On Thu, 09 Aug 2007 14:43:28 GMT, "Woody" wrote:

And shouldn't the program director/tower known whether they were making a
formation landing and realized they were too close?


I'm not sure you could tell they were headed for disaster until it was
too late. The other thing is that at this point 18/36 is under the
control of "Air Boss", who is coordinating all of the "acts." It is
rare to hear Air Boss give explicit landing clearances--he may say
"make this your last pass" or a pilot will say "this will be my last
pass", but you won't hear "you're clear to land on 36." I may be
badly mistaken, but it seems that Air Boss assumes these pilots will
land safely. Heck, during warbirds shows, maybe somebody is watching
hordes of T28s, T34s, and T6s landing on 27, but Air Boss seems to
have all he can handle with coordinating what is up in the air over
36. Ir is NOT uncommon to hear tower only belatedly acknowledge that
something has happened on a runway--there's just an awful lot to keep
track off, even with a tower full of pink shirts. Maybed things can
be done more safely, but I don't have the technical, insider knowledge
to comment intelligently on that. I'm sure NTSB will at some point.