentioned case, might just have been a misunderstanding, that does happen, and I do aknowledge that, but still, the subject was mentioned. Where I come from, we have a couple of national languages, and the language you speak is a proud subject (it is not engilish), but the R/T is ALWAYS in english. Lets cut all the b:mad: t out guys!!!

For the record: In Italy people speak italian and in Spain spanish... As far as I know Alitalia comes from Italy... so how ca they have a "Spanish pride"

Various cultures have different sense or forms of humor and sarcasm can be one of them .

A bit of tolerance to see and understand the other side would help sometimes.:rolleyes:

Oh God, how could I have made such a stupid error, and after all my preaching... Of course I meant accepted. See what I mean?? English cant even talk English:) (Again, I am English)

@olly

Don't worry, otherwise very good post.:ok:

At manchester, controllers cannot currently give a conditional clearance to cross a runway. this is an ongoing trial and the results are still pending.

If this was applied to all airports across europe then pilots would not assume they were cleared to cross after something. :ok:

Dusseldorf
 

Many years ago Captain "Fingers" B... having been cleared to land his BA Super 1-11 by Dusseldorf in snowing conditions, touched down only to realise he was facing a phalanx of snow clearance vehicles coming towards him. He managed to firewall the throttles and take off over the top of them. Must have caused some excitement all round. His F/O, Gerry H... is thought to have given up aviation then.

Was that the same Captain "Fingers" B...as the one who, flying a GF BAC 1-11 into Sanaa on a VIP flight in the '70s when the airport runway was still officially not open due resurfacing, realised as it crossed the boundary - simultaneously with the other 2 people on the FD - that the heavy black line down the CL was the shadow from a significant difference in level between each half of the runway, and not paint. As I remember it the level difference was about 20-30cm.

Why there should be a black painted line had been discussed since overflying the runway for a precautionary obstacle inspection, and it was agreed that it was probably the base coat of a non-standard continuous white line.

The airport's radio was being operated by the fuel truck driver, who did not think the difference rated a mention. ATC was not in action, nor for that matter was the fire service. (Aaaaah......those were the days, etc).

"Fingers" B... went round again and landed, I think on the higher side, without incident.

Old not Bold - Sorry don't know, but he had lost fingers in an industrial accident, probably before becoming a pilot. A super guy.

The company i fly with ,operates both DUS and MAD and the difference in the use of english from the respectives ATC is the same as night and day.As far as i am concerned German ATC is top notch.I wish i could have the same opinion on Spanish ATC but i am getting sick with them every time i fly to Barajas.

Mike Read

re Captain "Fingers" B.....the one I'm talking about had very large fingers..hence the name. None missing, as far as I can remember.