Planes Nearly Collide On Runway
A Skywest regional jet
departing last Saturday from LAX to San Antonio reached
100 kts before aborting takeoff, to avoid a Gulfstream business jet
taxing across the active runway. The planes missed by less than 100
feet.
The near-accident occurred around 6:00 pm, when the
UK-registered Gulfstream taxied from a hangar on the south side of
the field and was given instructions to cross the outer runway but
hold short of the inner runway, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The pilot read back the instructions, but missed his assigned
taxiway... and had to make a U-turn to get back to it. After
repeating his initial instructions, the Gulfstream pilot took the
correct taxiway, but did not stop short of the inner runway as
instructed. As the Gulfstream crossed the active runway, the
departing Skywest aircraft, carrying 39 passengers and crew, had to
slam on its brakes to avoid the collision.
The Gulfstream pilot told officials he was certain the
controller had cleared him to cross both runways, even though he
twice read back the "hold short" instructions correctly, Ian
Gregor, an FAA spokesman, told the Times.
FAA officials said the SkyWest pilot, the tower controller and
the ground radar that alerts controllers to impending collisions
all noticed -- at the same time -- the Gulfstream crossing the
runway.
"We had three layers of redundancy," continued Gregor, "This is
just a clear and clean pilot mistake."
According to tapes released to the LA Times, the shaken
controller called out, "SkyWest 6430, I apologize. We never talked
to the Gulfstream. He crossed without a clearance. I apologize. If
you could make a right turn, please, and exit the runway."
The SkyWest pilot is heard responding, "Exiting right," exhaling
heavily. The controller was so traumatized by the near-collision
that she left her post seconds later.
Pilots familiar with LAX acknowledge it is one of most complex
fields in the nation, with two sets of parallel runways flanking to
the north and south the tower and terminals. Pilots landing or
taking off from an outer runway must follow a complicated taxi
route across the inner runway.
"You're having controllers working too long and too hard on
position," said Mike Foote, a controller in the LAX tower and a
spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.
"This was all pilot error -- you can't say it wasn't --
but the fact is this didn't use to happen. People would catch it.
We still do … but more frequently it's not being
caught."
The FAA disagrees, saying staffing issues played no role in
Saturday's incident. The tower controller who instructed the
SkyWest jet to take off had been on duty only 65 minutes when the
close call occurred, reports the Times.
"Controller workload and controller staffing had nothing to do
with this," Gregor said. "It's disingenuous to suggest otherwise.
The system worked exactly as it should."