Delta knocks tail off other plane on ground

midwestpa24 said:
AC 150/5300-13A Airport Design, Chapter 4 is all about Taxiway Design. There are standards for wingtip separation between parallel taxiways, but obviously not for crossing taxiways. There are also standards of distance between taxiways and runways, but that is more driven by obstacle height clearance to the tip of tail of an aircraft on the taxiway.
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So that covers taxiway design. What about the GND responsibility (or not).

Tim
 
Certainly if the RJ had been up to the line, they would have had ten meters or so clearance. Was the RJ still in motion? Doesn't look like it, but with choppy surveillance video it's hard to tell.
Still, from the vantage point of the 350, it should be clear that the RJ wasn't in position.
Gonna give the responsibility for this one to the Airbus drivers, using the "downhill skier" rule.
 
FlightmechH3 said:
So, the CRJ can just stop wherever they want and everyone else has a responsibility to ensure clearances to go around them? Lol, get out of here.

The nose of the CRJ was 80' from the line. I put 60% of the fault on the CRJ.
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So by that logic, had the CRJ not turned onto Taxiway H and instead stopped on Taxiway E (the parallel to the runway), the Airbus can just run over it?
 
midwestpa24 said:
So by that logic, had the CRJ not turned onto Taxiway H and instead stopped on Taxiway E (the parallel to the runway), the Airbus can just run over it?
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They were about 40 feet from the hold line. Regardless it’s irrelevant. It could have been a 757 and they would have hit even with their nose on the line. There is no clearance guaranteed in this situation. It’s up to the A350 to not hit stopped traffic.
 
Jeff767 said:
They were about 40 feet from the hold line. Regardless it’s irrelevant. It could have been a 757 and they would have hit even with their nose on the line. There is no clearance guaranteed in this situation. It’s up to the A350 to not hit stopped traffic.
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Curious, why you say it was the A350 responsibility. I asked earlier, only the taxiway design regs were listed.
What responsibility does GND have? ATC has responsibility in the air? With a tower on the field, I have always assumed (and this so far worked for tiny GA planes) that GND provides separation once you enter the operating area. In fact, this is what I was told at KBED by the controllers. But I never questioned this assumption, or had a reg to point too one way or the other.

Tim
 
I also look at the Engineering Tips Forum. I believe you can look but not post to the discussion without joining. There is a forum for disasters and accidents like this get attention too. One of the folks did some interesting graphics. I haven't tried to check the accuracy. It's worth a look.

See -> https://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=522527

This is my go to for a lot of this kind of stuff.
 
tspear said:
Curious, why you say it was the A350 responsibility. I asked earlier, only the taxiway design regs were listed.
What responsibility does GND have? ATC has responsibility in the air? With a tower on the field, I have always assumed (and this so far worked for tiny GA planes) that GND provides separation once you enter the operating area. In fact, this is what I was told at KBED by the controllers. But I never questioned this assumption, or had a reg to point too one way or the other.

Tim
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The ground controller is located in a tower a mile away. Do you think they have a better perspective on wingtip clearance than the pilots?
 
The crew is responsible for knowing where their wingtips track over the ground. As part of a pilot’s initial operating experience, an aircraft geometry demonstration is accomplished so the pilots know exactly where the wingtips track. Responsibility for this incident lies squarely with the 350 crew.
 
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FlightmechH3 said:
So, the CRJ can just stop wherever they want and everyone else has a responsibility to ensure clearances to go around them? Lol, get out of here.

The nose of the CRJ was 80' from the line. I put 60% of the fault on the CRJ.
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tspear said:
So that covers taxiway design. What about the GND responsibility (or not).

Tim
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tspear said:
Curious, why you say it was the A350 responsibility. I asked earlier, only the taxiway design regs were listed.
What responsibility does GND have? ATC has responsibility in the air? With a tower on the field, I have always assumed (and this so far worked for tiny GA planes) that GND provides separation once you enter the operating area. In fact, this is what I was told at KBED by the controllers. But I never questioned this assumption, or had a reg to point too one way or the other.

Tim
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May I introduce you to 91.3(a).
 
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I don't get why this is hard to understand. The CRJ was stopped, or for all practical purposes we should assume it was stopped. The A350 hit a parked plane.

If you hit a parked car with your car, you're responsible.

That the CRJ wasn't at the hold line contributed to the accident cause, but that is an "after action" observation that can be used to help prevent future accidents. It has nothing to do with who was responsible for the accident.
 
Jeff Oslick said:
I don't get why this is hard to understand. The CRJ was stopped, or for all practical purposes we should assume it was stopped. The A350 hit a parked plane.

If you hit a parked car with your car, you're responsible.

That the CRJ wasn't at the hold line contributed to the accident cause, but that is an "after action" observation that can be used to help prevent future accidents. It has nothing to do with who was responsible for the accident.
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I am not disagreeing with you, but perhaps the confusion comes from that exact analogy. If you hit a parked car because it was parked eight feet from the curb, the parker of the parked car would most likely bear some responsibility for the poor parking job as well. You'd be mostly at fault for hitting it, but they would probably be charged with obstructing a roadway or something and thus be deemed partially at fault, at least in insurance land. But then again, there're laws about parking eight feet from the curb, and I don't think there are any about holding 40' short at an airport!
 
At the end of the day the parked CRJ crew probably won’t have to undergo extra training. I’d say, at most, there may be a company memo to remind crews to pull up as close as possible to the hold short line. The 350 crew will almost certainly have to make a trip down to ATL and do some extra training
 
Again, what justification is there for complaining about the RJ guys being back from the line. There's no guidance that says you need to put the nose on the line, and as others observed, we're only having this discussion because it was an RJ. Anything larger (even an CRJ-1000 is 40 feet longer) and they'd have hit it even if it had the nose bowl on the hold short line.

The rear of the plane was clearly past the border of the taxiway. If you know your wings hang over the edge, it's destined to hit. The RJ was not backing up.
 
FlightmechH3 said:
From another pilot's perspective at the incident.
View attachment 133411
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Since the CRJ is clearly dragging metal and probably hemorrhaging hydraulic oil, would they have (or did they?) off-loaded passengers at the side of the runway and bus them back to the terminal? Would they have tried to jack the tail off the tarmac and put a dolly under it to get it back to a maintenance hangar without leaving shrapnel behind?
 
Reports are the Airbus taxied back to the terminal and the RJ passengers got off at the spot and were bused back.

As for moving the rest of it. I would assume they probably severed whatever was left holding it on and forked it up off the runway.
 
DJTorrente said:
Since the CRJ is clearly dragging metal and probably hemorrhaging hydraulic oil, would they have (or did they?) off-loaded passengers at the side of the runway and bus them back to the terminal? Would they have tried to jack the tail off the tarmac and put a dolly under it to get it back to a maintenance hangar without leaving shrapnel behind?
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Video available showing passenger buses arriving at the CRJ at the accident location. Also showing two cranes lifting tail onto flatbed and tug towing tailless CRJ away from accident location.
 
flyingron said:
Reports are the Airbus taxied back to the terminal and the RJ passengers got off at the spot and were bused back.

As for moving the rest of it. I would assume they probably severed whatever was left holding it on and forked it up off the runway.
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The only question I would have is did they use wrenches to unbolt what was left, or sawzall?
 
Fearless Tower said:
They weren't all the way to the line, but I'd hardly call that 'way off'
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That picture is telephoto and is pretty squashed. Discounting any torsional rotation imparted by the A350, the CRJ’s nosewheel is roughly 63’ from the hold short line, which puts the tip of the nosecone about 56’ from the line. Going back 118’ from the nosecone to the trailing edge of the stab, that puts the tail about 17’ into the taxilane clearance required by the A350. Pretty big overhang.

Now, according to Bombardier documentation, at a measured eye position, the pilot can see the ground beginning 26’ 8” in front of the nosecone. So, if you stop 31’ 8” from the hold short and can still see it (plus a 5’ buffer for mom), that would put the CRJ’s tail about 8’ away from the clearance needed by the A350. You could ostensibly get even closer to the hold short line than that. However, there’s not much room in general, and much less so for other aircraft types.
 
While it is a fact that this incident would not have happened if the RJ had pulled up tight to the hold short line, they are not at fault, maybe rude, but not to blame. This is completely on the Airbus pilots for not identifying that they had clearance to taxi past a parked object.
 
None of the crews are losing their job, or getting a *post-facto training failure added to their airman file, so what inducement is there for any of this to matter?

*In the military, they checker/mess up your FEF (flight evaluation folder in blue bird parlance, e.g. checkride records) after the fact, knowing it hurts future civilian flying employment prospects. The DoD recognizes money is seldom an effective inducement for .mil folks at the commissioned officer level. Many are members of the upper middle class before they even got to the military, and most who resemble the remark consider their time in military aviation as merely "their regional years" anyways. Not defending the draconian/petty approach, but that's how the cookie crumbles over on this side of the indentured servitude line.

So remember to thank your union rep prior to your next block out, you guys are playing LifeTM in Peaceful mode, to grab a reference from my kiddo's Minecraft.

*break break*

TLDR forewarned Uncle HS story time:

I've been close to getting hacked up as collateral damage by the .mil system. They tried to burn me with a Q3 for something the other qualified instructor in the aircraft (T-6A), senior in rank, did off-station during a formation landing (back when we could do those things). Decides to impromptu snatch the aircraft from me on landing rollout to shine his ... in front of a pos guppy from his new employer (former AirTran, at the time newly SWA-acquired pilot) that was following behind on a 3 mile final.

Something about taking taxiways like they do at the airline...real dumb, taxiway in question wasn't a real high-speed anyways, and proceeds to lock, smoke and blow out the living life out of both tires, with wingman witnessing/following the whole thing less than 20 ft off our wing. And apropos to this thread, we did have a UPS 767 taxi past us with wingtip overlapping our aircraft wing footprint, while we waited for airfield management to figure out how the hell they were gonna get our airplane out of the way.

The FBO with the .gov fuel contract refused to tow with flats, so there we sat on the wing, as I waved at the people in the pax terminal in my full "top gun dressup", and the offending IP stomping his feet and trying to barter with me with insolent "why didn't you take it from me!?!" straw-grasping. It was a real crapshow.

Where it got real for me, was when Massa then tried to hook us both for it. I MAGNUM'd back with 'what is this "we" business'. In the end, airline dope came clean and told them I had nothing to do with his imprudence. And he knew I had him dead to rights, as I had transmitted " XXXX 69, unable taxiway Juliet" on the rollout to tower, right before cowboy decides to snatch the controls and pull the stunt. It took a few days to figure out, which was injustice enough, but I was ready to go all-in and really burn my future civil employability over it.

Since then, I've been largely disabused from the desire to fly with other qualified people in the seat, any more than I'm absolutely required to. To say nothing of my disinterest for crew aircraft flying, which was already stipulated when I ran away to the training command in the first place. 10/10 will always rather fly with the worst performing student actively trying to kill me, than share a pit with a qualified peer. Nothing I have more distaste for in this life than moral hazards.
 
Dave Theisen said:
While it is a fact that this incident would not have happened if the RJ had pulled up tight to the hold short line, they are not at fault, maybe rude, but not to blame. This is completely on the Airbus pilots for not identifying that they had clearance to taxi past a parked object.
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“Aaaaahhhhhhhh, Ground, could you ask this little airplane to pull ahead so we can get by?”
 
tspear said:
What responsibility does GND have? ATC has responsibility in the air? With a tower on the field, I have always assumed (and this so far worked for tiny GA planes) that GND provides separation once you enter the operating area.
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Ground told them "as able".

For a VFR aircraft, the tower controller provides sequencing and runway separation.
 
I wonder if they will issue a new "hotspot" for particular this location (HS-3)? Not typically a spot noted for runway incursion, but maybe the CRJ crew didn't want to be "the guy" that caused an incursion so they held back from the hold short line?

"An "airport surface hot spot" is a location on an aerodrome movement area with a history or potential risk of collision or runway incursion, and where heightened attention by pilots/drivers is necessary. A "hot spot" is a runway safety related problem area on an airport that presents increased risk during surface operations. Typically it is a complex or confusing taxiway/taxiway or taxiway/runway intersection. The area of increased risk has either a history of or potential for runway incursions or surface incidents, due to a variety of causes, such as but not limited to: airport layout, traffic flow, airport marking, signage and lighting, situational awareness, and training. Hot spots are depicted on airport diagrams as open circles or polygons designated as "HS 1", "HS 2", etc. and tabulated in the list below with a brief description of each hot spot. Hot spots will remain charted on airport diagrams until such time the increased risk has been reduced or eliminated."
 
midwestpa24 said:
The ground controller is located in a tower a mile away. Do you think they have a better perspective on wingtip clearance than the pilots?
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I know it has been five plus years since I taxied around KBED. But from the old hangars, you had specific places to wait to be cleared in/out of certain taxiways. All because GND could not see well enough to know if there was a large bizjet or an LSA there and wanted to prevent conflicts or accidents.
I ran into the same thing at KPSM. There was a tiny Cessna on an midfield entry to a runway; I am going down a taxiway. GND had me stop before the midfield entry taxiway, even though the taxiway was designed for C17/C135 so my wingtips are not even the width of the taxiway.

So my point is, is this courtesy, experience, hot spots, or some regulation?

Tim
 
I am privileged to fly an airplane with a 213’ wingspan at work, and even more privileged to fly an open cockpit biplane with zero forward visibility (on the ground) for play. Despite the vast and obvious differences between these two great aircraft, there is no difference in the way that I approach airport surface operations. Safely operating both airplanes on the ground requires vigilance, care, constant situational awareness, and discipline. It is crucial to manage potential distractions at all times while the aircraft is in motion.

Some of the posts to this thread seem to indicate an alarming lack of understanding regarding the responsibility borne by the PIC, which is very clearly established by 91.3. This responsibility applies equally to aircraft operating on an airport surface and in flight. There is an old joke that goes something like this: If you are not on the yellow centerline and you hit something, it’s your fault, Captain. But if you are on the yellow centerline and you hit something, it’s your fault, Captain. During taxi, it is the responsibility of the PIC to determine whether a taxi clearance issued by ATC can be safely complied with and whether the route can be safely negotiated, and to continually assure that the path of the aircraft is clear of hazards. Whenever one or more of those conditions is in doubt, the PIC must take whatever action may be necessary to safely resolve the issue.

The collision was easily preventable by the Airbus crew, had they been paying attention. It seems likely that they became distracted by certain goings-on inside the cockpit at the expense of their situational awareness and vigilance, with unfortunate results. But it isn’t just the pilots of airliners who must be wary of this issue: a hangar neighbor, whom I know to be a sharp and experienced plot, recently became distracted while taxiing his single-engine Cessna and tangled with a piece of airport infrastructure. Regardless of what and where we fly, a mere moment of inattention is all it takes. It is all-too-easy to fall prey to distractions, and I keep this in mind every single time I release the parking brake, because it could just as easily be me next time.

When we choose to act as PIC of an aircraft, it’s on us. First, last, and always.
 
hindsight2020 said:
None of the crews are losing their job, or getting a *post-facto training failure added to their airman file, so what inducement is there for any of this to matter?

