Delta/Endeavor LGA Ground Mishap

Kenny Phillips said:
Probably only two.
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At the least all 4 got a drug test and sent home. Off flying duty until at least a preliminary investigation then mounds of sim/retraining.

I'm surprised no one has posted the LiveATC recording yet... pilot or ATC error?
 
I read that LGA is installing a ground collision avoidance system, but that it is not active yet. True?

If ATC recordings indicate a ground controller error, the PICs of both aircraft are ultimately responsible for 'see and avoid'. Correct?

Fatigue? Task saturation? Night vision limitations?
 
Looks like a case of texting while driving. Can't think of any other excuse for two planes with two sets of professional eye balls in the cockpit of each to fail to see each other's REGIONAL JETS and collide at that angle.

... Regardless of what ground told you, you think they'd realize at some point prior to impact that there's about to be a serious problem.
 
Juan Browne didn't like the instructions given, as stopping at Mike was pretty much immediate, but was sort of at the end of the taxi instructions, and the pilots knew it was a long way to taxi.
So they'd think that Mike was some distance back, when they immediately taxied by.
Pilot error, for sure, but ... mitigated? Mebbe a little.
I'm also not a fan of rapid-fire instructions. In today's world, we don't really need voice coms most of the time.
But aviation tech trails consumer tech by a couple of decades, due to red tape.............
 
iu
 
The taxi instructions could have been better. You can to tell the difference between:

"13, taxi Alpha Echo, hold short of 4. At Mike, give way to company", and
"13, taxi Alpha Echo, hold short of 4 at Mike. Give way to company"

There are no pauses to help find the end of sentences.

The instruction also jumps back to the beginning of the taxi to say to give way to company from which the pilots might infer that they are giving way later in the taxi.

What may have happened was, after the F/O correctly read back the instructions, he went heads-down to the iPad to figure out where Mike was as the Captain began to taxi. Both wrongly assuming that it wasn't until later in the taxi. With his head down, he didn't see the inbound airplane turning in for lane 12. That left the Captain to look across the cockpit to see them.

The inbound crew looks to have stopped, when they realized that the outbound flight wasn't giving way, but they had progressed too far for the outbound's wing to clear them.

I don't think that there was anything technically wrong with the taxi clearance, just that it made it easier to misunderstand.
 
I agree that taxi instruction was confusing but that video is damning. There was like no clearance at all. Nevermind the wingtips, the noses almost hit

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:oops:
 
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I'm very interested to know who the CA was. A former CA at my company who is now at EDV was known for insane taxi speeds.
 
As hard as this incident was to believe, I was with a student the other night taxiing in from a night cross country. We were on the taxiway about to turn into the flight school ramp and Endeavor just landed. As they pulled off the runway, Tower told them to give way to the Cessna on the taxiway. We were no more than 75ft from each other at a perpendicular angle and they responded “where’s the Cessna?” (facepalm) given our distance, I don’t know how they couldn’t have seen us right away, especially with every light turned on and a beaming LED landing and taxi light on.
 
Larry in TN said:
The taxi instructions could have been better. You can to tell the difference between:

"13, taxi Alpha Echo, hold short of 4. At Mike, give way to company", and
"13, taxi Alpha Echo, hold short of 4 at Mike. Give way to company"

There are no pauses to help find the end of sentences.
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Neither one of those is proper, which is the problem.

I was about to say that video might have been sped up (but it appears the ground vehicles in the foreground were moving at a reasonable speed). The guy is coming fast and the conflicting traffic wasn't moving. It looks like he either skidded or tried to take an evasive turn right before impact.
 
Looks like he juked left to avoid a nose to nose impact. And yes, appears he was moving right along.
 
So you’re saying MMO is likely causative in this accident?
 
Kenny Phillips said:
Time is money. Last time I was at DCA we taxied at Cub flying speed.
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I could only wish we moved that fast my last time flying into DCA. On departure we pushed from the gate, just to sit in the middle of the taxiway for 60 minutes on APU only, which was not cooling the old 737 well at all. When we finally did fire up, we taxied to the south end of the airport to sit another 30 minutes before finally joining the departure queue for Runway 19. Pop up thunderstorms were disrupting arrival and departure corridors, causing all kinds of headaches and delays.
 
flyingron said:
I've been known to taxi a Cessna 170 around IAD with the tail up.
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Long ago a few of us UPT students took a weekend trip from Moody to Deland, FL to get a glider rating. I leave the shack with tow pilot and we get in. He says the glider is way yonder and we take off on the taxiway and he flys the taxiways at about 2 feet way to where the glider was.
 
There's a video of me going from the Landmark FBO at IAD to the Udvar-Hazy center, about a six mile taxi. Movement starts at about 4:55 Yes, it was done quickly...
 
flyingron said:
I've been known to taxi a Cessna 170 around IAD with the tail up.
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Lol. Last time I landed at KMEM (in my Turbo Arrow) and I was turning off of the high-speed taxiway at 28 kts, the controller actually asked me to increase my taxi speed because a 767 was waiting on me. I responded with, "Unable, unless this is a takeoff clearance." Got a few chuckles on the frequency.
 
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