On 2007-04-18 03:45:54 -0700, Matt Whiting said:

C J Campbell wrote:

I remember a time that a pilot contacted Tacoma Narrows tower to inform
them that he was going to overfly the airspace. Tower rather gruffly
told him to contact Seattle approach, because although he was in TIW's
class D space, they had an operating agreement with Seattle that anyone
above a certain altitude (but below the overlying B) that Seattle would
handle that traffic. The pilot replied, "Oh, sorry. I didn't have a
copy of the operating agreement here in the AF/D." The tower controller
was testy the rest of the afternoon. This was the same tower controller
that was paying so little attention to what was going on that he had
two airplanes touch down on the runway simultaneously -- and didn't
know it, despite having cleared both to land. Fortunately, they didn't
hit each other. He is no longer there. (The reason the planes did not
hit each other was one was flown by a student pilot -- missed the
center line and landed on the right side of the runway and somewhat
short. The other was flown by an airline pilot -- he also could not hit
the center line with a small plane and landed left and long. They
didn't see each other until after they touched down.)

I'm always amazed when I hear things like this. I listen to all radio
traffic when flying, not just calls to me. If I hear another airplane
cleared to land on the same runway as me at the same time, I don't have
to wait until we're rolling out side-by-side to know it. I'd have
busted both pilots along with the controller on this one.

Matt

I should expand on that, because it gets worse (for the pilots). The
airline pilot not only never saw the other plane, even after they both
landed and did a touch and go, but he had his radio tuned to the wrong
frequency and never even heard or acknowledged his clearance to land!
And he did not find out about that until later when he checked his
frequency when he returned to the airport. Oops.

Well, if we busted people for every violation or stupid act there
wouldn't be many of us left. He learned his lesson, and some of us
learned from his experience. (For one thing, if he is ever in the area
again, go someplace else. :-) ) Seriously, it is a common problem at
TIW for some reason. People are always trying to talk to the tower on
the wrong frequency, usually the CTAF at Shelton. Or they are trying to
talk to Shelton traffic on TIW's frequency. I have started making it a
habit to monitor both frequencies because of it. One of the tower
controllers was doing that for awhile, too. Pilots would call Tacoma
Tower using Shelton's CTAF and he would reply "You are on Shelton's
frequency." That was a smart controller. I liked him.
--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor