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Air Traffic Monitoring => Listener Forum => Topic started by: mk223 on October 21, 2009, 02:05:36 AM

Title: Incident: Delta Airlines B763 at Atlanta on Oct 19th 2009, landed on taxiway
Post by: mk223 on October 21, 2009, 02:05:36 AM
I just caught this and wanted to share it.

Incident: Delta Airlines B763 at Atlanta on Oct 19th 2009, landed on taxiway

http://avherald.com/h?article=42187f22&opt=0
Title: Re: Incident: Delta Airlines B763 at Atlanta on Oct 19th 2009, landed on taxiway
Post by: sykocus on October 21, 2009, 02:44:14 AM
Landing on a taxiway at your company's home airport. No bueno.
Title: Re: Incident: Delta Airlines B763 at Atlanta on Oct 19th 2009, landed on taxiway
Post by: atcman23 on October 21, 2009, 09:31:19 AM
Um.. whoops.  Yeah those blue lights indicate taxiways, not Delta's special runway.

But since there was a medical emergency, I have to wonder if the urgency of the situation on board may have contributed to this.
Title: Re: Incident: Delta Airlines B763 at Atlanta on Oct 19th 2009, landed on taxiway
Post by: sykocus on October 21, 2009, 09:45:13 AM
Um.. whoops.  Yeah those blue lights indicate taxiways, not Delta's special runway.

But since there was a medical emergency, I have to wonder if the urgency of the situation on board may have contributed to this.

Sure, but we're talking about professional pilots on a wide-body international route. Probably not rookies.
Title: Re: Incident: Delta Airlines B763 at Atlanta on Oct 19th 2009, landed on taxiway
Post by: BRAVO2ZERO on October 21, 2009, 12:46:15 PM
NEED TO HEAR CVR ON THIS LANDING. THIS COULD HAVE BEEN A CATASTROPHY
Title: Re: Incident: Delta Airlines B763 at Atlanta on Oct 19th 2009, landed on taxiway
Post by: atcman23 on October 21, 2009, 12:48:46 PM
Um.. whoops.  Yeah those blue lights indicate taxiways, not Delta's special runway.

But since there was a medical emergency, I have to wonder if the urgency of the situation on board may have contributed to this.

Sure, but we're talking about professional pilots on a wide-body international route. Probably not rookies.

Yeah I know, I think in the end something may have happened while the aircraft was lining up on the approach.  Good thing here is that nobody was hurt (at least relating to the aircraft landing on the taxiway).
Title: Re: Incident: Delta Airlines B763 at Atlanta on Oct 19th 2009, landed on taxiway
Post by: joeyb747 on October 21, 2009, 02:52:58 PM
Here is a news story with a short vid. Pretty strange...

http://www.11alive.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=136570&provider=top
Title: Re: Incident: Delta Airlines B763 at Atlanta on Oct 19th 2009, landed on taxiway
Post by: thesirius728 on October 21, 2009, 05:36:27 PM
My first thoughts after hearing that were "What the f***?". I mean seriously, how could this happen? Anyway, I won't speculate anything further, we don't know what happened in detail, but this sounds too crazy to believe  :-o

MOD: Language edited out. Keep in mind we have some younger members who read the forum as well. Thanks.
Title: Re: Incident: Delta Airlines B763 at Atlanta on Oct 19th 2009, landed on taxiway
Post by: phil-s on October 21, 2009, 08:08:17 PM
Metar, if I read it correctly, said wind calm. Seems like with any significant cross wind this would almost certainly have been a catastrophe. Does the NTSB report for an incident like this always include the CVR transcript?
Title: Re: Incident: Delta Airlines B763 at Atlanta on Oct 19th 2009, landed on taxiway
Post by: Steelrman on October 23, 2009, 08:04:20 AM
Here is a news story with a short vid. Pretty strange...

http://www.11alive.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=136570&provider=top

At the end of the video they say no one was injured on the flight.  No reference to the "medical emergency" patient. I'd like to know how they're doing.  Poor reporting.
Title: Re: Incident: Delta Airlines B763 at Atlanta on Oct 19th 2009, landed on taxiway
Post by: marcoleon on October 23, 2009, 11:31:56 AM
This could have been very ugly. Check out the traffic on Taxiway M here in the Birdseye view: http://www.bing.com/maps/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCC&cp=pm59gy7yz8bc&style=b&lvl=1&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&scene=29077737&encType=1
Title: Re: Incident: Delta Airlines B763 at Atlanta on Oct 19th 2009, landed on taxiway
Post by: jrsx on October 23, 2009, 10:59:30 PM
This in the archives? Love to hear that conversation
Title: Re: Incident: Delta Airlines B763 at Atlanta on Oct 19th 2009, landed on taxiway
Post by: tyketto on October 24, 2009, 03:38:48 AM
This in the archives? Love to hear that conversation

If you have a look at the feeds, you will notice that we have no KATL feed.

