LiveATC Discussion Forums
Air Traffic Monitoring => Aviation Audio Clips => Topic started by: mk223 on January 18, 2015, 02:03:20 PM
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Caribbean Airlines 526 crossed the runway that Jetblue 1295 was rolling down for takeoff.
http://7online.com/travel/jetblue-flight-stops-short-during-takeoff-at-kennedy-airport/479757/
*Note the news story said shortly after 9pm which was the scheduled depature, but the real time of the incident was 10:30pm.
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that atc sounded lil too cool for such an incident.. could be an "oops" on the part of atc
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I think it would take a lot to shock a JFK controller. This isn't to take away from the situation, but with the volume they must handle, any emotional rise could lead to a lot of other complications.
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On the ground side after the incursion, listen to the exchange between Carib and GC. He asks if they were issued a rwy crossing. The female pilot says Affirmative. The GC then issues a taxi clearance to the ramp. The female pilot reads back and giggles at the end.
At NO time was a rwy crossing issued, nor any taxi clearance for that matter BEFORE they crossed.
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Have a link to the audio of the ground communication?
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I'll see if I can find any subsequent JBU company comms to their ramp when I get a chance.
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Here's the ground interaction. Listen for the giggle, it's there...
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Thanks for adding the link Keith!
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Caribbean airlines is terrible. I almost flew them once, the flight was cancelled for days due to mechanical issues and we were stranded at a hotel in the boonies in Long Island for days. CA refused to issue a refund and I had to get DOT involved. I think I dodged a bullet by not flying them. They have a pretty horrendous safety record, frankly I'm surprised they're allowed to fly to the US at all.
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According to avherald.com, redwood 56 had received a clearance to cross 22R at J, where the runway incursion occurred. It's possible that 526 heard fifty six as five two six, especially if it was said quickly. Can anyone locate that clearance for redwood 56?
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frcabot, ATC can use group form on air carrier callsigns, so it would be redwood fifty six versus caribbean five twenty-six (which is even more similar).
The key would be to see if they (Caribbean) read it back. If they did, then there's the answer. If they didn't read anything back, then evidence suggests they did not hear a call that they thought was for them.
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According to avherald.com, redwood 56 had received a clearance to cross 22R at J, where the runway incursion occurred. It's possible that 526 heard fifty six as five two six, especially if it was said quickly. Can anyone locate that clearance for redwood 56?
Attached is the clearance for Virgin, no mention of CA near this audio and it is a pretty clear "FIVE-SIX"
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FIFTY-SIX :)
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unlikely..but it sounded like somebody else was speaking as the same time as Redwood 56's readback (the background hum sounds like somebody is blocked). Hopefully that wasn't CA responding also (although ATC was clearly saying Redwood 56)
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swa4678, good call. For reference, it would be good to find another call from redwood 56 on the same frequency (hence same scanner receiving it), maybe the readback of their landing clearance?
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I'm putting together a master from a different source, but need to know the exact Z time and date of the event. An early post on the other thread said the incident occurred at 22:30 local on the 18th, which would have been 0330 Z on the 19th, however what I find there is a female controller simulcasting on both tower frequencies with aircraft split between them.
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Took me a long time to find it, too. It was actually Jan 17, here's the flight track with arrival time: http://flightaware.com/live/flight/BWA526/history/20150117/2150Z/SYCJ/KJFK
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Well, that certainly will make a difference... because on the 18th JBU took off uneventfully at around 10:45 PM.
Will dig up the appropriate recordings and mix.
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http://avherald.com/h?article=4807ef24&opt=0
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But was this a "high speed" abort as in after reaching V1 speed? I presume that the JetBlue would say "unable - committed to flight" or something like that. Just curious...
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my limited understanding of airline ops is that there are criteria for stopping at 0-100kts (it's a long list). Between 100kts and V1, it's a shorter list. After V1, hands are off the throttles and you're going. In fact, you're rotating very shortly after V1 anyway.
A 'high speed abort' is presumably the window from 100kts to V1. Aircraft on the runway seems like it would be a great reason to abort the takeoff.
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Well, attached is the best I can do, starts out after the tug releases 1295 and he goes to GND. Irrelevant transmissions removed, as well as dead air (about 20 min worth) leading up to where 1295 gets his takeoff clearance, thereafter everything in real time, tower on the left channel with ground and JBU company on the right. The receiver location is eight miles distant and coverage excellent, but 1295 must have stopped in a dead spot for the JBU company channel, or perhaps was using a hand-held in the cockpit, because he barely broke the squelch on that frequency, which is unusual as normally every milliwatt of RF is easily vacuumed out of there.
A few comments.
1) As you can see, 1295 had already been an extra load on the TC because he had a number of issues going on starting up his "cold airplane", thus drawing focus by the TC (paying more attention to this guy's plight than the others on the conveyor belt).
2) I could not find any rollout instructions from the TC to Car 526... the last you hear is the TC giving 526 the landing clearance, which 526 reads back as 525.
3) When you listen to the infamous blocked rollout instructions in this recording you can clearly hear the accent of the 526 pilot within it, and what could be interpreted as a "nine" at the end of the transmission but that I believe is probably a "five" since there is no "er" (which is why we say "niner"). Thus I believe the 526 pilot, expecting a rollout instruction, heard the instruction with a "six" as his and acknowledged making the same 525 vs 526 error he did with his landing clearance. I listen to these Car guys every day on HF, and 550, 525 and 526 are regular flights and all the pilots sound like Bob Marley.
4) The calls from the TC to 526 to "stop" as 1295 was on his takeoff roll were not heard because 526 had already switched to GND, which you will hear in the recording.
