I'm not sure what the FAA's take is, but under ICAO preventing planes from hitting one another on the ground is a controller's second overarching responsibility (after stopping them from doing so mid-air). It may not be practical to do so verbally at JFK, but procedures (especially for 380's) & aerodrome design should contribute to making it possible for them to effectively prevent collisions. If it's not their job they just become "Ground Movement Enablers" or some other HR concoction. Yes the AF crew failed to operate the aircraft safely, but the buck certainly does not stop there.

Colleagues (if you will permit me that)

I drive helicopters.

Once upon a time, I was tasked to explore the envelope for night operations in close proximity to cliffs in a Bell 412 (rotor diameter, IIRC, 42 ft). Our minimum clearance was 10 ft, our normal clearance was 15 ft. I spent a day with a tape measure putting markers next to the hangar, and having got a colleague to check independently that my marks were correct, we got airborne in daylight for a first go.

I was really scared getting to 15 ft in daylight, 10 ft was truly horrible. Then we did it again in the dark. Our conclusion was that nobody would ever get that close in an unrecced situation - the pucker factor was far too much - we would have stopped at about 25 ft but for our well-calculated marks.

The point applied to this is that it is near impossible to judge lateral distances in the dark. We could not do it in the 20-40 ft range in a highly controlled situation. AF didn't have a hope.

Sven

C'est nepas un bon nuit - malheursement
 

The most stressful part of my job is getting to my left front seat of the jet, immediately followed by getting the jet off the gate and to the correct runway. I feel like this is the most threat packed portion of my duty day. Then there is the task of getting the jet off the runway and to the gate following the subsequent landing which is another rich environment for bad things to take place.

Most of the time the portion in-between, actual fight time, is relatively easy.

Being in the left front seat of a “super” 380 is arguably the pinnacle of the commercial piloting career. What a lousy night for everybody involved.

How about this from a baffled ambulance chaser.

:confused: I'll say. :hmm:

Runway Incursion At JFK - Will The FAA’s Waiver For Super Sized Jets Increase Incursion Incidents?

James T. Crouse. Attorney. Personal Injury Lawyers.

On April 12, the world’s largest commercial passenger jet, an A380, was involved in a runway incursion when it clipped the tail of a much smaller regional jet at John F. Kennedy’s International Airport. Fortunately, there were no injuries to the unknown number of passengers on Air France Flight 7 or to the 62 passengers and four crew members on the Comair CRJ701 Regional Jet.

Runway Incursion At JFK - Will The FAA

Fullstop.

I am surprised that some people are still suggesting that the 'buck doesn't stop with the AF crew'! Are you having a giraffe? :ugh:

some have dismissed my idea of pilot/escort/follow me vehicles with radio comm to the plane in question.

When the A380 was coming along, we knew clearances were going to be tough on the ground...after all they designed a 4 engine plane with only inboard thrust reversers, thinking the outboards would hang out over the grass.

well, it would have been cheap insurance last night to have those pilot cars.

Just thinking about the turn the comair did, I can imagine , faster than can be read, that the horizontal stab was pushed down perhaps raising the nose gear off the ground, making the next step, pushing the plane about with about as much ease as some of you remember while pushing down on the stab and shifting that C150 around.

I hope that all those nice folks on the regional jet have a neck exam by a doctor, and then talk to a lawyer anyway.

There seems to be a rush to embrace the concept of ''assumed action'''perhaps air france assumed that comair would continue straight ahead instead of stopping.

Many ATC facilities clear you for takeoff before the preceeding plane has broken ground...with assumed action (or whatever atc calls it now).

You are quite correct, of course. It is also true that it may not have happened had the controller been speaking English but, in New York that language hasn't been used in years. :rolleyes:

As we all know; ATC taxi instructions include taxiway designator, stop and hold short instructions, give way to, follow, cross runway, to runway, etc.

The dumbest thing the AF Captain did was to taxi that fast.

The smartest thing the AF Captain did was to immediately stop the aircraft. If it is on the taxiway center line, AND if he is not in violation of taxi instructions, he is NOT entirely responsible for the accident.

Below_______________

Mikehotel152:
IF the A380 Captain followed taxi instructions AND is on the yellow line, it is implausible to assume that any official investigation or court, would conclude the A380 Captain entirely responsible for the accident.

Mixture:
You are obviously not aware of the accident in PEK last year when a SIA 777 hit an AC 737 in similar circumstances. The SIA Captain taxied for several hundred feet after he had clipped the 737 wing and eventually stopped in a holding area off the yellow line. Had he stopped the aircraft immediately, officials would have seen he was on the yellow line.
Try evaluating these posts a little more before you start with your childish icons!

Try telling that to a court of law.

:ugh::ugh::ugh:

Just what else was he going to do ?