BL.
Title: Re: Incident: Delta Airlines B763 at Atlanta on Oct 19th 2009, landed on taxiway
Post by: w0x0f on October 24, 2009, 09:30:12 PM
James Fallows has an interesting take on this story as it relates to the NWA incident at MSP.

http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/10/from_an_airbus_captain_and_rec.php

w0x0f
Title: Re: Incident: Delta Airlines B763 at Atlanta on Oct 19th 2009, landed on taxiway
Post by: jmx53 on October 27, 2009, 04:17:23 AM
James Fallows has an interesting take on this story as it relates to the NWA incident at MSP.

http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/10/from_an_airbus_captain_and_rec.php

w0x0f

I wonder why none of the other reports about this don't make any mention of the runway change inside the marker like this article does.  Still, it's hard to think 2 trained pilots confused white with blue in 10mi vis when the stakes are so high for being wrong.  The reports say that approach lights and ILS were inactive...What about the REIL strobes on either side of the threshold?
Title: Re: Incident: Delta Airlines B763 at Atlanta on Oct 19th 2009, landed on taxiway
Post by: atcman23 on October 27, 2009, 09:13:11 AM
The runway would need to be equipped with the REILS and if it was, chances are if the approach lights were off, the REILS were probably off too.
Title: Re: Incident: Delta Airlines B763 at Atlanta on Oct 19th 2009, landed on taxiway
Post by: jonnevin on October 27, 2009, 09:12:05 PM
It is very easy to say that this never should have happened, because, of course, it shouldn't have. But armchair quarterbacking from the low stress environment behind a computer screen is easy to do.

What is relevant about this is that it is yet another case of a chain of events leading up to an unfortunate result, not one thing.

1) long int'l flight)
2) perhaps higher stress flight throughout due to check pilot presence
3) check pilot gets ill, my understanding is that he physically got ill on the flight deck and you can imagine the distraction the remnants of  that would cause
4) landing dark
5) runway lighting system not standard
6) relatively last minute runway change
7) no other planes on the taxiway to give away that it was in fact a taxiway
8) busy tower that was unable to notice the error happening.

Title: Re: Incident: Delta Airlines B763 at Atlanta on Oct 19th 2009, landed on taxiway
Post by: mk on October 27, 2009, 11:15:36 PM
not busy in the predawn hours of the morning...and unless you had eagle eyes, it would be nearly impossible if not impossible to tell from the tower if an airplane were lined up for a runway or 200ft right of the runway.
Title: Re: Incident: Delta Airlines B763 at Atlanta on Oct 19th 2009, landed on taxiway
Post by: jonnevin on October 28, 2009, 02:35:06 AM
Agreed that's it a slow time of day at ATL, but
that's still relatively busy to other fields.

Wasn't referring to visually noticing flight off
center but rather via the radar where it would
be quite obvious it was off localizer centerline.
Title: Re: Incident: Delta Airlines B763 at Atlanta on Oct 19th 2009, landed on taxiway
Post by: jeffcyn on December 26, 2009, 11:51:50 PM
The FAA released the ATC recordings on Dec 22nd at: http://www.faa.gov/data_research/accident_incident/2009-10-19/media/2009-10-19_dl60_redacted.mp3 (http://www.faa.gov/data_research/accident_incident/2009-10-19/media/2009-10-19_dl60_redacted.mp3)
Title: Re: Incident: Delta Airlines B763 at Atlanta on Oct 19th 2009, landed on taxiway
Post by: dave on December 27, 2009, 11:35:44 AM
Long live the Freedom of Information Act.
Title: Re: Incident: Delta Airlines B763 at Atlanta on Oct 19th 2009, landed on taxiway
Post by: swayze84 on December 30, 2009, 04:00:59 PM
Shy of the tower asking the ramp (gate?) to have the captain give them a call, there seemed to be no mention of the incident.  Obviously, we weren't there and don't know how this unfolded in the cockpit or tower, but would a controller speak to the protocol for something like this?  Is it preferred to let the medical emergency focus on getting to the gate before raising concern about deviations such as landing on a taxiway?
Title: Re: Incident: Delta Airlines B763 at Atlanta on Oct 19th 2009, landed on taxiway
Post by: joeyb747 on November 16, 2010, 08:36:04 AM
"The NTSB have released their final report on Nov 15th 2010 concluding the probable cause of the incident was:

The flight crew’s failure to identify the correct landing surface due to fatigue.

Contributing to the cause of the incident were

(1) the flight crew’s decision to accept a late runway change,
(2) the unavailability of the approach light system and the instrument landing system for the runway of intended landing, and
(3) the combination of numerous taxiway signs and intermixing of light technologies on the taxiway."


From:

http://www.avherald.com/h?article=42187f22/0000&opt=0