Tower: "SBA maintain runway heading, climb to 4000 ft, cleared for takeoff"
SBA read back and commenced opening throttles
Unknown: "foxtrot"
SBA: "confirm we are cleared for takeoff"
Tower: Negative, hold your position

Turned out our clearance was cancelled and TFF (an F27) was cleared for takeoff opposite direction runway. Due to a large hump in the runway, limited vis from either end. The "foxtrot' was the last letter of TFF acknowledging takeoff clearance. We did not copy that because of reading back SBA (DC3) clearance.

In 1943, my father was bumped from a DC3 observation flight and the aircraft collided with another with no survivors. In 1970 I was again lucky (and vigilant) at the same place - the old Port Moresby airport.

Who out there in pprune land delay takeoff for a single "foxtrot"?

I was taught to always look, never assume that crossing runway/taxiway is clear.

I am always amazed, in the pedestrian world, to watch people waiting for the green light at the crossing and then step of the safety of the pavement into the danger area, where sharks lie in wait for the unwary, without looking. The green says you are cleared to cross, but is it safe? Surely they know of red-light jumpers. It sounds so easy to say, but observation of the real world suggests some guys just don't do it.

I did wonder if the timely application of a further stage of flaps might get you in the air quicker and indeed posted the question, but the moderator deemed it inadmissible and it was quickly vanquished. No idea why, as the skipper pulled in a notch of flap in the BA 777 crash to stretch the glide so I don't see why the opposite might be useful in a situation like this.

Hence why I spend about 10 minutes a month browsing this site as opposed to hours each week, but that's a discussion for another day...

It probably would, but by the time you'd spotted the threat, selected TOGA and puckered up your butt cheeks there probably wouldn't be time to do it, plus the flaps would need time to travel.

I find the thread title is problematic.

Hongqiao has nothing to with what happened in '77 at Los Rodeos except for an apparent ground conflict situation where ATC seemingly plays a role.

In '77 two aircraft followed each other in fog on the same runway after being imprisoned at Tenerife for hours. A bit different compared to this case..

@readywhenreaching - it was almost a repeat of Tenerife insofar as there were two fully laden passenger aircraft which could so very easily have collided on a runway. Death toll here would likely have been very high. Fortunately, in this case, there was no collision. That last hole in the cheese didn't line up. A thread title is a bit like a newspaper headline, it's there to grab the attention of the reader.

You did of course note my 'smiley' that accompanied my flap comment. It was attached to the 'monday quarter-backing' comment of another poster. I do not expect every a/c to have an ace of the base sky god of the right stuff to be upfront.
They did a darned good job with what they had.

I rather think he was/they were.

Rented clapped out C152, relying on the ceiling mounted speaker because no headset, three hour flight into Ann Arbor Michigan. Very tired. Permission to land, so did so, and taxied back to cross the end of the runway to fuel up and park. Brain dead by this time, I didn't hear/or understand that ATC had told me to hold short for a landing aircraft. However always have a good lookout, I saw the approaching aircraft and judged plenty of time to scoot across and get out of its way.

At the fuel depot I was informed that ATC wanted a word....

I apologised, told them I didn't have a headset and hadn't absorbed the hold short instruction, but that I had a jolly good lookout before crossing...and after a strict telling off was forgiven and decided hence to always fly with a headset.
But I still always have a jolly good lookout no matter what ATC tells me, you never know, do you?

The only time I've said THE WORD on air was due runway incursion; story re-posted as food for thought:
Taking off from Malé, Maldives, circa 100kn, Luton van drove across in front of us. I observed that, if it maintained heading and speed, it would be well clear and continued t/o. It did and we missed.
Subsequent rethink suggested that, had it, for some reason, stopped on the runway, an instant abort would have meant we'd have hit it less hard.
My finding at the cerebral Board of Inquiry was that I should have rejected.

On another occasion I was considering rotating early due Alpha Jet entering runway with intention of taking off towards us. (He noticed and continued turn and cleared r/w)

All UAS will be equipped with Detect And Avoid (DAA) systems which unlike flight crew do not make the assessment that cleared to cross means no danger as they are a separate safety system. The DAA would identify the potential collision and not cross the runway.

