Colliding Aircrafts

[tiggerblue10]

I wonder what happened to the pilot as he was taxiing towards the larger aircraft. An attack of some sort?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-53076806

Glad no one was injured.

[jno]

Maybe it was foggy or something? Or maybe he was on the phone, as other drivers often seem to be. You’d think it would be hard not to see another plane.

[Gromit]

It was foggy at fhe time.

[KARL]

The wheel brakes on aircraft are operated by the feet and under normal circumstances a reaction will normally be near immediate on visual cues and when operated the brakes are capable of rapidly slowing a taxiing aircraft down. When taxiing hear other aircraft the speed would be kept to within appropriate levels. Icing would not come into the picture on this occasion. Like jno's, my thought would be to suspect a mobile phone being in the mix here, certainly serious loss of attention to the overall circumstances must be likely.

[Gromit]

The fog came into Aberdeen Airport on Monday night, and got thinker as the early morning went on.
At 0600 the observation was
// Fog or ice fog, has begun or become thicker during the past hour. //
It cleared at 0900.
So fog was The primary reason for the collison.

[New Judge]

Interestingly far, far more injuries and fatalities arise from incidents involving aircraft on the ground than in the air. Some 30,000 "ramp" incidents occur every year causing around 250,000 injuries. The most serious incidents on the ground are runway incursions when an aircraft landing or taking off collides with another on the runway either without authorisation or mistakenly authorised. Leaving aside incidents on 9/11 (which can hardly be described as accidents) the deadliest incident in aviation history was one such collision. In 1977 two Boeing 747's collided on the runway at Tenerife airport with the loss of 583 lives:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster

[Gromit]

NJ,
Tenerife, fog was the cause.

[Bazile]

Although fog was the primary contributor to that fatal collision

Captain Jacob van Zanten , ultimate decision was the cause of the crash

Good account of the crash on the programme , 'Air Crash Investigation'

[New Judge]

In fact the principle cause was the fact that Tenerife airport had become far busier than normal because of the closure of the nearby airport in Gran Canaria following a terrorist incident. The taxiway at Tenerife had become congested with parked aircraft and the main runway was being used by aircraft to "backtaxi" to their take off positions. The KLM jumbo was ready to take off but the Pan Am 747, which had also been backtaxiing, had not cleared the runway via a side taxiway as instructed by ATC. Confusion reigned (compounded by the fog) which led to the KLM captain believing he had been cleared to go. So, two aircraft on the same runway at the same time, one near enough stationary and the other taking off.

[mushroom25]

allegedly, while taxiing at London's Gatwick Airport, the crew of a US Air flight for Ft. Lauderdale made a wrong turn and came nose to nose with a 727. An irate female ground controller lashed out at the US Air crew, screaming: "US Air 2771, where the hell are you going?! I told you to turn right onto Charlie taxiway! You turned right on Delta! Stop right there. I know it's difficult for you to tell the difference between C and D, but get it right!" Continuing her rage to the embarrassed crew, "God! Now you've screwed everything up! It'll take forever to sort this out! You stay right there and don't move till I tell you to! You can expect progressive taxi instructions in about half an hour and I want you to go exactly where I tell you, when I tell you, and how I tell you! You got that? US Air 2771: "Yes, ma'am," the humbled crew responded. Naturally, the ground control communications frequency fell terribly silent after the verbal bashing of US Air 2771. After an uncomfortable silence USAir 2771 responded: "ma'am, was I married to you in a previous life?"

[Bazile]

Indeed NJ , that was the background leading up to the collision

However after all of that if the KLM captain was not to eager to get off the ground , the crash could have been avoided

He made the decision to go even though he did not have final clearance from the ATC to go
Even his co pilot had doubts that they should roll

[New Judge]

Ha ha haaaaaaaaaaaaa!

[237SJ]

At least the office bod from Loganair who put out the statement that the Flybe aircraft hit their "port" engine changed it to the "starboard" one.

[New Judge]

//However after all of that if the KLM captain was not to eager to get off the ground , the crash could have been avoided //

That's quite true, Baz. Wasn't it something to do with the crew coming close to being "out of hours"?

[alavahalf]

Would I be right in thinking that at that time there was no radar at Tenerife North ?

[New Judge]

Correct. There was no ground radar at the time. It was installed after the accident.

[237SJ]

^ Google is a wonderful thing.

[New Judge]

It certainly is. Whilst I have a good account of the basics of the incident, you don't think I have all the details to hand do you? :-)

[alavahalf]

About 3 or 4 months ago I actualy seen a documentry on 'worlds worst aircrash' or something like that. It was about that particular crash. I didn't actualy remember the crash ever happening. The one thing that stood out was the lack of radar.
It didn't seem possible with basic communications and nothing else that Tenerife North was capable of handling such large aircraft. The Captain insisted that they take off. That was the fatal mistake. Visibility was only around 100mtr. Travelling at 150mph there was no chance of taking any avoiding action. It was a straight T bone of a crash.

[alavahalf]

https://youtu.be/La6mNWbOXMc

[237SJ]

I`m pretty bomb proof and nothing scares me but I don`t like flying blind. I`m always glad to land in those conditions.