Rwy ident
 

We have a simple procedure that prior to entering the any runway the PF announces "Entering RWY XX", and PNF confirms it. In addition I always have the airport diagram with my little green GPS driven plane on one of the displays.

Hopefully this will prevent this kind of thing happening to us. (Knock wood).

"We might actually be in the presence of a bonefide skygod in Mr Dude."

I'd suggest actually in the presence of a competent captain. (And that would be "bonafide," unless you maybe mean "bone-fried.")

Surgeon says, "Oh, man, I just severed his spinal cord!" Should the rejoinder be, "Hey, it happens to all of us now and then. Deal with it." Hope not.

From following this thread and many others, it seems to me, a mere 3,000-hour light-twin and small-jets pilot, that we have increasingly few skygods and increasingly too many skydorks.

@ Helmut Smokar: Point well taken. No intention to say that we are perfect, you are not... And we have some more guys to pay attention as well (like the guy in the tower), thank god.
However, as apparantly some of you in your profession do as well, I have made it a habit to lean back and ask myself "OK, what did I miss" to raise vigilance. And not to be content if you have found one thing (I am a radiologist) but now to try if you find something else. E.g. don't be content if you found a tumor in the kidney - they often come in pairs...

Helmut Smoker: and much of aviation rules are derived from shipping

grimmrad that makes you a sailor not an MD :}

Midst the automated splendour that is the A340 there still seems to be a place for a Tom Tom with a worldwide database of airport layouts and a big symbol saying "you are here".

I suspect BearFoil has hit it bang on the button. Perhaps it is the van Zanten syndrome that stops people saying "Hey I am unsure where the hell we are, perhaps I'll ask the Tower for a bit of guidance here".

NoD,

I can ensure that the lightings and signboards at VHHH are so clear that even a layman can identify which is the RWY, which is the TWY. Just ask yourself how do the RWY lights look like, what are the colours and the TWY vice versa?

Lack of situational awareness or lapse of concentration? I don't know.

Perhaps that corner of the airport is the Bermuda Triangle of VHHH - someones will get lost! Up to now, four carriers (three foreign and one local) had attempted to take off from TWY A.

While the case is being investigated, new instruction has been issued that no take off clearance can be issued until we "see" the aircraft is physically on the subject RWY.

Not sure which runway this incident happened on but 07L at night is a bit of a navex and if you go vai taxiway 'B' it does seem to take a long time to taxi North past 'A' and then on to the runway. The lack of any Cat 1 and 2/3 holding point signs and completely different lighting on a taxiway should be cues enough but we have a requirement to mention the signage when entering what we think/know is the runway.
I agree with the surgeon that to just sit back for a couple of seconds and regard what you're about to do with the detached 'common sense' of an amateur would save a lot of red faces (and maybe prevent a catastrophe). Leave your egos at home ladies and gents. This could be you...........

Arfur,

No CAT II/III holding points on TWY A and B is because the GP is on the northern side of RWY 07L. I do agree with you that 07L is the "darkest" corner of the airport at night.

While to err is definitely human, this still shouldn't happen. AY charts even have the 07L hotspot marked, but it's easy to overlook (assuming the T/O was from 07L). The report will make intresting reading, I fear the CVR will be overwritten though.

Not knowing the facts of course, but I wonder what the experience levels on the flight deck were. Rules were changed some time ago to permit co-pilots with as little as 2 years of airline experience to long haul ops and the skippers are not all very senior either anymore.

I'm just SLF, but wouldn't it somehow have made sense to delay their departure for a quick breathalyzer check after a little snafu like that?

Not that Finns are known to be heavy drinkers or anything, but just as a precautionary measure..?

Reading some of the posts on this thread confirms my suspicion that perfect pilots outnumber imperfect ones by a factor of at least two to one, but imperfect pilots tend to be flying and the perfect ones come on to forums and pontificate from their all-seeing perches.

I prefer to wonder what shortcomings in systems and procedures could be addressed to minimise the chances that the imperfect pilots who man most operating aircraft in the world suffer the indignity of not being perfect.

As a complete lay person, non pilot, pax only - why aren't taxi ways or runways given a specific colour? I know; lighting / metamerism, different weather conditions, at night &c but what is the reason why not?

How wide was the taxiway?

It is a shame that the 'follow the green lights, stop at the red' taxiway system used at LHR is not implemented elsewhere.

While no system has complete safety, this one does seem to raise the bar.

It's only speculation, but it might be a case of tunnel vision by the flight crew. There have been cases where flight crew have been so preoccupied with departing on time, arriving on time, fuel management etc etc, coupled with being very familiar with the airport and a degree of complacency, that they have become almost blind to the surrounding enviroment leading to poor decision making and sometimes fatal consequences. I'm trying to remember an incident of this nature taking place a few years ago. For some reason, Singapore rings a bell where an aircraft tried taking off on a closed runway, with construction equipment cluttering it, in extreme weather conditions. The flight crew were trying to depart before the weather became even worse, which would have involved taxiing back to the stand and a serious overnight delay. Anybody remember this?
In the meantime, it would be very unfair to blame anyone without all the facts being available!

Grimmrad,


It's more than a little condescending to imply the medical profession has a better record than aviation with respect to human errors.



I see countless errors in medicine reported every day (removal of the wrong limb, organ, incorrect medicine prescribed etc, etc.



And these are just what are reported, the reports certainly don't include the cover ups, pay offs and 'settlements'



In fact, if aviation only had to meet what is accepted as a normal medical loss rate we would need another airframe manufacturer just to keep up with 'attrition'



Unlike Doctors we don't have the opportunity of burying our mistakes.

don't they train for this in the ATPL then ?

we would do it all the time in the UK when our runways were waterlogged

our preferred taxiway had a bend in it too

+1

A very close relative of mine, who retired with accident free 44years of commercial flying/18000+hrs, told me when I started flying that if someone claims he does not make mistakes in the cockpit, he either is a liar or not a pilot.

I personally find signalling, lighting and local habits sometimes to be very confusing. But then, I only fly a Citation, what do I know...

Perhaps GRIMMRAD should ask Santa Claus for a copy of this.....!

Amazon.com: The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right (9780805091748): Atul Gawande: Books

From what I have read, as a broad generalisation (always dangerous), in most hospitals generally surgery is in approximately the same situation as major airline flight operations in the 1960s, i.e. pre sophisticated checklists and pre any idea of Crew Resource Management. Which is not to say that aviation always gets it right, things slip through the cracks far too often!

Airlift21, you are referring to Singapore Airlines SQ006 at Taipei in 2000:

Singapore Airlines Flight 006 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia