Wed, Mar 30, 2011
Some Say Aircraft Should Have Entered Holding Pattern
Or Diverted Rather Than Landing
The pilots of two airliners which landed at Washington
Reagan National Airport (DCA) last week while the lone controller
on duty was asleep have come under fire for making the decision to
land without clearance. Safety official both in and out of
government had said that the decision to land while the aircrews
did not know what was happening in the tower was the wrong one.
A report in the Wall Street Journal indicates that the FAA's
former top lawyer for the eastern region said that landing
without a clearance was "clearly inappropriate," and that the
notion that the landings were safe and that there was no violation
of FARs is "clearly preposterous." Both airliners, an American
Airlines 737 and a United Airlines A320 landed safely.
But the attorney, Loretta Alkalay, said the decision to land
when the pilot is unable to reach the tower is "absolutely not up
to the pilot." Former NTSB member Richard Healing told the paper
that he was "more than a little surprised" that the flights were
not diverted to nearby BWI or IAD rather than landing without
clearance. He said the biggest threat to safety in that situation
would have been the potential of other planes or vehicles on the
runway that the pilots might not have seen until it was too
late. He said it would have been better to inconvenience the
passengers than to compromise their safety.
An NTSB spokesperson said over the weekend that the pilots'
decision to land was under investigation by the board. A
spokesperson for American Airlines said that their pilots followed
clearly-defined FAA procedures, and once it was determined that DCA
was, for all intents and purposes an uncontrolled airport, the
planes did not need clearance to land. Former NTSB chair Mark
Rosenker agreed, saying that based on the information he had
available that the pilots "acted appropriately."
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