Animation: runway incursion incident in O'Hare

[kkjlai]

Have a brief search and didn't find it posted here yet..

A recent preliminary investigation which I find interesting..

http://www.ntsb.gov/Events/2006/MostWantedFed/AnimationDescription.htm


"This three dimensional animated reconstruction shows the runway incursion incident between an Atlas Air B747 and an United Airlines B737 at the Chicago O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois on July 23, 2006. The following incident reconstruction displays information from the flight data recorder, Air Traffic Communication, recorded radar data, and aircraft performance data. This reconstruction does not depict weather or visibility conditions at the time of the incident.

This animation contains audio."

Hope you enjoy this!

kkjlai

[Biff]

It was posted in the clips forum last week:
http://www.liveatc.net/forums/index.php/topic,2511.0.html

Scary stuff.   

[pa28140]

Interesting and very scary thanks.

[PIT]

The United pilots are very observant and saw the atlas coming, but obviously the atlas 747 are not. good job united pilots!!!

[Studentpilo]

That is actually wrong. ORD has two tower controllers (One who controls the 27s and one who controls the 14s if I am correct, not 100% sure). ORD departs and lands on both the 27s and 14s. Both pilots did exactly what they were told to, the United was cleared for takeoff on 27 (R I think not sure) and the Atlas was cleared to land on 14 (L I think again not sure). The 27s controller misjudged how long it would take for the Atlas to land, and couldn't see him rolling because his view was blocked by people in the tower. It was the fault of the controllers, the pilots luckily were very diligent and avoided a major problem. Feel bad for the controller, he must feel terrible, but we all make mistakes, we are humans.

[digger]

http://www.carmachicago.com/profiles/OHareAirport.pdf

Really interesting reading there. Be sure to memorize it all--there will be a quiz later.

On page 8 it says in part: "Tower/Local Control - There can be anywhere from one to three tower controllers working at one time and depending on the runway configuration, a frequency assigned to a single runway may change from time to time. The outbound ground controller will assign the appropriate frequency."

I can't find that specifies which controller works which runways, when, but the fact that tower frequencies are designated "North" and "South" would lead me to believe that the runways are not worked with the 27s and the 14s combined as described above. Probably more like 27R/9L and 14L/32R (along with 22R/4L) being "Local North", while 27L/9R, 14R/32L, and 22L/4R would be under the control of "Local South". (But I could be wrong too.)

[EivlEvo]

To my understanding the 74 was LANDING! Regardless of whether or not he COULD stop, he wasn't expecting to have a short field landing. Nor is he expecting crossing traffic. Now that's not to say that he shouldn't be looking out for it. This situation went exactly as it "should" have as far as I'm concerned. The 74 was performing a rollout as specified for its performance. The United pilots had most CERTAINLY already achieved their V1 speed by the time they saw the 74, and had no other choice but to attempt to clear it. If the pilots spotted the plane WAY before hand, but AFTER V1, there is ABSOLUTELY nothing they can do, no need to try to call the tower, obviously they are on diff freqs, no need to make a radio call, the 74 pilots wouldn't have heard them.

AVIATE FIRST
NAVIGATE
THEN
Communicate.

The reason that the 74 pilots seemed to be unaware is also because they were likely on a different frequency. I assume that's why they don't have any chatter on this. But I would assume that the 74 pilots would've seen that 73 coming at them and either accelerated to get out of their way, or just remained idle. Depending on when they noticed the jet going from a holding position to a rolling position which is VERY difficult to see esp when ur trying to rollout a heavy.

So I say well played by both groups of Pilots. (Well... as well as it could have been played)
The controllers likely got their timing off, or someone was moving slower or faster than they expected.

Also keep in mind that without that white circle that 74 is still pretty hard to see, and this doesn't have ANY of the very likely other traffic cluttering the taxiways. Seeing a plane out of the corner of your eye a mile away at KORD is like seeing windsheild wipers on a car... They're there, you know they're there, why should you worry.

No Im not saying get complacent... just, well you get the idea.

~DAVE

[EivlEvo]

Yeah no doubt.

Also to add, lots of times you cannot see the departure end of the runway while sitting on the approach end due to elevation changes, lighting, heat dissipation etc.

~DAVE

[rehty77]

These days they're modernizing... They've stopped using runway 14/32 for any a/c movements and they have begun to make all the runways parallel east-west ones. These days RWY 10L/28R is the main and longest runway of the airport, used for all departures and about 1/2 the arrivals (the other 1/2 use either 27L/R or 28C)