Conclusion: The TC dropped the ball handling the arrival of 526, probably because he was so excited about 1295 finally getting out of his hair.
Even in the process of editing this post (over and over again) I got 525, 526 and even a 529 all crossed up... multiple times :-)
I think I have it right now...
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I think she (Caribbean 526) heard the "FIF TEE SIX" as "FIFE TWO SIX" (the 'accent', you know!) and either missed or ignored the Redwood vs. Caribbean prefix. She heard "526" and read back the taxi route (blocked) and was not corrected, so in her mind, she was ok. That's all I can figure...
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If there's a block, ATC usually hears it, too and usually says something like, "that was for <callsign> only," then repeats the instruction.
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That's why these things get a postmortem from the experts, and as we all know when bad things happen it is usually due to multiple small errors or unfortunate coincidences. For example we do not know how the GC's receiver on the field heard the double read back to his redwood instruction... If redwood stepped clean on 526 (and he assumed any heterodyne was a handoff from APP who would try again) he still would have been deemed to have failed to properly communicate to 526 any taxi and handoff instructions. On the other hand if 526 stepped on redwood or both were unintelligible he failed to confirm the read back. The only failure I see on the part of 526 was taking the redwood instructions as those they were expecting (and had yet to receive) anyway. I have removed the exchange immediately prior to that instruction, the two were in rapid fire succession, and it's easy to imagine the pilots housekeeping on rollout hearing the "26" or even just a "6" and mistaking it for the expected, routine instruction.
As to the power of minor distractions I need not remind you of Eastern 401 that flew into the ground due to a burned out gear light and AdamAir 574 that fell into a graveyard spiral from cruise due to preoccupation with an inertial platform anomaly.
There's enough blame to go around in these types of things and the best we can do is try to learn from them.
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To me it sounds like both voices read back the crossing clearance adding their distinct callsigns. In any case, if the recording reflects what ATC actually heard, they should have detected the situation and proceeded with caution. In the Tenerife airport disaster, (detectable) mangled radio transmissions were a major cause of the accident.
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Exactly, Tim, and I suspect that the TC heard Redwood clearly with but a low heterodyne from 526 underneath. AM reception does not have the "capture effect" that FM reception does (where a signal 3-6db stronger can "conquer" the limiter stage and effectively remove the weaker signal) which is why they still use it for aircraft... unless the difference between the two signals is overwhelming (12-15 db or more) and/or the transmitters are within less than, say 20hz frequency difference you are going to hear evidence of a blocked transmission. It is easily possible for these signal strength differences to occur on the field (despite all the signals being strong) due to larger relative inverse square differences in (the comparatively smaller) distance of the aircraft(s) from the field receiver than with a receiver that is 4-5 miles away (in the case of the LiveATC feed) or 8 miles away as my recordings were captured.
For all we know the TC heard Redwood just fine over top of 526 and, as I said before, could easily have assumed the double (if he heard it) was somebody who had just been handed off by APP trying to get a word in edgewise and who would doubtless try again anyway. 526, not hearing any dispute from the TC after reading back a routine and expected instruction, assumed their read back was correct and proceeded as they thought they had been instructed. The only other unknown is whether the missing instruction for 526 would have been forthcoming had not the event occurred, but it seems to me that would have been a bit later than usual, especially when you look at the actual elapsed time between when 526 was cleared to land (#2 following traffic on short final), when the Redwood instruction was given four minutes later (and 526 was clearly on the ground or at the very least least on short final), when 1295 was cleared to go almost a minute later and when the event occurred 30 seconds after that. So the way I look at it, even if 526 had correctly heard and ignored the Redwood instruction they still would not have received any instruction from the tower at the very least for a minute and a half after landing and possibly as many as three, which seems a bit odd to me, whereas the Redwood transmission would have occurred right about when I believe 526 would have been rolling out.
The slightest change in any of the factors would have made this a nil event... if it was Redwood niner-niner, if 1295 had been on-time, if the butterfly on Agent Starling's lips had been able to flap its wings, etc.
Shvt happens, that's all.
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All this makes me wonder when we are ever going to switch to digital comms or some sort of digital atc order transmission for verification or redundancy. I know we do it already for clearances but I hope it gets expanded.
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I hope it never happens. We already have an emerging problem with pilots' over-reliance upon automated flight control systems, and I know of no means by which you can digitally confirm that a pilot understood and acknowledges an instruction. How may of us simply click "I agree" to EULAs or TOS's and move on without reading them, even if they could be understood. So, you send a digital command to 526 to hold short, the pilot takes his eyes away from the windscreen to read it and then... if he agrees clicks "WILCO" and if he disagrees due to his emergency authority as PIC, he does what? Type a response? Click "NO" without explanation, or does he key the mic and say "That last instruction you sent I cannot comply with?" How quickly could the TC have sent that "1295 abort takeoff" command digitally and how quickly could it have been comprehended? Even worse, 1295 would not have even been able to hear that "STOP" command to 526, which is likely why they were already on top of the situation by the time the TC told them to abort.
No, there is a big difference between receiving a clearance and plugging it into the FMS, and communicating information required for immediate action or decision in a busy environment. Having many alert pilots and controllers sharing a common voice frequency in a busy ATA is the best way to assure the best possible situational awareness on the part of all the participants, and until the pilots are eliminated entirely I cannot imagine a better schema. When you look at the number of operations performed verses the handful of close calls, it's a no-brainer for me. Even in this case, in the end the system worked.
The next time you read a story of somebody who followed their GPS over a cliff, onto train tracks or (yes, it happened) across active runways at a major airport... imagine if they were pilots, or even four Air France pilots arguing with their on-board "HAL" as they flew themselves and their passengers into the Atlantic.
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Anything can happen in JFK...