Near miss on JFK runway
 

New York Post: Near miss on JFK runway Jumbo jets seconds from tragic hit

A Lufthansa jumbo jet speeding toward takeoff was forced to a screeching halt on a Kennedy Airport runway to avoid a catastrophic collision with an EgyptAir plane that made a wrong turn into its path, sources told The Post.

"Cancel take off! Cancel take off plans!" yelled a frightened air controller who saw that the Munich-bound Lufthansa Airbus A340 was headed toward a collision with an Egypt Air Boeing 777 at around 6:50 p.m. Monday.

"Lufthansa 411 heavy is rejecting takeoff," the pilot radioed back.

The aborted liftoff came as the German airliner was steaming down Runway 22R, where an EgyptAir plane was precariously perched less than a mile away, officials said.

"Those two were coming together," radioed an unidentified pilot who witnessed the near-disaster.

A few minutes later, a pilot aboard a Virgin America flight arriving from Los Angeles piped in: "That was quite a show."

The Lufthansa plane was cleared for takeoff seconds before the incident. Its pilots had to slam the brakes so hard, they worried they had become dangerously hot.

"It was close," said an air-control source who believes the EgyptAir flight ended up in the path of the Lufthansa jet after its crew took a wrong turn.

Officials could not say how close the two planes came to colliding. FAA spokeswoman Holly Baker said it might take few days for investigators to sort out some of the basic details of the incident................

Third world ATC; talking fast & controlling your aircraft in the style of a trucker operating a CB radio does not make you a good controller.

precariously perched (if it wasn't so serious I'd be . . )
steaming down Runway 22R (and there was I thinking jets were internal combustion engines)

So, not a NY Times report then?

I have to agree with dontdoit that JFK ATCOs do, at times, seem to have watched too many aviation movie dramas.

That's very true me thinks.

Been on this flight on 6/11/11 , BTW as far as I know "the" Jumbo Jet is the Boeing 747 only , my plane was an A340/600

I've read the AV Herald some hours ago about it. Really frightening. Might have been another Tenerife disaster. I think the NTSB will open an inquiry very soon.
Well done from ATC and DLH crew

.


How about alerting a full A346 that a B773 captain has entered the departure runway accidentally?
Does that make a good controller?

Or wait, let me guess he just got lucky.

What garbage..

dontdoit:

Not to mention third world pilots who can't avoid taxiing onto the active runway without a clearance to do so.

Presumably the normal JFK standard of impressing your colleagues with your words-per-minute rate :

"Lufthansa123ClearedTakeoff22RightAmerican456LineUp22RightEg yptair789TaxiZuluViaDeltaMikeNovemberRomeoAmerican456 .....".

ignorant opinionated blame game response to an alarmest newspaper quote.

This is no longer suitable for R&N :ugh:

Would it be appropriate to tip one's cap to the controller for catching a developing dangerous situation and making the timely call?

*tips cap*

People make mistakes now and again, be it the EgyptAir crew perhaps making a wrong turn, or his controller perhaps giving him a "not quite right" set of instructions.

That other set of eyes is there, catches an error, and has the SA to see what was up, and act. I see this as a good news story. :ok:

Agree with Lomapaseo.We cant know.JFK controllers are very good but are an acquired taste.They wont suffer fools gladly.Theres no mollycoddling.

JFK Near Miss
 

Ok this was a near disaster averted by quick ATC reactions.

However, as many non-native English (US) flight crew operate into JFK, ATC RT to these operators needs to shorter, slower, understandable and requiring a response (read back) to confirm understanding.

The procedure of transmitting to 3 A/C in one transmission maybe OK for local operators who taxi the same route daily and are local wise.

Greater understanding of how non-native English speakers decode JFK RT transmission would provide greater insight on potential misunderstandings.

Waving the ICAO RT Phraseology text book isn’t always going to fix this sort of problem. In some areas of the world non ICAO RT is the norm and possibly the best way to communicate, less confusing for ATC.

