Posted on 03/24/2017 3:49:13 PM PDT by RummyChick
Harrison Ford told the tower at John Wayne Airport, "I'm the schmuck who landed on the taxiway." TMZ has obtained communications between Ford and the tower.
The audio above is Ford on his cellphone with the tower immediately after he lands on the taxiway and the audio below is the radio communication between Ford and the Tower during his plane landing. Ford explain why he was confused ... a combination of encountering turbulence from an Air Bus and getting distracted by a jet that was on the runway.
Harrison Ford landed his single engine plane on the taxiway at John Wayne Airport in Orange County last month, buzzing an American Airlines 737 also on the taxiway on his way down. The FAA is investigating.
we have a lot of pilots on this site that have been following the story
so what do you think about his excuse?
He’s 74. It might be time to think about hanging up his wings.
I agree. The Schmuck needs to be grounded!
At least it wasn’t a golf course.
He was flying a helicopter before..a jet after.
He loves flying.
This has to be tough for him.
He hasn’t been the same after losing his copilot to mange and being forced to fly Solo........
Please, name the last pilot to be put in jail for something like this. its pretty simple...situational awareness is something that is refined with constant use of a skill set or from crew training and dark cockpit drills, he doesn’t practice this in a train to fight scenario or a train to keep my 200 passengers from dying scenario. He is a personal owner and flyer. What happened to Ford could have happened to any of us. He owns a helo and a fixed wing, each have tail numbers, easy enough to screw up a call to ground and then again to forget to switch over the selector switch to the tower freq or to make that call using the “Orange County ground this is Cessna 1248 in charlie park request clearance to taxiway 3”, getting a tail number wrong doesn’t indicate dementia. He is lucky he survived it. I can count on one hand the number of times I made a similar mistake. One time my co-pilot answered me because I made the call on ICS instead of the ground freq. He cleared me and gave me an altimeter reading of 342.76 barometric pressure reading with winds out of 366 at 45. I turned to the co-pilot and asked him, did you hear that guy, must be a guy going through training. He say no, I missed it what did he say. I finally turn to him and he is hanging outside the door with his armored side panel open mic boom up away from his mouth, hand over his mouth Laughing his ass off. If he can pass a class I flight physical and his annual check ride then he has the right to pilot a plane. Remember, take-offs are optional, landings are mandatory. No I never landed to a taxiway over another plane thinking I was landing to the main runway, although doing so wouldn’t have been completely crazy had I been directed to do so, I flew a helo, we can land down-wind and almost anywhere depending on conditions.
Look, he does explain why he got messed up and confused.
That is just that, an excuse.
How it impacts his future of flying, that is really the thing in question here.
I mean one might can legitimately understand his confusion but should he still be flying?
Should he have made the mtake in the first place or could an experienced “reasonable pilot” seeing the same visuals he decribed, also possibly make the same mistake?
Wake turbulence is a hazard, especially for small aircraft like his. It sounds like he zoned in on that and landed on taxiway Charlie. He was following an Airbus that he had in sight.
I had military pilots in my squadron who visually lined up at the wrong airfield (Lakenheath instead of Mildenhall, they are very close to one another).
I have seen guys almost land gear up, guys who forgot the flaps, guys who landed at approach minimums and then were so tense they almost forgot to apply the brakes and came close to going off the end of the runway.
Aviation is serious business. You are thinking and acting in 3 dimensions, handling weather, and a bunch of other factors.
Ford is by all accounts a very conscientious pilot. He takes is very seriously.
He made a mistake. Should he lose his license for it? I don't think so. I think the FAA should recommend retraining and that should close it.
There is someone here whose husband is a pilot who has flown into that place. Said it can be confusing.
Amen.
To err is human. I could cite a dozen examples of professionals landing at the wrong airport, wrong runway.
Back in the ‘70s, and airline captain landed his personal airplane on a taxiway at TPA, and collided with an airliner. He died.
At least the Schmuck isn’t making excuses and blaming others.
It's my understanding that John Wayne Airport is among the busiest,and most important,airports in Southern California.Several of the country's largest airlines operate flights to ORD,DFW,SEA and ATL.It's not difficult for me to imagine the chaos that a light aircraft could cause at an airport like this.
If he *had* caused serious harm and I had been on the jury of a criminal trial I may very well have voted guilty.If he had caused harm/damage and I was a juror in a civil trial I absolutely would have awarded the victims millions...many,*many* millions.
Mr. Ford should be given at minimum a check ride. What he receives does happen and has happened to me. He didn’t seem to make any excuses and owned his error. I’m saying a physical mostly due to him age, a check ride and possibly some ground school.
There is a reason.
Maybe, but the heavies coming into SNA don't land on 20L, which was the runway he was cleared for, so he couldn't have been following the Airbus. The Airbus would have been landing on 20R.
That he landed on Charlie instead of 20L, which is pretty clearly marked, says he was distracted by something. Plus, this isn't the first time he's flown into SNA.
Ford is by all accounts a very conscientious pilot. He takes is very seriously.
He did sound very contrite/embarrassed in his radio communications with the tower when he found out he landed on Charlie. I could tell by the recorded call to the tower that he was hoping the conversation would have ended it right there and sounded pretty disappointed that the tower was reporting the incident to the local FSDO.
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