Close call at Chicago

[Byker28i]

A Southwest Airlines plane landed safely at Chicago Midway International Airport after a close call with a business jet that "entered the runway without authorization," according to the FAA.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/southwest-plane-lands-sa...

[HocusPocus]

Bizjet crew need radio recertification!

[Starfighter]

ATC and animation from VAS Aviation.

https://youtu.be/c6Mp9aUJaTY?si=Q_DWEoWY0PUOom_J

There is some confusion over taxi routes but the bus-jet was told the cross 31L.

[bitchstewie]

Holy st that is some piloting by the Southwest

[Eric Mc]

Starfighter said:

There is some confusion over taxi routes but the bus-jet was told the cross 31L.

Is that what you meant to say?

I interpret your sentence as "There was some confusion over taxi routes but the biz-jet was told NOT TO cross runway 31L".

[HughG]

Eric Mc said:

Starfighter said:

There is some confusion over taxi routes but the bus-jet was told the cross 31L.

Is that what you meant to say?

I interpret your sentence as "There was some confusion over taxi routes but the biz-jet was told NOT TO cross runway 31L".

He was told to hold short of 31C.

[nordboy]

HughG said:

Eric Mc said:

Starfighter said:

There is some confusion over taxi routes but the bus-jet was told the cross 31L.

Is that what you meant to say?

I interpret your sentence as "There was some confusion over taxi routes but the biz-jet was told NOT TO cross runway 31L".

He was told to hold short of 31C.

Told to hold short on more than one occasion, it seems that ATC and especially the big jet pilots actions avoided a huge incident. Whereas the bizjet pilots actions seriously need looking in to.

[DJC76]

nordboy said:

Told to hold short on more than one occasion, it seems that ATC and especially the big jet pilots actions avoided a huge incident. Whereas the bizjet pilots actions seriously need looking in to.

To quote a Bizjet pilot I had some interaction with recently, “it’s the Wild West” in that sector. Flexjet are a pretty premier organisation so you’d expect the best but here we are, I suppose humans make mistakes but that’s one of the reasons there are two up there to try and catch any errors.

Runway incursions are quite common in the US. Here in the U.K. with limited multi runway airfields quite rare and treated accordingly seriously.

[Kawasicki]

I was driving a maintenance vehicle at an airport once, I requested permission to cross the main runway. The tower radiod back that I could cross… to which I replied “I think I will wait 5 seconds for this huge airplane to land first“… this was followed by a six second pause, after which the tower radiod… “you are now cleared to cross runway 24”

It never hurts to have a look.

[Starfighter]

HughG said:

Eric Mc said:

Starfighter said:

There is some confusion over taxi routes but the bus-jet was told the cross 31L.

Is that what you meant to say?

I interpret your sentence as "There was some confusion over taxi routes but the biz-jet was told NOT TO cross runway 31L".

He was told to hold short of 31C.

Apologies, I have fat fingers.

Busjet was cleared across 31L and hold short of 31C (due to SWA landing). I suspect the the Busjet missed 31L as it is a thinner runway and would not have been marked with a hold short line as they were using runway O4 as a taxiway. On approaching 31C they believed it to be 31L they were approved to cross.

[Simpo Two]

On a sidenote, whenever I hear recorded conversations between pilots and ATC, the audio quality is so bad as to be barely understandable. In these days of sooper hi-tech when safety and clear comms are vital, why is the radio such st quality?

[DJC76]

Simpo Two said:

On a sidenote, whenever I hear recorded conversations between pilots and ATC, the audio quality is so bad as to be barely understandable. In these days of sooper hi-tech when safety and clear comms are vital, why is the radio such st quality?

It must be a function of whatever they’re using to record it. In reality it’s usually crystal clear.

[Crumpet]

This is just another example of st US procedures. In the rest of the world they have stop bars - red lights in the taxiway or runway - that would be illuminated and make it obvious that you’re not supposed to go past that point. Only once cleared would ATC turn off the stop bars. For some reason they don’t seem to use them in the US and they just rely on amber flashing runway guard lights.