Active Listening is an answer;
:ugh:

ATC tape
 

wow :uhoh:

Respect the media?
 

There was a post on the AF447 thread asking why the media isn't respected by those in aviation. Here is a perfect example. Yes, it is a story that originated in the New York Post, a publication not known for objectivity, but other media outlets carried the story, often adding their own sensationalist slant to what the post used.

CBS proclaimed that the controllers "screamed" at the Lufthansa pilot. Listen for yourself, does this sound like screaming?

On tape: frantic controllers call off takeoff - CBS News

The various reports state that the aircraft was "speeding" to takeoff, "steaming" down the runway, and that the aircraft came to a "screeching" halt, yet the controller told the pilot to "cancel takeoff plans". It sounds more like he had just started to roll, and when did you last hear an aircraft brakes screech, other than the occasional juddering? The FAA said afterwards that the two aircraft stopped a good distance apart. The LH couldn't have been anywhere near V1, as implied by the news reports, though it did to a rejected takeoff brake inspection before heading for takeoff again.

Yes, runway incursions are serious business, but there is no need to build up the story with sensationalist blather.

Couldn't agree with you more ST27. I do get annoyed at the media's continuous decision to over-hype any incident regardless of how minor or how major (in this case) it is.

Simple things such as during on American News Channels broadcast about the recently discovered findings from the AF447 black boxes (I think either CBS or FOX) they kept referring to the 'Airbus A330' as a 'Jumbo Jet'. Why can't they just have someone on call in the Aviation industry to confirm and provide the basic information for incidents.

Also an incident closer to home was the Thomson 738 incident at Newcastle Airport last year when they said it went off the runway and continued to emphasise that 'no-one was injured'. Of course no one was seeing as the airport never went off the runway, it continued onto the overrun area and the pilot was more than happy to turn.

I'll stop ranting... :ugh:

Well, On that audio link there is NO take off clearance. Lufty responds with "line up and wait 22R inital altitude 4000' ". Next thing is "cancel take off plans" from ATC (seems a bit arcane but it worked ok)

Yeah yeah but IS the tape continuous or have bits been edited??

@Moe Syzlak It's probably been edited, at least that's what it appears like to me

I hope so for luftys sake

Lufty? I'm guessing this is spotter-speak for Lufthansa. :rolleyes:

and got hot brakes?

When a ATC unit fell within my area of responsibility, its ATC recorders were in a locked room. Following any incident which may call for later investigation, an authorised personl would enter the room, remove and impound the media, and install fresh media. The impounded media were then kept under tight security. After all, they may provide the only hard evidence in a criminal case.

Are security and confidentiality no longer important?

Either this was a recording made by someone illegally (and partially?) recording ATC traffic, or it really is a recording released by ATC. I wonder which?

In either case, a prosecution should follow.

In my three years at JFK this scenario was always one of my worries. 22L and 22R are quite close together. 22L is the relatively short landing runway and 22R is the longer take-off runway. It is necessary to cross 22R after landing to get to any ramp.

If an aircraft landing on 22L is told "Hold short 22R Change Point 9" and then takes some time to change frequency and who's native language is not native New York (never mind English), then it was always a little bit of a worry to me if I was departing from 22R.

I cannot tell you the number of times that I have set off down 22R and watched the traffic coming off 22L and thought to myself "I hope they do exactly what they have been told to do otherwise it could just get a trifle messy".

Capot,

It was a private recording, it is perfectly legal to listen to and record ATC in the US.

I agree the recording is missing parts of the conversation though.

I used to fly into JFK in the 90s , and the place scared the hell out of me , even after years of flying 3rd world . I think we all expect the great airports of the Western world to be amazing places to fly into , easy even , but JFK was weird in its gung-ho attitude , typified by its handling of the Concorde . I had a BIG RA event there in our 747 with a Shorts in front of us in heavy rain , no attempt to give us speeds to fly or any info regarding types etc . While we were sorting out the G/A in our -200 we were treated to repeated bleatings about us not reporting it etc . Subsequent reports of near-misses with go-arounds from 22 just missing departures from 13 have never surprised me - only the fact that YET again they have got away with it.
Murphys Law rules.

The ATC exchanges are recorded on LiveATC.net at ATC Audio Archives | LiveATC.net. Select either KJFK-Twr or KJFK-Gnd-Twr for Jun-20-2011 for 2230-2300Z time segment. Exchanges begin at about the 20:00 point into the half hour segment. While some bits may be missing, it appears that at about 20:45 Lufthansa is cleared onto the runway. At 22:40 an American flight is cleared onto the runway, and about five seconds later Lufthansa is order to cancel its takeoff.

Because Lufthansa must have started its takeoff roll at least 10 or 20 seconds before the American is cleared into position, it had to have gained substantial speed. This appears to be confirmed both by Lufthansa's subsequent concern over hot brakes, and based on comments made by several other aircraft on the frequency that what had just happened was a pretty heart-stopping show.

On the Gnd-Twr feed, there are a few interactions with Egyptair, but they are too garbled and cut-off for me to discern what directions it was given.

Here is a link to over 500 live ATC feeds, provided by enthusiasts from around the world:

All Airport Feeds | Live Air Traffic Control Audio Feeds | LiveATC.net

Listening in is perfectly legal, and it's dead easy to record the conversations on your computer.

In theory in the US, you aren't supposed to pass on what you hear, but it is rarely enforced for radio transmissions that are available to the general public, so there won't be any prosecution. Recording private mobile or cordless phone conversations and passing them around would be more likely to get someone in trouble.

The laws about radios vary around Europe, but in most countries enthusiasts regularly use radio scanners to monitor ATC conversations without being bothered by the police. In countries that have more restrictive laws, like Austria and Italy, they just try to be a bit less obvious when they use them. No problem in countries like the Netherlands or the UK.

I might add that some enthusiasts even record ACARS transmissions, and there are similar enthusiast groups that monitor railway communications, as well as those for shipping.

What's LH's policy on aborted takeoffs? Do they require a mandatory brake inspection after any aborted takeoff, no matter what speed they attain? Do they have a minimum amount of time allowed before another takeoff attempt on a heavy? That might explain their actions after the incident.

I recall an incident years ago with a Wardair 747. They started the takeoff roll for an intercontinental flight, but aborted after some warnings came on. They then taxied to the gate for a quick maintenance fix, and then taxied to the runway for a second attempt. A number of tires blew on the second takeoff roll.

The investigation determined that because of a steady tailwind and slight downgrade to the departure runway, the crew had to ride the brakes while taxiing. The combination of two downhill trips to the active runway, plus the aborted takeoff was enough to overheat the brakes, even though the aircraft spent 30 to 45 minutes at the gate for the maintenance check. They changed their brake check procedures and extended cool-down times on heavies after that incident.

Not that it makes any difference to the situation but listening to the recording I think the controller said "Cancel take-off clearance", albeit tripping over the final word slightly.

I was interested in the RT phraseology "Cancel take-off" - is this standard ICAO phraseology?

I was under the impression that, in the UK, the phraseology was "Stop...." - any ATC care to clarify?

I know the CBS 'talking head' said they; "nearly avoided" ..........

That means they did not avoid, doesn't it? :ugh:

I'll get me coat. :rolleyes:

Unless it's been recently changed, UK uses "Cancel take off" prior to a/c rolling and "Stop, etc" when it's moving.

I agree, he is definitely saying, "Cancel takeoff clearance."

LiveATC.net recordings are often confusing, even when unedited, because the recording device is usually connected to a scanner rather than just a single frequency. The jumping around is tough to follow, and you tend you miss things (like, hopefully, Lufthansa's TO clearance).

Actually that needs to be the 2230-2300Z time segment.

And a near miss should really be a near hit..... /George Carlin

Yeah, I'm wondering that these ultra smart PPRuNE mods didn't change the thread title.

If, for example, a civilian airliner is subject to military attack, they are very fast on to delete the whole subject....