United near miss at Houston

I hate the media. I hate how the reporter included "this is the second near miss involving United". Wrote that in so we could think that somehow either incident is connected with pilot training/attitude or a problem at United
 
Sounds like the controller caught it right away, remained calm and gave corrections.

You only hear about the couple of mistakes controllers make (cause they make national news). How many times do pilots screw up? Pretty much every day there are errors. Controllers are under a much bigger microscope.
 
I had to read back very recently very boldly the direction of a turn to a controller who gave me a nearly 180 turn with no instruction of direction. I instantly recognized that it was a conflict with a clearance that I heard seconds before. I probably saved somebody's day.

Without a doubt I can say IAH is the most weirdly operated place I've been to in quite some time. For the most part parallel runways are used for the same purpose departures or arrivals and not mixing them up too much but for some reason Houston doesn't like that philosophy.

I can't recall how long ago but DFW has suspended converging runway approaches unless the "tower approves" them. Its been screwing up the works ever since when you have multiple flights arriving one side of the field and over 100kts of overtakes happening constantly. It would be nice to know if this event or something like it had anything to do with this new policy.
 
That's a big oops. It's so unfortunate, too, that the controller restated the wrong direction of turn. Goofing up left/right, or 11 O'Clock/1 O'Clock just happens sometimes, but when it's really obvious like that often pilots will often question the instruction (and rightly so). But when you say it twice, "turn right, right turn heading," it really makes it sounds like that's what you really want the airplane to do. Very unfortunate verbiage there.
 
FM_Weasel said:
That's a big oops. It's so unfortunate, too, that the controller restated the wrong direction of turn. Goofing up left/right, or 11 O'Clock/1 O'Clock just happens sometimes, but when it's really obvious like that often pilots will often question the instruction (and rightly so). But when you say it twice, "turn right, right turn heading," it really makes it sounds like that's what you really want the airplane to do. Very unfortunate verbiage there.
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It's because seemingly every other departure gets that phraseology when you're departing off the 15's. It's common to be given a turn across the opposite runway, so if you're on 15L, they'll give you a right turn past 180 degrees and then ask you keep it as tight as possible.

Normally things work just fine, but mistakes happen.

EDIT: Also, the other strange thing about Intergalactic is the tower's fascination with formation takeoff's. They'll launch guys off both of the 15's at once, and then turn them away from each other at 400'.
 
Sol Rosenburg said:
I can't recall how long ago but DFW has suspended converging runway approaches unless the "tower approves" them. Its been screwing up the works ever since when you have multiple flights arriving one side of the field and over 100kts of overtakes happening constantly. It would be nice to know if this event or something like it had anything to do with this new policy.
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April 3rd, I believe. And it has nothing to do with tower approval.

An aircraft cannot be inside an (approximate) 4 mile final on 13R with an aircraft departing 18L. In the other flow, an aircraft cannot be inside an (approximate) 6 mile final for 31R with an aircraft departing 35L. That makes for 6 MIT (matched speeds) to 13R, and 8 MIT (matched speeds) for 31R. Plus, the way the procedure was written, the tower has to staff an additional local controller (and a local assist) to work the diagonal when it is being used.

The result is a pretty useless runway, when you have 3 other dedicated landing runways to use (18R/17C/17L or 36L/35C/35R). It causes departure delays, not arrival delays if used. The only issue it has caused at DFW is non-stop, endless, frequency blocking, complaining about 17L/35R now being designated a primary landing runway instead of an overflow.

And yes, the change was national, and effects every airport (except Houston, who has the sole waiver) that has CONVERGING runways - as a result of an incident that occurred over a year ago at an airport that has INTERSECTING runways.

I'm curious to see what the next "memo" is going to slurk out of HQ as a result of this latest round of incursions.
 
TripSix said:
April 3rd, I believe. And it has nothing to do with tower approval.

An aircraft cannot be inside an (approximate) 4 mile final on 13R with an aircraft departing 18L. In the other flow, an aircraft cannot be inside an (approximate) 6 mile final for 31R with an aircraft departing 35L. That makes for 6 MIT (matched speeds) to 13R, and 8 MIT (matched speeds) for 31R. Plus, the way the procedure was written, the tower has to staff an additional local controller (and a local assist) to work the diagonal when it is being used.