The Flexjet was told to taxi on 4L, cross 31L and hold short of 31C. Unless you’re properly familiar with the field runway 31L looks like a taxiway; when you’re on 4L there are no markings to suggest you’re crossing 31L and it would be incredibly easy to miss it. They clearly thought 31C was 31L so they’ve steamed straight over it and probably planned to hold short of 31R (thinking it was 31C). It looks like a very easy mistake to make and I certainly wouldn’t say it’s a reflection on the pilots of the Flexjet. I feel for them.

[MarkwG]

Crumpet said:

This is just another example of st US procedures. In the rest of the world they have stop bars - red lights in the taxiway or runway - that would be illuminated and make it obvious that you’re not supposed to go past that point. Only once cleared would ATC turn off the stop bars. For some reason they don’t seem to use them in the US and they just rely on amber flashing runway guard lights.

The Flexjet was told to taxi on 4L, cross 31L and hold short of 31C. Unless you’re properly familiar with the field runway 31L looks like a taxiway; when you’re on 4L there are no markings to suggest you’re crossing 31L and it would be incredibly easy to miss it. They clearly thought 31C was 31L so they’ve steamed straight over it and probably planned to hold short of 31R (thinking it was 31C). It looks like a very easy mistake to make and I certainly wouldn’t say it’s a reflection on the pilots of the Flexjet. I feel for them.

That's how I read it: plus, looking broadly into sun, they wouldn't see the 737 on final until it's too late. I was going to say there'll be a horrible accident soon, if things don't change, except it's already happened...

[Chuck328]

Crumpet said:

This is just another example of st US procedures. In the rest of the world they have stop bars - red lights in the taxiway or runway - that would be illuminated and make it obvious that you’re not supposed to go past that point. Only once cleared would ATC turn off the stop bars. For some reason they don’t seem to use them in the US and they just rely on amber flashing runway guard lights.

I wondered if it's because of the size/complexity at some of their airports. But then I remembered that de Gaulle is quite big/complex and they have a very effective system to prevent incursions. We sill look left and right when lining up or crossing though!

[MarkwG]

Chuck328 said:

Crumpet said:

This is just another example of st US procedures. In the rest of the world they have stop bars - red lights in the taxiway or runway - that would be illuminated and make it obvious that you’re not supposed to go past that point. Only once cleared would ATC turn off the stop bars. For some reason they don’t seem to use them in the US and they just rely on amber flashing runway guard lights.

I wondered if it's because of the size/complexity at some of their airports. But then I remembered that de Gaulle is quite big/complex and they have a very effective system to prevent incursions. We sill look left and right when lining up or crossing though!

There's probably a number of issues at play: airports like Midway are constrained by the real estate around them, yet more & more aircraft are crammed into the space, forcing more arcane ways of solving the problems that creates. Add in procedures that seem to favour expediency over safety, & a "make it happen!" attitude, & the cauldron starts to boil.

To be fair, De Gaulle has had issues of its own, nowhere is perfect - although, when they had their incursion accident, I believe they did change procedures to mitigate it. I'm not convinced the US system does that at the moment, I suspect the Flexjet crew will be hung out to dry, & time will tick over to the next one.

[bitchstewie]

[Crumpet]

bhstewie said:

So this report shows it is exactly what I wrote previously.

I feel sorry for the Flexjet guys; first of all this guy in the video is somewhat demeaning them with being ‘Part 91’ and less safe than ‘Part 121/135’. That’s irrelevant. And I know for a fact that the Flexjet guys are well trained and professional, some will even have airline backgrounds. The only thing you could say is the lack of familiarity they’ll have with these airports. Instead of airlines operating to the same places day-in-day-out the life of a biz jet pilot has you going somewhere different every day, so you’re always going somewhere new (I haven’t counted mine but it wouldn’t surprise me if I’ve been to well over 500 airports). To be fair that usually means you’re doubly cautious!

Secondly they’ve been totally screwed over by crap airport design, crap procedures and, in this case, the sun blinding them.

Hopefully the FAA learns from this as they’ve got a lot of st to improve before they catch up with somewhere like the UK. I really hope they don’t massively penalise the pilots as this could get anyone.

[tobinen]

Another opinion. IANAP.