By airport standards, Boston's Logan is a golden oldie.
Older than Midway, older than LaGuardia, Logan is 100 years old. And while it has expanded and modernized over the years, it's still urban and it's still constrained by the neighborhoods and the ocean that's all around it. One of Logan's "features" is runways that crisscross each other, something that more new-fangled airports don't tend to have. Which is a good thing for them and the passengers who fly in and out, because those crisscrossing runways provide the opportunity for near misses, where a plane doing a criss nearly comes into up close and personal contact with a plane doing a cross.
Fortunately, "serious close calls at Logan are extremely rare:"
But less serious runway incursions, where planes have more time to avoid each other, are on the rise at Boston’s airport, the FAA data shows. That’s in part because Logan’s crisscrossing runways and taxiways can create a congested environment where such incidents are more likely to occur, aviation experts say. (Source: Boston Globe)
But "serious close calls" do happen, and one of them happened last February when a JetBlue flight from Nashville, trying to land, narrowly avoided running into/running over a private jet from Florida-based Hop-a-Jet that was taking off - taking off, even though it hadn't been cleared by air traffic to do so.
“The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this incident to be: The Hop-a-Jet flight crew taking off without a takeoff clearance which resulted in a conflict with a JetBlue flight thathad been cleared to land on an intersecting runway,” the final report concluded. (Source: Boston Globe)
Thankfully, the JetBlue pilot was a real pro who managed to pull a smaller scale Sully Sullenberger and avoid the Hop-a-Jet by performing "a climb-out maneuver," hopping over the private jet in its path. (An aside: Hop-a-Jet was founded by a World War II Navy pilot named Harvey Hop who pioneered the private jet biz. Is there a more apt name for the founder of a private jet company than Harvey Hop???)
The crew wasn't even aware of the near miss until they landed in Fort Lauderdale. Then and there they were informed that "they had taken off without authorization."
Logan air traffic had told the Hop-a-Jet to get in line and wait their turn.
The LearJet’s flight crew read back the controller’s instructions, “however, they began the takeoff-roll instead,” the report said.
Oops.
The Hop-a-Jet pilot "told investigators that 'he probably responded to the clearance, but in his mind, they were cleared for takeoff.'"
The captain also told the board, “I cannot understand what happened to me during the clearance, the only thing that comes to my mind is that the cold temperature in Boston affected me, I was not feeling completely well and had a stuffed nose. My apologies.”
"In his mind" he had the okay to take off? "In my mind" I'm a lot of things, but I haven't yet been given permission to, say, run a red light.
Not to mention that it was cold in Boston in February, and the pilot was a tad bit under our often terrible weather? He "had a stuffed nose????"
Yikes! What kind of an excuse is that?
Stuffed nose? Squirt some saline solution or Afrin, pal.
The NTSB report found that Hop-a-Jet was at fault, but didn't recommend any disciplinary action.
Ignoring air traffic control and just taking right off, and there's no nothing? No harm, no fault? Huh? Do you have to actually have to cause an accident to get your knuckles wrapped.
I have no idea if this guy is still flying, or whether, at 63, he took a bit of an early retirement. Maybe he's still out on sick leave, what with that stuffed nose and all.
O Captain, my Captain!
Would you get on a Hop-a-Jet flight with this guy?
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