Two bizjets go bump in Houston

flyingron

flyingron

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FlyingRon

"We need to come back."

"9AA Maintain 3000, turn heading 220"

"We just had a mid-air we can't do that." (Very annoyed voice here by the pilot.)

"Say what?"

"Yeah, somebody just, uh, you guys cleared somebody to take off or land and we hit 'em on departure."



"Ok, so you need to come back to the airport, right?"

"YEAH, immediately!"
 
Local news all over it…lots of debris on the runway… the Hawker on the ground entered the runway without permission and wing tip sliced through their tail on the go round…Hobby currently notam out till midnight
 
It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.

b0cf3eb8df59c9b2c24a9b98414a7e97.jpg
 
The FAA is saying the Hawker was not cleared for takeoff. From the communications the Hawker pilots certainly thought they were. There was a miscommunication somewhere, but I'm guessing the FAA has already reviewed the tapes. Amazing though, one second different one way they would have missed completely, the other way they would have hit directly and killed everyone.
 
flyingron said:

"We need to come back."

"9AA Maintain 3000, turn heading 220"

"We just had a mid-air we can't do that." (Very annoyed voice here by the pilot.)

"Say what?"

"Yeah, somebody just, uh, you guys cleared somebody to take off or land and we hit 'em on departure."



"Ok, so you need to come back to the airport, right?"

"YEAH, immediately!"
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Hey, it’s an @mscard88 sighting. And there’s nothing mamarian about this incident
 
Since there was contact with crossing traffic, and how mind blowing and scary that must have been, I’m not sure how composed the average pilot would be or reasonable the first words would be coming out of their mouth when they just cheated death.
 
TrueCourse said:
Since there was contact with crossing traffic, and how mind blowing and scary that must have been, I’m not sure how composed the average pilot would be or reasonable the first words would be coming out of their mouth when they just cheated death.
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A pilot is going to default to what he considers important.

Some people feel it’s necessary to establish blame before any problem resolution can occur.
 
Fearless Tower said:
That's what I'm wondering about. How did Tower not notice that they were taking off?
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Ever sat in a tower for an hour or two? I have, every time I could, a while back. I would think it quite easy to miss such a thing. Ten or fifteen seconds of doing something else, while relying on pilots to follow instructions.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
Ever sat in a tower for an hour or two? I have, every time I could, a while back. I would think it quite easy to miss such a thing. Ten or fifteen seconds of doing something else, while relying on pilots to follow instructions.
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Yes, but after the Hawker allegedly took off without a clearance, Tower calls the Hawker and like nothing happened issues a heading. Sounded like any other departure where they were expecting them to be in the air. Kind of like Tower forgot they never issued the clearance.

The Hawker may very well have taken off from LUAW without a clearance, but I suspect there is either more to the story or Tower has some responsibility here.
 
Fearless Tower said:
The Hawker may very well have taken off from LUAW without a clearance, but I suspect there is either more to the story or Tower has some responsibility here.
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It is counterproductive and unprofessional to chew out someone over the air, though it often happens. You can get an inkling that the tower is dealing with something unexpected because he is told "stay with me for now" in the first intelligible call to 9AA.

I've listened hard to the LiveATC leading up. You can certainly hear the Citation being vectored/cleared in. It's hard to hear Tower because approach steps on him in the feed. The last thing I hear to 9AA before the incident is ground telling him to "Monitor tower."
 
Strait from the NTSB's Xitter feed (don't ask me why they posted it as an image, nor why they don't have a legible copy on their website):

1698326380156.png
 
Velocity173 said:
LUAW and started to roll. Gets ****ed at tower and now it looks like it’s his bust. Not to mention he’s lucky he didn’t get someone killed.

www.khou.com

NTSB gives update on collision of private jets at Hobby Airport

There were five people in one plane and three in the other. Fortunately, no one was injured.
www.khou.com www.khou.com
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Did the Tower give him the traffic of the plane landing on the intersecting when giving him LUAW? If not, the Controller gonna get a piece of the action here.
 
luvflyin said:
Did the Tower give him the traffic of the plane landing on the intersection when giving him LUAW? If not, the Controller gonna get a piece of the action here.
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Just curious. If he wasn't cleared to takeoff, is the controller required to tell him why?
 
luvflyin said:
Did the Tower give him the traffic of the plane landing on the intersecting when giving him LUAW? If not, the Controller gonna get a piece of the action here.
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Not sure but I was wondering the same thing. Kinda hard to imagine them rolling if they knew traffic was landing on the crossing runway.
 
Velocity173 said:
Not sure but I was wondering the same thing. Kinda hard to imagine them rolling if they knew traffic was landing on the crossing runway.
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Their Minds were clearly elsewhere, so that tidbit of information wouldn’t have mattered.
 
Had the Hawker been 1 second faster to the intersection, or the Citation 1 second slower, the result would have been much different.
 
If the controller informed the hawker of crossing traffic, 100% on the pilot 0% on the controller. If he didn’t, 95% on the pilot and 5% on the controller IMO.
 
