"Runway Incursion Reported at LAX"

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Runway Incursion Reported at LAX
The Associated Press


LOS ANGELES (AP) - Two airliners came within 8,000 feet of each other on a
Los Angeles International Airport runway after an air traffic controller
miscommunicated with the pilots, authorities said.

The runway incursion Wednesday night involved an American Airlines plane
arriving from Mexico and a Mexicana Airlines plane preparing for takeoff.
The arriving plane, an MD-80 from San Jose del Cabo, had just landed on the
outer runway and was about to cross the inner runway, where an Airbus A319
was about to take off for Morelia, Mexico, according to Federal Aviation
Administration spokesman Ian Gregor.

The traffic controller told the American Airlines pilot to stop before
crossing the inner runway, Gregor said. The pilot apparently misheard the
direction and read back that he would go ahead and cross the runway. The
controller did not catch the pilot's statement and cleared the Mexicana
flight for takeoff before realizing that the American Airlines jetliner was
about to roll onto the runway, the FAA said.

The controller immediately told both pilots to stop. No injuries were
reported.

"We're logging this as a controller error and not a pilot error because the
burden is on the controller to ensure that the pilot's read-back is
correct," Gregor said.

The controller will undergo more training, authorities said.

Meanwhile, aviation officials in Illinois reported two errors in which
airplanes flew too close to each other Thursday. Federal Aviation
Administration spokesman Tony Molinaro said the planes were not in danger of
colliding in either case.

In one error at the FAA's Chicago Center radar facility in Aurora, traffic
controllers gave clearance to an American Airlines plane coming from O'Hare
International Airport and another plane heading to Milwaukee, but one of the
pilots did not follow instructions, Molinaro said. The planes passed 4.17
miles away from each other near Goshen, Ind.; the recommended distance is
five miles.

The same day, controllers improperly directed a Boeing 757 flown by United
Airlines and another flown by American to fly 2.8 miles apart as they
prepared to land one after the other at O'Hare, Molinaro said. The standard
distance in that situation is four miles.


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