Toronto Incident Raises Profile In Media

Canada's Transportation Safety Board is investigating a November 18 incident in which a taxiing American Eagle Embraer 145 regional jet blew past a hold-short instruction and narrowly missed colliding with an Air Canada Airbus A319 accelerating for takeoff. The case has brought an awareness even among the general media of just how many near-misses there really are.

As revealed by ATC recordings, the incident at Toronto's Pearson International Airport (pictured) happened when the regional jet pilot, who had just landed, was told by a controller to hold short on the taxiway for the departing Airbus. The American Eagle pilot read back the instruction correctly, but instead of holding short, just kept rolling.

A controller is heard yelling, "Eagle 4125, stop! Stop! Stop!" Even then, the plane kept rolling for a few seconds, and one witness told The Aviation Herald website the A319 was only about 10 meters (33 feet) above the smaller plane as it passed overhead. TSB Investigator Don Enns says initial data shows the A319 got the wheels off just 600 meters before the low pass over the other aircraft.

Enns tells the Toronto Star that when it comes to runway incursions, "We take these very seriously. We’re trying to understand why. There are stop lights out there. We’re talking to the (American Eagle) crew about how they were able to miss those lights."

The Star notes that there were 3,831 runway incursions at Canadian airports between 1999 and 2008, or an average of about one per day. Most are scary but don't hurt anyone, but they can be deadly. On the island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands, in 1977, two 747s actually did collide on the ground, and 583 people died.

The Wall Street Journal's report on the incident observed that the FAA was boasting as recently as September of 2010 about a 50 percent year-over-year reduction in runway incursions at US airports. But in June of this year, the agency had to acknowledge they're on the rise again, mainly due to pilots losing situational awareness or failing to fully follow instructions from controllers.

FMI: www.faa.gov/airports/runway_safety/news/runway_incursions