AKiss20 said:
If the controller informed the hawker of crossing traffic, 100% on the pilot 0% on the controller. If he didn’t, 95% on the pilot and 5% on the controller IMO.
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If the controller didn’t tell the Hawker the magic words “cleared for takeoff”, it’s still 100% on the pilot. LUAW is unambiguous amd anyone flying jets should be at the point where they are used to busy, complex airports and have received LUAW instructions many times before.
 
MauleSkinner said:
Their Minds were clearly elsewhere, so that tidbit of information wouldn’t have mattered.
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Controller’s mind seemed elsewhere as well. Just starts issuing control instructions to 9AA like nothing happened. If indeed 9AA did depart without a clearance, his first transmission should’ve been a brasher. Instead, he sounds surprised that he could’ve had a midair.

All of that controller’s concentration should’ve been on that runway intersection. His primary duty is to insure runway separation and issue safety alerts. Everything else is secondary. Got an aircraft cleared to land, you just don’t scan the runway when issuing the clearance, that goes all they way til he’s clear. Also wonder what the supervisor was looking at.
 
How thick is that block of swiss cheese.
 
Velocity173 said:
Controller’s mind seemed elsewhere as well. Just starts issuing control instructions to 9AA like nothing happened. If indeed 9AA did depart without a clearance, his first transmission should’ve been a brasher. Instead, he sounds surprised that he could’ve had a midair.
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I disagree. My impression was it was handled professionally. When you suddenly have an aircraft in an unexpected position, you sort it out first and then worry about pilot deviations or controller errors later. He clearly indicates some indication that something is wrong by starting off with "Stay with me for now." Normally, the first thing a tower controller tells you after takeoff is contact departure.

All of that controller’s concentration should’ve been on that runway intersection. His primary duty is to insure runway separation and issue safety alerts. Everything else is secondary. Got an aircraft cleared to land, you just don’t scan the runway when issuing the clearance, that goes all they way til he’s clear.
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If he was fixated on the intersection, he probably wouldn't have seen the departing traffic until it was too late to do anything about it. The intersection is what, 3000 feet, from the end. It's less than 30 seconds from the time the hawker started the roll to the crossing. Factor a little time to realize that the guy was rolling rather than holding, and even if he'd been looking that way he might not have stopped it... and then what?

Also wonder what the supervisor was looking at.
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What makes you think the supervisor was looking at the situation or even in the cab at the time?
 
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flyingron said:
I disagree. My impression was it was handled professionally. When you suddenly have an aircraft in an unexpected position, you sort it out first and then worry about pilot deviations or controller errors later. He clearly indicates some indication that something is wrong by starting off with "Stay with me for now." Normally, the first thing a tower controller tells you after takeoff is contact departure.





If he was fixated on the intersection, he probably wouldn't have seen the departing traffic until it was too late to do anything about it. The intersection is what, 3000 feet, from the end. It's less than 30 seconds from the time the hawker started the roll to the crossing. Factor a little time to realize that the guy was rolling rather than holding, and even if he'd been looking that way he might not have stopped it... and then what?


What makes you think the supervisor was looking at the situation or even in the cab at the time?
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The controller sounded completely unaware of the midair. “You say what?” If he was aware, then ask the pilot his intentions. Don’t vector him further away from the field.

No one said “fixated.” The local controller is responsible for scanning their runways. This is a scan failure plan and simple. The local controller has to insure the runway is clear and 30 secs is plenty of time to catch a departure. This is about prioritizing what matters (aircraft runway separation) vs secondary tasks (airborne aircraft, departure clearances, landlines, etc). You don’t forget about your arrival simply because you had a clear deck when the clearance was issued.

Supervisor, tower flight data, ground, controllers standing around waiting to take position. Probably had at least 4 controllers in the tower and no one caught the Hawker rolling? And as brought up above, KHOU has ASDE-X. No one heard the alarms going off?

The primary purpose of the ATC system is to prevent a collision. That just doesn’t mean when everyone is doing what’s required. It means identifying and correcting pilot errors early enough to prevent a collision. The opportunities were there.
 
Ground watches the taxiways. Tower watches the runways. The sup watches personnel not aircraft. The guy working CD isn't watching anything but the strip printer. Have you ever been in a control tower?

And we still don't know the tower-to-9AA comms. As I said, the last thing I heard to 9AA before he was already in the air was a "monitor tower" call from ground. I'm sure the tapes form the actual tower frequency are pulled at this point.
 
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flyingron said:
Ground watches the taxiways. Tower watches the runways. The sup watches personnel not aircraft. The guy working CD isn't watching anything but the strip printer. Have you ever been in a control tower?

And we still don't know the tower-to-9AA comms. As I said, the last thing I heard to 9AA before he was already in the air was a "monitor tower" call from ground. I'm sure the tapes form the actual tower frequency are pulled at this point.
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Yeah, I’ve got a CTO. Do you? And no, just because someone isn’t working local doesn’t mean they aren’t aware of what’s going on with that position. While runway separation is primarily a local controller function, anyone can intervene if they are aware of a pending conflict.

IMG_8567.jpeg
 
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