China Eastern to Reward Captain for Preventing Collision at Airport

Full article: China Eastern to Reward Captain for Preventing Collision at Airport

Bedder believeit. Thanks for the link, an absolutely fascinating read. Most interesting to see how use of CVR has progressed but the dogged investigators unearthed great information with voice matching. The report seems scrupulous in setting out the background of the operators and crews, then the sequence.

The collective mis-hearing of the key tx from the tower must be talked about to this day!

I note that the SYD tower did not record internal discussions between controllers, only the transmissions. Is this something that has changed around the world?

Is it just me or does it feel like the number number of incidents where the "wrong breaker" was pulled, thus rendering the CVR useless is greater than one would statistically expect...

I had exactly the same thought! Cynical, moi?

The Sydney report makes fascinating reading about an earlier era. Publishing the all of the crews' names. Flying with a inop FDR. Not reading back ATC instructions.

i was in atl in line for to in a moderate rain event (haha) when two delta dc 8's were on the same runway, one taking off, one landing, both pretty much in the same aspect, with their noses in the air. it was pretty erie.

then once in lauderdale we were holding in position for to when a cessna 150 landed over the top of us.


and thats all im going to share about similar events from my 34 year career.

Whilst certainly advocating a constant and vigilant look out policy anyone who's ever operated out of Boston, JFK, Newark etc... especially at night, will know that it is commonplace to have an aircraft lined up on the departure runway as you cross.

The trick is to get yourself and your mucker to watch like a hawk to see if the bu**er is moving or not!!!

A very lucky bunch all told!

Non pilot here with a question. From the Av Herald article link in the original post:

"the A320 crew had not yet been on frequency and therefore had not heard the crossing clearance.

There is a frequency switch somewhere between taxiing and takeoff clearance? Really? Or is this just bad reporting?

@EEngr: you will typically find a Ground control frequency at an airport that is a dedicated frequency to control ground movement. You will also have a tower frequency that governs take off and landing.


After you land, your switch to ground when directed by tower. (In my experience, usually "when clear of the active" which with multiple runway airports means you have to pay attention to what runway(s) are or are not active.)


The point of the different discrete frequencies is to avoid conflicting or confusing instructions for aircraft taking off and landing, versus those moving to and from the runway environment.

It seems to me that we have two conflicting reports here now:

The Herald says:
Then next thing I see, the CAD says:
So the impression the reports give are: The A330 crew were in such a hurry that instead of dropping their packs off and refueling having just landed, they crossed runway 36R on Taxiway H3 in front of the A320, then taxied at one hell of a speed and turned onto 18R, commenced takeoff again WITH ATC clearance and caused a second near head on collision with the same A320. I gotta get me one of those A330s!!!! Must be capable of light speed.

Doesn't that just sound absolutely ridiculous? I would rather trust the Herald than some news paper.

I am just dying to know how a CVR recording from a modern plane that has just landed get over written. For me, most runways I land on are the gate and parking. Has it ever taken any of you 30 minutes (assuming this was a 30 minutes CVR) to reach your gate and shut the aircraft down? It just sounds suspicious to me that the whole recording was over written.

On A330s the CVR will stop automatically 5 minutes after engine shut down.

The CVR contents can be erased (by pressing and holding the erase button), or it can be overwritten.

In this case it seems that the CVR was overwritten. Usually that means that the aircraft was allowed to be flown on the next flight segment without first preserving the CVR recording.

Sometimes CVRs get overwritten when the electrical system gets re-energized for some other reason (e.g., ground maintenance test), although there is a protection system that's supposed to shut down the CVR again within a few minutes if the engines are not operating.

In most jurisdictions, when there is a "reportable incident" then both the crew and the airline are responsible for preserving CVR and FDR data, usually in coordination with the jurisdiction's safety board.

The correct procedure to preserve the CVR is to pull the circuit breaker, until all data can be downloaded and secured.

Confusion "rains" sic (reigns) he said.

I get the impression from some of the posts here, that having access to the original post #1 quoting the "Aviation Herald", and the subsequent CAAC report, that two issues are evident. Firstly there seems some confusion between the use of the English masculine nominative singular word "he", and the surname title of the A320 captain, namely "He". Secondly, parts of the quoted CAAC report are somewhat limited by the "Chinglish" issue.... forgiveable... but there non the less.
Those looking at the Aerodrome Chart in post #1 for ZSSS Shanghai/Hongqiao may note that there are 4 nominated "Hot spots" (as shown as "HS1, HS2....etc). A "Hot spot" is a location on the airport where previous incidents or possible confusion has/may occur. I note that the place where this incident occurred is at "HS2". Possible confusion being that taxyway "H4" is not a straight line. A landing aircraft on RWY36R and vacating left on "H4" for parking at terminal West of the runway complex, would (could) be instructed to "vacate H4 left, then left on B, then right on H4, and hold short (or cross) RWY36L. Sounds like too much confusing bull**** to me. Me...ATC for 43 years

Here's some technical analysis....

