Another controller being thrown under the bus.

[surreal1221]

Surprised guys? All of you who are happily taking an FAA job. . .are you willing to work for an employer who will just throw you under the bus than to reprimand the industry leading airlines that are actually causing the problems.

Originally Posted by Avweb

Blakey Urges LAX to Fix Runways

FAA Administrator Marion Blakey urged Los Angeles officials to get on with the job of putting more distance between two heavily-used parallel runways a week after two airliners came within 40 feet of colliding at a runway/taxiway intersection."I'll put it plainly," Associated Press quoted her as telling a lunch meeting of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. "However you decide to fix the airfield, get it done.

"The problem here is that the parallel runways on the north side are too close together," she said. "A landing aircraft that leaves the outward runway on a high-speed taxiway literally has only a few feet to stop before crossing the inner runway hold line." On Aug. 16 a WestJet Boeing 737 stopped just short of a runway being used by a Northwest A320 for takeoff and the wingtip of the Airbus passed 37 feet from the nose of the 737. And it now appears the ground controller handling the WestJet plane will take the full rap for the incident even though the FAA insists the Canadian pilot was partly to blame.

FAA spokesman Ian Gregor told the Calgary Herald that the unnamed pilot will avoid blame because there's no regulation covering the error he made in switching from the tower frequency to the ground controller before being told to do so. Gregor said it's "standard procedure" to wait for authorization from the tower before switching to ground but it's not a formal reg. In Gregor's mind, that doesn't leave the pilot off the hook. "It is our position that the actions of the WestJet pilot contributed to the incident by creating confusion in the air traffic controller's mind," Gregor said. WestJet was happy to fly through the loophole, however. Spokesman Richard Bartrem said that while such handoffs are mandatory in Canada, they aren't in the U.S. "There's an inconsistent application in the U.S. as to when that handshake, if you will, takes place," he said. "We didn't receive authorization, but it's not required," he said.

[PGT]

"well ughh it's not in the regs so let's just blame the controller"



ahh the FAA..

[PilotChip]

Seems that (possibly) if that was a usual occurrence, the controller should have protected the "environment" where the airplane would exit the landing runway and taxi clear of that rwy. Being a large/heavy aircraft and maybe an unfamiliar crew, the pilot would have taxied further than normal thinking he was not yet clear of the landing rwy.

1. An aircraft is expected to taxi clear of the runway unless otherwise directed by ATC. Pilots shall not exit the landing runway on to an intersecting runway unless authorized by ATC. In the absence of ATC instructions, an aircraft should taxi clear of the landing runway by clearing the hold position marking associated with the landing runway even if that requires the aircraft to protrude into or enter another taxiway/ramp area. This does not authorize an aircraft to cross a subsequent taxiway or ramp after clearing the landing runway.

c. Ground control and local control shall protect a taxiway/runway/ramp intersection if an aircraft is required to enter that intersection to clear the landing runway.

[canadian_atc]

My girlfriend works for WestJet, and they are a fantastic airline.

After speaking with some WestJet pilots most admitted the pilot was as much at fault as the controller was from what they had heard.

This is a bad case of the ties using a single incident in their favour, honestly if it's because the runways were too close together then the fault should come onto the FAA for not having proper regulations in place.