Controllers Place Airliner On Short Taxiway Due To Confusion Over Plane Type

A case of designation confusion may have been to blame for a minor runway incursion ten days ago at Los Angeles International Airport according to federal officials Friday.

On June 19, an All Nippon Airways Boeing 777-300 from Tokyo was assigned to turn by controllers onto a taxiway too short for its lengthened fuselage. According to a report by the Los Angeles Times, the confusion resulted in the tail of the aircraft sticking five feet into a safety zone for one of the northern runways at LAX.

Federal Aviation Administration officials and air traffic controllers said the arriving aircraft was using a new radar designation tag that was unknown to controllers at the time when the aircraft arrived. Unlike the common 777-300 designation of “B773”, the handling controllers saw its new international designation code "B77W” on their screens instead.

Because controllers did not know the exact Boeing model that had arrived, they said, they directed the pilot to a taxiway that was too small. A Boeing 777-300 is 242 feet long, about 33 feet longer than a standard 777.

 According to the FAA, as the 777-300 sat in the taxiway, an American Airlines MD-83 aircraft landed on the north runway and rolled past the All Nippon flight.

According to FAA spokesman Ian Gregor, the incident was designated a minor incursion because the 777-300 had only intruded slightly into the safety zone and there was no chance it and the MD-80 would have collided during normal operations.

Though the FAA initially attributed the incursion to controller error, Gregor said the agency rescinded that conclusion after the tower manager at LAX argued controllers should not be at fault for failing to recognize a designation they had never been told about.

FAA officials said they will investigate why the flight had used the new international radar tag.

"This is a strange and unique situation," Gregor said, "I am unaware of anything like this happening elsewhere in the country."

National Air Traffic Controllers Association local representative Michael Foote said he has asked the U.S. Department of Transportation’s inspector general's office to investigate the incident as well to avoid a possible cover up by the FAA.

Foote contended the agency may have attempted to cover up the incursion by initially describing it as a "nonoccurrence" in a daily log and not changing the designation until he asked for a review. Additionally he asked the DOT IG to investigate if similar incidents involving the 777-300 have occurred elsewhere.

Gregor reinforced that the FAA investigated the matter properly and the conclusion it was a runway incursion was correct.

"The suggestion that we did anything improper here is ridiculous," he added.

FMI: www.faa.gov. www.natca.org, www.lawa.org/lax