This crew and their passengers were mighty lucky on this one. Bit less wind, bit more weight ... etc etc ... Pulling the aircraft into the air was a gamble that paid off .... this time ...!!

Had the conditions been different, how do you know the crew would have taken the same decision slamer?

Do you mean the YouTube simulation or have I missed something?

I think you are missing something

Peekay4, Thanks for a damn great answer, but your damn great answer leads to more questions. This first one you may not be able to answer.

Why was the aircraft allowed to turn around and take off for it's next leg after an incident allowing the CVR to be over written (If that is the case)? In South Africa. you will be ordered to vacate the runway if you are on one, stop and shut down immediately.

Where is the CVR delete button? Is it easily accessible in the cockpit?

Oversight + incompetence is the usual reason.

The CVR Erase button is typically in the cockpit on the overhead panel, next to the CVR Test button. The CVR will be "erased" if the button is held (usually for 2 seconds) while the aircraft is on ground and parking brake is set. The CVR cannot be erased while the aircraft is flying.

Some countries / jurisdictions do not allow CVR Erase functionality, so the button is either disabled or completely removed (factory option to not have the button). I don't know what the regs are in China.

Dirty little secret: by design CVR Erase is not a "secure erase". Meaning, it is possible for the authorities to use data recovery techniques to reconstruct the CVR recording, even if a pilot "erased" the CVR. Once the recording has been overwritten, however, recovery is no longer possible.

As an aside, on the A330 the CVR circuit breaker is not accessible from the cockpit (it is in the avionics bay).

I agree. The PF knew his airspeed and capability to climb out before hitting the other aircraft. It is one of those split decisions that either make you a hero or a villain ! I am on the PF side in this case for the main reason that the probability of committing to the ability to stop was a consideration in weighing consequences.

THE licenses of two air traffic controllers were revoked and 13 air traffic control officials were punished for a near miss at Hongqiao airport last week, China’s civil aviation authority said yesterday.

A China Eastern Airlines passenger aircraft nearly crashed into another plane, owned by the same carrier, during its takeoff on last Tuesday.

He Chao, the captain of the China Eastern’s A320 aircraft, was granted a “first-class merit,” along with other rewards because he successfully defused the crisis, the Civil Aviation Administration of China announced on its official website.

“The air traffic controllers on the control tower were to blame for the ‘serious accident symptoms,’ who forgot the planes’ movements and gave wrong orders to the pilots,” the administration said.

The licenses of the controllers, who were manning the commanding and monitoring seats, were revoked — in one of the cases for life. The controller in the commanding seat was banned from ever undertaking any air traffic control jobs, the administration said.

Thirteen officials with the East China Air Traffic Management Bureau as well as the bureau’s air traffic control center and safety management department were either given Party warnings, serious warnings, had demerits recorded or faced losing their positions, the administration added.

According to a detailed operation record, the A320 moved out from the boarding bridge at 11:54am and entered 36L runway at 12:03am following orders from the air traffic control tower. The controller then gave permission to take off a minute later, and the aircraft began its maneuvering.

The A320 captain and copilot spotted the A330 was about to taxi across the runway when their aircraft’s speed had reached about 200 kilometers per hour. The copilot of A320 initially braked before the captain took over the controls and triggered maximum acceleration to fly over the A330.

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/metro/s.../shdaily.shtml

How I just hate this punishment punishment punishment culture! Re-training would be a much better solution.

Yes, re-train a forgetful controller not to forget things. That sounds like a grand solution too.

I remember another 'nearly a repeat of Tenerife' type incident. Was at CDG.

As we taxied out in LVPs, they cleared a AF 340 for T/O on 27L- in French. He came thundering past us.
Then they cleared a BA 757 who'd just landed on 27R to cross 27L- in English.

My finger hovered over the PTT switch, but then I thought what if I block a very important message???

