Jet Aborts Landing To Avoid Plane Holding On Runway

On the heels of the NTSB's strong recommendation to the FAA that the agency needs to do more to stem runway incursions, comes word such an event occurred last week -- as a landing airliner came within 100 feet of an RJ holding on the active runway.

The incident occurred Nov. 9 at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, when a US Airways B737 began its approach to land on instructions from ATC -- right after the same controller had issued a position-and-hold instruction to a Comair CRJ-200 for the same runway.

The US Airways crew noticed the RJ at the end of the runway, but ATC reportedly again cleared them to land on the runway... at first. Right before the US Airways jet was to touch down, the controller realized the error and told the 737 to go around. The airliner missed the Comair jet by about 100 feet.

As of Thursday, the FAA had not cited the controller who handled the two aircraft. Based on the information made available, though, it's hard to tell where the fault might lay.

In any case, the NTSB sees the incident as proof pilots need faster warnings to potential conflicts, in the air and on the ground. "We are not providing clear warnings to the cockpit," said NTSB spokeswoman Deborah Hersman.

"We don't want to be investigating an accident that has the potential to be horrific and continue to talk about our recommendations after we've lost hundreds of lives."

As was reported Thursday in Aero-News, the NTSB reports 324 runway incursions so far this year, compared to 326 for 2004.

FMI: www.ntsb.gov