Austin near miss - Fedex nearly lands on top of Southwest aircraft

[willmarsh3]

Juan Brown was quite fired up about this - and for good reason.

[Nicholas Scheuer]

Both AC proceeding on instructions from tower? In this case Fed Ex could most likely see the situation when visibility improved (atmospheric) however had he been closer, the SW plane might not be visible below the Fed-Ex nose.

[willmarsh3]

It sounds like the Fedex crew saved the day.

[woodpile]

Was on one of those flights landing in Charlotte, N.C. On approach guessing at around 1000' heard the landing gear come up and what felt like full military power applied, told wife we we're doing a go around for some reason, within a few minutes pilot announced there was an aircraft on the runway, not supposed to happen.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

That’s the second loss of separation incident that Juan Browne has covered in a few days.

[dutchpp]

That’s the second loss of separation incident that Juan Browne has covered in a few days.

In 2019 Flightradar 24 counted worldwide more than 230.000 movements on a single day. The number of incidents still is low.
https://www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20190726_04529115

[Tom Montgomery]

.
I will never forget flying into Houston in the early 80's. I was on a commercial flight out of Cleveland. I had a window seat. As we approached for landing I watched as we came over the edge of the runway and then - at the same instant - our aircraft suddenly accelerated, nosed up, and went into a steep bank. We were all petrified. Then... after what seemed like an eternity but was actually two or three minutes... the pilot came over the intercom to tell us, "There was another aircraft on our runway so we decided to abort landing to try again." That sort of experience stays with you. I can no longer relax on an airplane.

[JayInOz]

This was last month on the Gold Coast. Two helicopters- no happy ending https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NwuKY55bP0 JayInOz

[robm]

"Loss of separation" - what a nice euphemism for a near-collision!

[Dave Hadfield]

Good thing the flight crews have a fishfinder.

[willmarsh3]

That and keeping track of the tower communications.

Twice in my travels I have experienced go-arounds. Once while landing in Halifax in 2009 aand once in London, UK in 2019. Both cases were clear weather though so the pilots could see the obstacles way before it got serious. They were a bit disconcerting when they happened.

[Garth Jones]

The only go around I've experienced was on a lovely clear day. I was on a Beech 1900 turboprop flying into Manhattan, Kansas to see my folks. The airport is about half way between town and Fort Riley, one of the army's largest bases. There was a plain white biz jet (no markings at all the I could see) with some folks standing around. Just before landing we powered up and went and flew a lazy pattern over the countryside for about ten minutes. When we came back and landed, the biz jet was gone. Not creepy at all.....

[Nicholas Carey]

Was on one of those flights landing in Charlotte, N.C. On approach guessing at around 1000' heard the landing gear come up and what felt like full military power applied, told wife we we're doing a go around for some reason, within a few minutes pilot announced there was an aircraft on the runway, not supposed to happen.

Happened to me once. On final into Detroit, maybe 300 feet up, and all of a sudden, it was full throttle hard to starboard, and up, up, and away. Once things got settled down, the pilot got on the horn and apologized, say that there was another aircraft where it should not have been.

[Lugs]

A mate of mine works for the mob that lost a 737 firefighter in Western Oz today. Both pilots survived. Very lucky escape.

[JayInOz]

Yep- was just reading about it on a news site- https://www.watoday.com.au/national/...06-p5cidz.html

Another site was still talking about the sixteen year old girl killed by a big shark in the Swan River. Nasty way to go. JayInOz

[dutchpp]

A go around is not rare, every larger airport, lets say > 1300 movements a day, has one nearly every day.
To be sure, that's not because there's always another object on the runway

[CK 17]

I have a few questions which I’m sure will be answered in time.

it seems from the recording it took SW a full minute to take off after being cleared AND after acknowledging being advised Fedex was on a 3 mile final.

some aircraft require an engine run up in freezing fog, if so it would have been silly to accept that take-off clearance.

it seemed as though the controller set everything up for success then for some reason spacing was lost. Maybe he didn’t have ground radar.

normally I wouldn’t think twice about starting my take off with another aircraft on a 3 mile final. It’s quite common.

I think Juan is just plain wrong about the ILS critical area

this link to an FAA publication says it extends out to the final approach fix, which at AUS is only about 3 miles out, plus there’s an exception for departing and landing aircraft when there’s a reasonable expectation that they’re actually going to depart.

https://pointsixtyfive.com/xenforo/wiki/03-07-05/

[Dave Hadfield]

A Go-Around is not an abnormal maneuver, it prevents one. During the 25 years I flew domestic routes within N. America, I probably averaged 2 per year; even more in the '70s and '80s when we still attempted ADF and VOR approaches in bad weather.

But it's the TCAS ("fishfinder") display in the cockpit; and the awareness of an experienced, switched-on crew that saved this one. If this incident had happened in the days before TCAS, it would have been a collision -- like Tenerife.

TCAS.jpg

I'm interested to know what was going on in the Tower. Had someone stepped-out, reducing it to a single-person operation, or did the phone ring, or was there a significant fatigue pattern? No MeTube commentor has the slightest clue about actual facts like that.

Dave

[The Gentleman Sawyer]

The tower instructed Southwest to abort its takeoff, but the pilot replied “negative” and proceeded. Maybe past V1?

Ken


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[Garth Jones]

The tower instructed Southwest to abort its takeoff, but the pilot replied “negative” and proceeded. Maybe past V1?

Ken


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Did the abort instruction come from the tower or the FedEx pilot? I've listened to the audio and it sure sounds like the FedEx pilot to me. FWIW, Juan Brown thought so also.