Posted on 12/08/2007 6:06:52 AM PST by RDTF
Two commercial jets came within 300 feet of hitting each other at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport last weekend, federal aviation officials said yesterday.
The incident occurred about 7:25 p.m. Sunday when a Delta Connection regional jet took off and flew over a US Airways Airbus A320 that was landing on a crossing runway, officials said.
Airline representatives said there were 43 passengers on the Delta Connection jet, which is operated by Comair and was headed to Boston. There were 150 passengers on the US Airways jet, which was arriving from Phoenix. No one was hurt on either plane.
The US Airways pilots reported the incident, FAA officials said, adding that the Delta Connection flight crew never saw the other plane.
FAA officials said a controller in the BWI tower improperly issued a takeoff clearance for the Delta Connection flight even though the US Airways plane was approaching the runway. The controller was not identified.
A system that alerts controllers to potential runway collisions sounded, but not in time for the controller to take action, FAA officials said. A representative of the controllers union, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, declined to comment.
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(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Another fun thing is flying into airports with parallel runways, like Lambert in St Louis. There are occasional cases of planes landing on the wrong runway!
Mark
Planes consume more fuel taking off than landing so it’s clear to me that, in the interest of fuel conservation, the landing jet should have been told to hold short before passing over the numbers and touching town.
Lord, I’m glad I wasn’t on either plane; I’d have had to change my underwear! I always watch the runways when we’re taking off and landing. I have fears of another Tenerife event.
Those really weren’t “mistakes,” just pilots dealing with very heavy cross-winds.
One of the classified secrets of the B52 bomber was the fact that the main landing gear was able to skew 20 degrees left and right, in effect allowing the plane to “be pointed” off to one side, while the plane was moving straight down the runway.
Mark
Well, it is Baltimore/D.C. you figure it out.
Just damn!! Those pilots must have been sweating bullets all the way down!! You could tell by the banking they were doing that they were trying hard to get that beast under control. It looked for all the world, in that first video, like they were heading directly for the water. He must have put some power into his yaw to the left at that point, because he was burning rubber during his braking as he landed.
Ping.
Not as close as I came...I met a car on the highway and came within 5 feet of it! I failed to report it to the news media however.
Maryland “Freak State” PING!
Tough luck, trial attorneys!
Nuclear warfare - You beat me to it by 24 hours. Is that close enough to count as “I almost beat you”?
[Mr] T
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