The tower called 'Air France xxx,Stoppez decollage!' (stop your takeoff!) and the 340 crew did a high speed abort. The 757 was handed off to ground without another word.

A new controller came on freq, no doubt the other had gone for a change of swimwear...

When we took off, we saw the skidmarks and they were impressive, the ones on the runway !

Never heard another word about it.

Some years ago again at CDG a shorts was hit by an aircraft taking off. Killed the First Officer. So I wonder if that ATC officer got banned for life.
In this Shanghai incident I find it "crass" to say forgetful controller it is just human error & putting people in fear of their jobs just causes stress so increasing the likely hood of more human error. The 330 crew should also have been looking out or did they forget too. Or was it foggy as was the case at CDG.

:D :ugh::ugh::ugh:

You're not Trump by any chance?

As we all know these massive punishments only encourage coverups. If I made an honest error, but "got away with it", I'd put my hand up to prevent my colleagues from falling into the same trap in future. If doing that would get me fired....I'd have to think twice wouldn't I?

IcePack
Yes. I remember the Shorts sat on the ground for ages before getting scrapped. It was an Air Liberte DC-9 that hit them with its left wingtip. Chopped the poor FO to pieces.
It was another classic CDG 'dual language ops' incident. The DC-9 got his T/O clearance in French. The Shorts got his line up clearance in English. He was entering the runway using one of the high speed exits in reverse so to speak, so they'd have had to look backwards to see if the runway was clear.

After this accident, use of the 'high speeds' to line up was forbidden.

They've kept on with the dual language stuff though.....

There are 2 different issues here : ATC and the pilot reactions : The A320 crew reaction for me was very good : it prevented a collision. You had to be in his seat to pass any form of comment , distance left, , speed he had at the time , etc.. Good job.

For the A330 ,well, more difficult : were there red bars crossed ? what was Pilots visibility from his angle , or which frequency was he on , and which frequency was the order to stop given, step on/crossed transmissions ? etc.. lots of unknown to be able to comment seriously .

Now the apparent ATC error : ( I say apparent because we did not see any R/T transcript and analysis yet) but the Chinese CAA reactions seem to indicate it was the case. But we all know an incident such as this one rarely has a single cause.

Reading the various things posted so far , I cannot help thinking of the following scenario :
From a Western ATC point of view it would seem there should have been at least 4 controllers on duty in the TWR : one for each runway in use , one for ground and one supervisor. But we know that due staff shortages or in periods of low traffic, this is often reduced , the frequencies are collapsed sometimes down to a single controller , sometimes with the supervisor manning a control position , or coaching a trainee.
An indication as to how many controllers were on duty and who was doing what would help here.
Since the recent press release of the CAA indicating that a large number of management officials were disciplined as well , that would indicate to me that there might be a systemic management failure, where management allowed certain operations or position manning to take place that were not part of the procedures.
Just saying , having seen similar things many times before before . ( e.g Ueberlingen )

As to punishing everybody so harshly ( for life !!!) after such incident , this is totally unprofessional and absolutely contra productive for safety, as, knowing the consequences nobody there is going to report voluntary errors and incidents , and worse, nobody seeing an incident/error will report it knowing the consequences for his colleagues. We are back in the 1950's..:rolleyes:

Noticed that the pilots of the aircraft crossing the runway was on ground frequency and therefore had no SA on the take-off clearance that was just issued on the tower frequency. This made me wonder how many pilots would actually listen in on other relevant frequencies (tower in this case) using one of the other radios on board, to gain SA on other traffic, especially when crossing runways controlled by other controllers on other frequencies.

My last experience where I wished for one more radio in my aircraft was when operating in and out of a middle eastern base where all coalition partners were using the local ground, tower and approach frequencies, while our US colleagues were operating on their own separate frequency. This was brought up several times during flight safety meetings as a severe SA degrading issue, especially since the local controllers were not very good at relaying the relevant traffic information. Therefore it would have been nice with one more radio (only have 2 in the F-16– one for ATC and one for in house between formation members) to be able to listen in and gain SA on other players in and around the field.

It might well have been procedures that were at fault, or procedures not adhered to. I know for a fact that at Amsterdam for instance an aircraft needing to cross an active runway is switched from GND to TWR to obtain the clearance to cross, and once clear is switched back to GND. Pretty sure that's standard procedure at most major airports.