*In the military, they checker/mess up your FEF (flight evaluation folder in blue bird parlance, e.g. checkride records) after the fact, knowing it hurts future civilian flying employment prospects. The DoD recognizes money is seldom an effective inducement for .mil folks at the commissioned officer level. Many are members of the upper middle class before they even got to the military, and most who resemble the remark consider their time in military aviation as merely "their regional years" anyways. Not defending the draconian/petty approach, but that's how the cookie crumbles over on this side of the indentured servitude line.

So remember to thank your union rep prior to your next block out, you guys are playing LifeTM in Peaceful mode, to grab a reference from my kiddo's Minecraft.

*break break*

TLDR forewarned Uncle HS story time:

I've been close to getting hacked up as collateral damage by the .mil system. They tried to burn me with a Q3 for something the other qualified instructor in the aircraft (T-6A), senior in rank, did off-station during a formation landing (back when we could do those things). Decides to impromptu snatch the aircraft from me on landing rollout to shine his ... in front of a pos guppy from his new employer (former AirTran, at the time newly SWA-acquired pilot) that was following behind on a 3 mile final.

Something about taking taxiways like they do at the airline...real dumb, taxiway in question wasn't a real high-speed anyways, and proceeds to lock, smoke and blow out the living life out of both tires, with wingman witnessing/following the whole thing less than 20 ft off our wing. And apropos to this thread, we did have a UPS 767 taxi past us with wingtip overlapping our aircraft wing footprint, while we waited for airfield management to figure out how the hell they were gonna get our airplane out of the way.

The FBO with the .gov fuel contract refused to tow with flats, so there we sat on the wing, as I waved at the people in the pax terminal in my full "top gun dressup", and the offending IP stomping his feet and trying to barter with me with insolent "why didn't you take it from me!?!" straw-grasping. It was a real crapshow.

Where it got real for me, was when Massa then tried to hook us both for it. I MAGNUM'd back with 'what is this "we" business'. In the end, airline dope came clean and told them I had nothing to do with his imprudence. And he knew I had him dead to rights, as I had transmitted " XXXX 69, unable taxiway Juliet" on the rollout to tower, right before cowboy decides to snatch the controls and pull the stunt. It took a few days to figure out, which was injustice enough, but I was ready to go all-in and really burn my future civil employability over it.

Since then, I've been largely disabused from the desire to fly with other qualified people in the seat, any more than I'm absolutely required to. To say nothing of my disinterest for crew aircraft flying, which was already stipulated when I ran away to the training command in the first place. 10/10 will always rather fly with the worst performing student actively trying to kill me, than share a pit with a qualified peer. Nothing I have more distaste for in this life than moral hazards.
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I’m sorry you were touched in your special place but no reason to be a ***** about it…

Edit: /S
 
It's likely that the damage goes beyond the vertical stabilizer/ fuselage joint. I'm guessing it's a a write off, but as pointed out by "jordane 93" above, anything can be fixed if your throw enough money at it.
 
Rgbeard said:
Is the CRJ likely repairable, or a total loss, organ-donor?
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While it depends on several variables for this type aircraft, the repairable benchmark is usually determined by the amount of damage to the pressure vessel. Have seen several high end business jets get repaired with "similar" damage after severe weather events.
 
Rgbeard said:
Wife asked me - I don’t know….. so asking here.

Is the CRJ likely repairable, or a total loss, organ-donor?
Click to expand...

Age and value will be critical aspects in determining this. There was a very cool documentary years ago on History/Science/Discovery channel klnd of thing. I forget which one; anyways, they had three episodes one was on Boeing, next was Airbus and last one was Embraer. The shows blocked the livery of the companies, but they showed replacing wings, tails, nose cones, gear.... All sorts of things. It was very wild what these companies can do.

Tim
 
1. You hit a parked car
2. Imagine if the CRJ took off like that and didn’t know
3. Shouldn’t both airplanes declare an emergency?
 
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