(a) He's now got a structurally unsound airframe
(b) ATC were not exactly going to give him departure clearance were they ?

Ah it makes one pine for the days of a Soviet show trial does it not? At least there was the pretense of an investigation and trial before passing the verdict.

As a former safety officer I will never forget a Colonel briefing the entire wing on a recent accident and fatality. He was almost taunting in his description of the events leading to the mishap. I thought his performance was puerile at best for I did not need to think too hard that the mishap crew certainly did not start the flight with the intent of bending metal, and in this case, not coming home from the sortie. Yet it happened and the investigator’s job was to find out why—a very detailed process that needed to plough a significant field of data. How many times have things come out in investigations that no one would have expected? Should we not grant a pretense of fairness?

My point is that every professional aviator realizes the chain (and in some case multiple parallel chains) involved in such an incident and steers his/her thinking to investigating, weighing, and learning. Sure the A380 hit the regional that is clear to see and someone was at the controls of the aforementioned craft so it does not look good. Yet the professional holds his opinion until those pesky little facts have been gathered. For those of you who have not taxied large aircraft around large and busy airports I would ask that you hold your fire. A fellow aviator is in the hot seat at the moment and I owe him what I would expect for myself—a fair hearing.

Indeed there are many who love this forum for no other reason than to broadcast their lack of intellectual curiosity and, even more unfortunately, a disregard for how a mishap should be addressed. For those however, who strive to master this craft of aviation (a never ending process btw whether 20 or 80 years old) I would think that we shiould fix the problem before we fix the blame.

certainly there will be extenuating circumstances. but every experienced pilot I know , knows that just being on the centerline doesn't promise anything.

What may just come out of this is that the JFK airport isn't really suited for the super jumbo

sevenstroke/Uncle Fred

Agreed. Narrow taxiways, high sight line, night and (alledgedly) no ability to see the wing tips - and the A380s not the only one where you can't see the tips (the 777's for certainly another - you want me to assure wingtip clearance, rather than guess/rely on taxiway markings? Sure, just give me a minute to walk back to the cabin, then I'll get back to you, then maybe I'll proceed - how you reckon that'll go down with JFK ground?), just maybe this once we shouldn't rush to judgement.

The AF captain will be hung out to dry of course but what's that I hear? "there but for the grace of god....."?

I would venture a guess that Mr. deSitter's references to pestilential aircraft and their inexperienced crews is more related to his politics and inflated ego than it is to the pilots he chooses to disparage.

While one might asssume the AF crew to be very "experienced" merely because that aircrft type is the company's largest and thus requies greater seniority for command, there is in fact no direct relationship between "experience" and the size of one's aircraft. In fact it is quite possible that this particular RJ's crew may have more total time as well as more time "in type". One should not assume otherwise based on the physical size of the aircraft.

Be that as it may, flying time would not appear to be in any way related to this accident.

I think the AF pilots will be the ones with the explaining to do. However, as a mitigating factor, I have seen so many pilots hold short at ridiculously long distances from the actual hold short point. I don't know if this is the case here or not, I am just making a point to those of you that stop 150 feet from the hold short point. In the future with these monsters taxiing around, you might consider being in the spot instructed, not a plane length or more from it.

@polax52

Very nice said, but......
La Grande Nation isn't Korea.

My thoughts go out to the A.F. captain right now. He must feel awful after what happened. He was obviously distracted for a split second but thankfully nobody was hurt. I hope the investigators examine the chain of events that led up to what seems to be an all too common occurence these days.Those of you who have hung,drawn and quartered him, should remember , there are two kinds of pilots; those that have had a taxying incident and those that haven't had one yet.

You definitely cannot see the wing tips from the cockpit.

THis is a bit of a 'what if' here, but... I have noticed that when disembarking a full A380, that once the pax & baggage is off, that the jetway is usually now lower by perhaps a foot or more.

Would a not so fully loaded flight have made any difference as to whether the collision would have happened? Looks from the video like they hit the CRJ quite close to the top of the tail fin...

I know it's not really important as they shouldn't be passing that close but it did make me wonder, what is the height difference between an empty A380 parked at the gate & one fully fuelled, bums on every seat & cargo holds full.. is there a given figure for this for different ranges of weights (I know it would vary depending on all of these items), is it something that you consider as well as all the other factors in load control etc??

I guess how high you're sitting is not so important but the comment about the height of the 380 cockpit made me wonder if being fully loaded would change the perspective at all, even if only a little bit. Could be a factor also? (I recall reading they kept it a common height with other Airbus family widebodies, is that true?)

(For those who will ask what is my exp, CC with a background in aviation ground ops, 5yrs flying & have worked on the 380)

Wondering how people are arriving at the conclusion that AF was taxiing too fast and this contributed to the collision. Seems that the CRJ was back too far. That being said the AF captain should have known where his wingtips were and stopped based on that.