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Old February 16th 17, 04:48 PM posted to rec.aviation.piloting
Larry Dighera
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Default Harrison Ford Mistakenly Lands Husky On KSNA Taxiway

On Wed, 15 Feb 2017 21:03:57 -0500, Vaughn Simon wrote:

On 2/15/2017 12:21 PM, Larry Dighera wrote:
Is it time for venerated pilot Harrison Ford to ground himself for less than
adequate judgment skills to act as Pilot In Command?

The runway is the one with the big "20L" painted on its near-end.

This ignominious incident is worse than Senator Inhoff's landing on a taxiway
because there was a big X on the runway.



Nonsense Larry. Did you bother taking a glance at the airport diagram?


I was based at KSNA for a decade. I'm very familiar with the layout.

Anytime you have parallel runways, with one fat and the other skinny,
this incident will occasionally happen because it's easy to focus on
only the skinny runway while confusing it for the larger parallel
runway. It's a matter of sight fixation (seeing what you expect to see)
Once you've done that, then the even skinnier taxiway becomes the
"skinny" runway in the pilot's head. I know that it happens at PBIA,
and that pilots are specifically warned about it.


I understand your point, but I don't recall anyone ever having landed on that
taxiway. The taxiway is quite narrow, I would estimate about 1/3rd the width
of the narrow 75' wide runway 20L. Take a look here
https://goo.gl/maps/xgXjy2uURJm and you'll see from the surface markings and
layout how difficult it is to mistake taxiway Charlie for runway 20L.


That's not to say that Ford is blameless, only that he made a typical
and well-known pilot screwup. However it's OTT to imply that one
incident means a pilot should be grounded.


Ford has had his share of mishaps. I know that age has taken its toll on my
piloting abilities, and at 74, Ford is likely experiencing a similar decline.

If senility-based erosion of one's faculties (in addition to the possibility of
arrogance in Ford's case) has impaired one's judgment or cognition, it is
irresponsible for any pilot to continue to act as pilot in command. One could
look upon Ford's mishaps as Darwin's gentle nudge. When we find our decisions
causing disruption of the nominal performance of the NAS, it is an unmistakable
sign... The destination denial provides is likely to be the final one IMHO.

Sometimes it's difficult to be objective about the things which we are
passionate. In our determination to be objective, we must factor in that
passion-bias to judgment decisions.