Blunders lead to near-crash at LAX

Blunders lead to near-crash at LAX
BY DOUG IRVING, Staff Writer
LA Daily News
5/12/07

A small airplane narrowly missed colliding with a speeding jumbo jet at Los Angeles International Airport this week after a series of blunders took it dangerously close to an active runway. The jumbo jet roared past at an estimated 100 mph, the tip of one wing coming as close as 50 feet to striking the smaller plane. It appears to have been the most dangerous near-collision at LAX since last year.

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The smaller plane, a SkyWest turboprop arriving from Redding, landed Sunday evening on the northern-most runway at LAX. Behind it, a Virgin Atlantic jumbo jet was lining up to land on the same runway after a flight from London. The SkyWest plane was fighting a hard wind as it drove down the runway after its landing. With the jumbo jet fast approaching, a controller told the SkyWest pilot, "Keep it rolling, please, turn left off the runway."

The controller directed the small plane toward an airfield intersection, where two taxiways meet the runway like two roads meeting a highway. One requires a slight swerve to the left; the other requires a hard left turn. The controller instructed the plane to take the easy turn onto a taxiway called Zulu, to keep it moving and get it out of the way of the landing jetliner. Instead, the SkyWest plane veered hard and started down the wrong taxiway.

"I said Zulu, sir, turn left off the runway," the controller said.

The SkyWest plane stopped. Then it turned around, headed back toward the intersection, and turned onto the correct taxiway - even as the jumbo jet raced toward the runway. "Stop right there," the controller ordered the small plane as a siren sounded in the control tower, warning of a potential collision. Another controller told the jumbo jet to abort its landing and circle around, but it was too late. The small plane was moving away from the runway when the jet whipped past.

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