Pilots

Passengers on a small commuter plane are waiting for the flight to
leave. They're getting a little impatient, but the airport staff assures
them that the pilots will be there soon, and the flight can take off.
The entrance opens, and two men dressed in Pilots' uniforms walk up the
aisle. Both are wearing dark glasses, one is using a guide dog, and the
other
is tapping his way along the aisle with a cane. Nervous laughter spreads
through the cabin, but the men enter the cockpit, the door closes, and
the engines start up. The passengers begin glancing nervously around,
searching for some sign that this is just a little practical joke. None is
forthcoming.The plane moves faster and faster down the runway, and the
people sitting in the window seats realize that they're headed straight for
the water at the edge of the airport territory. As it begins to look as
though the
plane will plow into the water, panicked screams fill the cabin. At that
moment, the plane lifts smoothly into the air. The passengers relax and
laugh a
little sheepishly, and soon all retreat into their magazines, secure in
the knowledge that the plane is in good hands.
In the cockpit, the co-pilot turns to the pilot and says, "You know,
Bob, one of these days, they're gonna scream too late, and we're all gonna
die.




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hideously old joke deleted

@^(*^%%!! If we can put a man on the moon; or a man into sub-orbital
flight for "cheap"; why can't we make software that will screen out
these horrid ancient jokes???

hmmm...I spose if you're one of those old pilots you've probably heard it
before, but I'll bet there's some new aviators getting a chuckle out of it.
"Bob Fry" wrote in message
...
hideously old joke deleted

@^(*^%%!! If we can put a man on the moon; or a man into sub-orbital
flight for "cheap"; why can't we make software that will screen out
these horrid ancient jokes???




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Count me as a new aviator that got a chuckle out of it.... ; - )


"Slick" wrote in message ...
hmmm...I spose if you're one of those old pilots you've probably heard it
before, but I'll bet there's some new aviators getting a chuckle out of
it.
"Bob Fry" wrote in message
...
hideously old joke deleted

@^(*^%%!! If we can put a man on the moon; or a man into sub-orbital
flight for "cheap"; why can't we make software that will screen out
these horrid ancient jokes???




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News==----
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Newsgroups
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On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 20:32:13 -0500, "Slick" wrote
in ::

Passengers on a small commuter plane are waiting for the flight to
leave. ...

Here's another interesting story:


2nd Runway Mix-Up at LAX Is Investigated

An incoming jet lands in the wrong space, forcing two other planes to
maneuver to avoid it.

By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Jennifer Oldham
Times Staff Writers

A series of mistakes last week by a pilot and a controller caused a
corporate jet to land on a runway at Los Angeles International Airport
that two other aircraft had already been cleared to use, federal
aviation authorities confirmed Monday.

The corporate jet forced a commuter flight taxing toward the runway to
slam on its brakes' then the jet came within 2,000 feet of a turboprop
that was crossing further down the runway.

The event, which is now under investigation, is the second
high-profile runway mix-up at LAX in three months. "The incident did
not pose a threat to any of the aircraft involved," said Greg Martin,
a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration. "Nonetheless, it
did involve incursions into our very stringent standards."

The controller who was handling the corporate jet has been taken off
the job, pending an evaluation, according to the federal officials.

The incident took place last Wednesday evening, one day after the
National Transportation Safety Board drew national attention to the
runway safety problems by releasing a video animation of a
near-collision between two commercial jets at LAX on Aug. 19.

The board used the LAX incident to highlight its calls for a new
warning system on aircraft to directly alert pilots if they are about
to encroach on runway that is in use.

Safety precautions dictate that only one plane at a time should be on
a runway, but some of the nation's busiest airports, LAX among them,
have encountered chronic problems in trying to adhere to that
standard.

In the Aug. 19 incident, an Asiana Airlines Boeing 747, arriving from
South Korea with hundreds of passengers aboard, came within 185 feet
of hitting a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737.

Both Planes had been cleared to use the same runway.

The two mix-ups point to problems with communication in the LAX tower,
where controllers handle an average of 1,8-- takeoffs and landings a
day.

In the Nov. 10 incident, the corporate jet pilot had been cleared to
land on the left runway on the airports south side, but misunderstood
the controller's instructions and landed on the right runway.

"This is a situation where we're clearing you to land on the left and
all we hear is 'Roger,' and you land on the right," Said Mike Foote,
an air traffic controller at the LAX tower and local president of the
National Air Traffic Controllers Assn.

"That's a bad situation there, one that needs to be fixed."

The FAA heeds to reinforce federal regulations that dictate how
controllers and pilots talk to each other, he added. Pilots should be
required to read back landing instruction to controllers, Foote said,
just as they are mandated to repeat orders they're given when they're
on the airfield.

Complicating last Wednesday's incident, a runway safety radar system
that serves as a last line of defense at LAX was not working properly.

"It was inoperable at the time, and we are looking into why that was
the case, " Said Martin. The radar is supposed to automatically warn
controllers when there is a risk of collision.

The FAA took the system out of commission after it issued a false
alarm a few weeks ago, Foote said.

"Instead of getting right on top of it and fixing it so it doesn't
give us that false alarm, instead of doing that in a day, they're
doing it in three weeks," Foote said. "They put it in limited mode so
it does not give out [false] alarms, but it doesn't give us real
alarms either."

FAA officials gave the following account of the Nov. 10 incident,
which took place after dark, at about 6:30p.m.:

The corporate jet, a British-made HS-125, had been cleared by the
tower to land on Runway 25L, the airport's southernmost runway.

LAX has two sets of parallel runways, on the north and south sides of
the airport. Planes taking off normally use the inner runways closest
to the terminals, while incoming planes are directed to the outer
runways.

Following standard procedure, the pilot of the corporate jet radioed
the tower to confirm the landing clearance. But the pilot got the
runway mixed up. Instead of saying 25L, the runway used for landings,
the pilot said 25R, the runway used for takeoffs.

The controller did not catch the mistake and correct the pilot,
although the accurate landing information was displayed on the
controller's scope.

The controller has been with the agency since 1989, officials said.,
and has been working at LAX for at least two years.

"Here is a case of simple series of read-backs that occurs thousands
of times a day without errors," Martin said.

Except in this case, the controller compounded the error when the
pilot radioed back again to confirm.

"It happened at least twice," Martin said.

In the meantime, an American Eagle commuter flight had been directed
by the tower to proceed to Runway 25R and hold position to await a
takeoff clearance.

As the American Eagle turboprop neared the runway, its pilot saw the
corporate jet preparing to land and hit the breaks. The pilot was
able to stop only after the commuter plane had crossed about 50 feet
into the buffer zone around the runway, which is supposed to remain
clear.

"The American Eagle flight was not on the runway at the time of the
aircraft landing," Martin said. "Based on preliminary information,
this is not an incident we would categorize as severe."

The corporate jet landed well down the runway from the commuter plane,
he said.

But toward the end of the runway, a Mesa Air regional Jet had been
cleared to cross over it as [sic] made its way toward the terminal.

The regional jet scooted across the runway as the corporate jet was
still some 2,000 feet away -- another breach of standards for the safe
separation of aircraft.

Martin said the Mesa jet was at little or no risk of being hit.

The pilot and the controller face possible penalties, officials said.

"These are unlikely to be characterized as severe incidents.
Nonetheless, they do present opportunities for us to continue to learn
and research in the area of human factors," Martin said.

"That provides the greatest challenge in trying to drive down the rate
of these incidents."