The result is a pretty useless runway, when you have 3 other dedicated landing runways to use (18R/17C/17L or 36L/35C/35R). It causes departure delays, not arrival delays if used. The only issue it has caused at DFW is non-stop, endless, frequency blocking, complaining about 17L/35R now being designated a primary landing runway instead of an overflow.

And yes, the change was national, and effects every airport (except Houston, who has the sole waiver) that has CONVERGING runways - as a result of an incident that occurred over a year ago at an airport that has INTERSECTING runways.

I'm curious to see what the next "memo" is going to slurk out of HQ as a result of this latest round of incursions.
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might as well add +20 to all our east arrivals

So glad we fought Grapevine for years to get the extra runway that just sits now.
 
Sol Rosenburg said:
might as well add +20 to all our east arrivals

So glad we fought Grapevine for years to get the extra runway that just sits now.
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The only arrival delays DFW has incurred since the "closing" of the diagonals have been due to weather. The diagonals being "open" would not have changed that.

It's quite simple: The primary landing runways used to be 13R, 18R, and 17C. They are now 18R, 17C, and 17L. The only difference is aircraft arriving from the east who "park west" can no longer do so, as the east side now has the two landing runways instead of the west side.

Don't get me wrong, I am unhappy with the diagonals becoming basically unusable too - but it is what is is, operation-wise...
 
TripSix said:
The only arrival delays DFW has incurred since the "closing" of the diagonals have been due to weather. The diagonals being "open" would not have changed that.

It's quite simple: The primary landing runways used to be 13R, 18R, and 17C. They are now 18R, 17C, and 17L. The only difference is aircraft arriving from the east who "park west" can no longer do so, as the east side now has the two landing runways instead of the west side.

Don't get me wrong, I am unhappy with the diagonals becoming basically unusable too - but it is what is is, operation-wise...
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Do these memos get tailored down the road with data supporting operation constraints? The only reason I ask is I've never felt separation or safety was an issue landing 13R with other south departures.
 
jtrain609 said:
EDIT: Also, the other strange thing about Intergalactic is the tower's fascination with formation takeoff's. They'll launch guys off both of the 15's at once, and then turn them away from each other at 400'.
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They do that at SFO as well. It really never seemed like am issue. Just had to pay attention to the heading the other guy got.

In the BE99 I almost always beat the airline peeps off the runway and they don't pass till after I had made my turn. I still have no idea why it takes the crews out there so long to put their power/thrust levers forward after being on the runway for 5 minutes.
 
Derg said:
Spool up time and if they're heavy, well, basic Newtonian physics! :)
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For the heavies yes. For some reason it seems like a lot of crews aren't expecting a clearance to roll when they get it. Saw a fair amount of cancelled clearances because of crews taking a lot of time to start their roll.

Not a big deal now. Get paid by the minute now so I really don't care.
 
amorris311 said:
Do these memos get tailored down the road with data supporting operation constraints? The only reason I ask is I've never felt separation or safety was an issue landing 13R with other south departures.
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LOL LOL LOL LOL!!!!!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Uh, you know the FFA writes them, correct?

If the last 200 feet of 13R was closed, it would put it in compliance and the "new rule" would not apply. The airport authority offered to do it - the FFA said no, as doing so would "circumvent the rule."

The operational impact was done after the rule came down. DFW got a slight delay in implementation until it was done, I don't know about anyone else. Houston is the only airport that got a waiver. Even though the converging runway thing has NOTHING to do with this incident, I'm still dreading what the "newest new rule" is going to be. After all, the opposite direction operation debacle came down after a botched flow change - not an opposite direction anything...
 
Welp, here comes the media lynch mob. This happened at the beginning of the month and the other happened in March or April. The USA Today boss probably said "hey lets dig up some other stuff and do what CNN did with Malaysia 370" USA Today posted the EWR incident then it was picked up by CNN and so on. Stupid media. You have thousands of airplanes in the sky every day relying on an antiquated traffic system that has been working pretty well considering the growing amount of air traffic over the years. Why should this come as a surprise to anyone, especially the media. Oh I know, because its a story with a negative tone that implicates a lot of people and could kill hundreds. Its disturbing because you know these ass clowns are just waiting and praying for a crash.
 
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