'Southwest abort, FedEx is on the go!':
Moment desperate cargo jet pilot landing
at Austin airport tells passenger jet
75ft below it to abort take off because
they're using the SAME runway
Daily Mail (UK),
by
James Gordon
&
Melissa Koenig
Original Article
Posted By: Imright,
2/6/2023 3:33:26 AM
Newly-released audio details how a FedEx pilot, trying to land his cargo plane, urgently told a Southwest pilot to abort their imminent take off at Texas' Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.
Air Traffic Control audio revealed that the crew onboard a Southwest flight headed to Cancun, Mexico, were aware that the cargo plane was approaching the runway - but went ahead and took off anyway.
The plane had been given the OK to take off, but allegedly took too long. By the time it tried to begin its ascent, the Boeing 767 cargo plane was approaching its landing.
Quick-thinking pilots on the cargo plane were forced to swiftly make a go-around,
Reply 1 - Posted by:
Flyball Dogs 2/6/2023 4:01:23 AM (No. 1396142)
Remind me to ship myself FedEx the next time I fly.
20 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
skacmar 2/6/2023 6:32:56 AM (No. 1396200)
Sounds like Southwest needs to get rid of a pilot. If not for quick action and skilled flying by the FedEx pilot, there would have been a spectacular collision that morning.
19 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
EJKrausJr 2/6/2023 7:02:40 AM (No. 1396215)
Calling Butt Pete! Calling Butt Pete! Your transportation systems are fubar'd. Calling Butt Pete! Calling Butt Pete!
13 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
F15 Gork 2/6/2023 7:15:20 AM (No. 1396228)
The America I grew up in is literally falling apart......
25 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
downnout 2/6/2023 7:18:18 AM (No. 1396231)
Southwest needs a reboot…ASAP. Waaay too many screwups.
13 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
Dodge Boy 2/6/2023 7:23:15 AM (No. 1396235)
Whew. FedEx pilots, we thank you for preventing a horrible disaster from happening in at Austin airport.
22 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
Bur Oak 2/6/2023 7:33:00 AM (No. 1396240)
Watch Juan Brown's video on YouTube if you want to learn what really happened.
9 people like this.
Everybody made some mistakes, listen to a longer unedited clip. Tower cleared Southwest with FedEx three miles out. That’s pushing it, it was a category three approach with visibly as little as a couple hundred yards. Tower could have delayed Southwest for two minutes and FedEx would have landed and vacated. FedEx knew it—he asked tower to confirm his clearance. Tower could have sent FedEx around then.
Southwest took over a minute to get rolling although he had reported ready less than two minutes before. Bad—the tower was counting on him just taking off, and he didn’t take off. Once tower knew Southwest was just starting his roll, he could have canceled their clearance and sent FedEx around, or simply sent FedEx around. At that point FedEx would have been about a mile from the runway. Way too close.
Tower apparently thought FedEx's call for Southwest to abort was from Southwest, and gave Southwest taxi instructions. (FedEx's radio call was not by the book, but they were busy executing a go around.) Then tower instructed FedEx to climb, but not turn. Then, as FedEx was flying over Southwest, tower told them both to turn the same direction. Tower could have sent FedEx left with his initial go around instruction, and turned Southwest right. Or vice versa.
It takes a whole lot of mistakes to cause an aircraft accident. The FedEx crew broke the chain. I’d bet they had their hands on the throttles ready to go around way before they saw the Southwest plane. They saw it coming.
23 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
globalwarmer 2/6/2023 9:09:56 AM (No. 1396311)
If a quick departure is required, the controller will usually say "cleared for IMMEDIATE departure". The pilot knows this means he must expedite his take off. I heard no such discourse from the Tower to the SW pilot.
11 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
davew 2/6/2023 9:33:28 AM (No. 1396329)
As Juan Brown pointed out, the FedEx was doing a Cat III approach which is completely flown by the autopilot. Both the pilot and first officer were glued to the gauges and not looking outside so they would not have seen the SW even it the fog wasn't obscuring it. It feels like ATC was pushing the time envelope on this in an unsafe way. They should have been monitoring the SW and not approved the takeoff due to the delay and proximity to the FedEx especially when FedEx had declared a Cat III ILS approach.
8 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
MickTurn 2/6/2023 10:39:49 AM (No. 1396383)
Seems the FAA is using Affirmative Action hires...this is a death sentence waiting to happen!
10 people like this.
Sounds like a lot of blame among more than one party, but seems that there should have been a wave-off once it was realized that SW was not rolling.
6 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
DVC 2/6/2023 10:57:48 AM (No. 1396407)
When a pilot is given a clearance to take off, they "own" that runway until they are gone. This is 100% on the controller for not monitoring his stacking of sequential users to the same runway and realizing that his "assumption" that X amount of time would be enough for the Southwest flight to take off wasn't working, and he should have had the the FedEx 'go around', NOT continue towards landing.
Once things are totally balled up....the FedEx guy was probably right in deconflicting it....it is easier for the Southwest, stationary or low speed, ON THE GROUND, to stop what he is doing than it is for the FedEx, engines rolled back to idle, too many second of spool up time before they make useful thrust, to stop descending. Modern jet engines take perhaps 3-5 second before they can go from idle to full power, way too long in a rapidly developing emergency.
This is totally on the tower guy.
I have many hundreds of takeoffs and landings, many at Oshkosh which literally has FAR more landings and takeoffs during the multi-day air show than any other airport on Earth.
Even if the Southwest flight "took too long", that is still totally on the tower controller -- he needed to be monitoring his spacing better. Tower controllers at heavy use airports is like juggling hand grenades...you CANNOT "drop one", and not everyone is up for the challenge.
16 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
zephyrgirl 2/6/2023 11:07:01 AM (No. 1396411)
I was on a flight to Denver when something similar happened. We were coming in for a landing, close enough to see the runway, when all of a sudden, our pilot gunned the engines, and we started ascending rather rapidly. We circled around and landed about 10 minutes later. I happened to walk the jetway with the pilot and asked him what happened. He told me there was another plane on the runway so he had to abort the landing.
9 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
DVC 2/6/2023 11:10:05 AM (No. 1396413)
#9's point is an excellent one. I have, on more than one occasion, been given that exact T.O. clearance "Cleared for IMMEDIATE take off"....with clear implication that if you can't hit the throttle RIGHT NOW, you should stay put and get a new T.O. clearance at the next gap in flow.
I still put this 100% on the controller. It's "their runway" and they are responsible for the separation. He should have never cleared the SW flight for T.O. with the FedEx that close, especially on a Cat 3....which means extremely limited visibility for the approaching aircraft. Three miles away at 200 mph (-ish) is less than ONE MINUTE before the FedEx is going to be on the runway. Very tight, even with the "IMMEDIATE" call, which was not used.
So that non-pilots can understand how poor the visibility was, "Cat 3" (Category III) means that the aircraft can descend to less than 100 ft altitude before seeing the runway, and visibility is only required to be 600 ft....which isn't much, in an aircraft approaching at about 200 miles per hour. The FedEx guy couldn't see much, couldn't do much avoiding - assuming that the weather was actually at Cat 3 minimums, which may not be accurate.
7 people like this.
We need to examine training for Air Traffic Controllers. Maybe we're putting controllers in who have little knowledge of their job. Really. Don't just blame pilot error. Maybe employing folks who need more training. Too many of these incidents I think are untrained controllers.
4 people like this.
...oh and my "experience"...coming into SeaTac late in the evening, all of a sudden the plane goes up and climbs for a few seconds. Then commenced to fly around the area until it landed a few more minutes later. Maybe one of those mistakes of late? AA pilot and crew...thanks.
3 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
Vaquero45 2/6/2023 12:12:04 PM (No. 1396475)
Most previous posters are correct. If an aircraft is on a CATIII approach, no other aircraft should have been cleared onto the runway. This is on the controller.
9 people like this.
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