Damn. I went there about 3-4 years ago on a layover and it had that “slowly rotting into the ground” feeling if you looked into the nooks and crannies a bit. Although a hell of a lot of other air museums feel the same. I had kept their name as a one of the few places that had warbird rides and was easy to airline to. Oh well; I snoozed I loozed.
Their extensive collection ought to have a bunch of value. But if private air museums in general are a moribund industry, who’s going to buy a 1935 or 1955 [whatever] that’s not flyable now and can never practically be restored? They may end up giving away a lot of the non-flyable stuff to anyone willing to show up with a truck and a crane.
Lasting approximately 12 minutes in total, the flight departed from Hollister Airport, in Northern California, and was operated by Reliable Robotics, which has been working since 2019 on a semi-automated flying system in which the aircraft is controlled remotely by a pilot.
The passenger plane had almost 400 passengers and crew. All were successfully evacuated, although a few had injuries. One wonders if this would have been the case if the accident happened in the U.S. Here a great many people would have grabbed their luggage from the overhead bins, substantially slowing evacuation even though the airplane was on fire.
It’s not clear these passengers didn’t grab their luggage at about the same rate as on any other accident. They might be better behaved, but somehow I doubt it was much different.
Dedicated thread already started here although I don’t know how much legs it’ll have beyond a bunch of breathless “Oh my gosh; glad they’re safe” comments:
Land-on-top accidents aren’t that rare as accidents go. Here’s a famous US one I recall:
One of the procedural changes made in the USA after that was to prohibit controllers from positioning an airplane on the runway ready for, but not cleared for, takeoff during hours of darkness. The intent is to make it easier for the controller to see a forgotten plane sitting there and for any landing plane to see it easily as well.
They also added a procedure that during the day when clearing somebody to hold on the runway, to explicitly state why or what you’re waiting for and about how long to expect. Intending to enlist the crew in watching for the appropriate events or passage of time and raise a question if they’re still sitting there much after that.
A Swedish passenger said the cabin started filling with smoke. Most passengers followed instructions, but some near the wing saw the fire on part of the wing and engine, and had to be told to sit back down and wait their turn. All in all, a great achievement in evacuation, though — probably in part due to the A350’s carbon fibre polymer hull, which held off bursting into flames until the evacuation was complete (apparently the first time this has been “tested” in a commercial accident).
As to cause…I think about 80% likely the Coast Guard Dash-8 pilot had driven too far out beyond the hold line where the taxiway meets the runway. From summaries I’ve read of the ATC instructions (from a reputable site), it probably wasn’t ATC’s fault (they commanded the Dash-8 to hold at taxi location C5).
If so, it’s particularly sad the pilot is the one who survived from that plane (I don’t mean in a “punishment” sense, just in a “lifetime of guilt” sense — I feel for him).
Ahhh, you’ve certainly researched more detailed news than I have.
If that proves to be the outcome, that’s a “runway incursion” in the argot. Somebody was in their wrong place and interfered with somebody in their right place.
The worldwide industry and the US in particular has had a lot of those recently and the trend rate is very alarming. So far they’ve all ended in close calls or “fender benders”. But the potential for an outcome more like this one is always there and it’s as much luck as skill there haven’t been more disasters.
I was surprised that a thread had not been started. I hoped that it would trigger responses from those of you in the aviation field. Your group knowledge makes understanding these things much clearer for us laymen.
“We can’t know for sure until the investigation is completed, but if the Coast Guard plane was told to “taxi to holding point”, that could be where everything went wrong. “Line up and wait” is the standard ATC (air traffic control) instruction allowing a plane to enter a runway and stop at the takeoff line to wait for clearance to take off - which is what the CG plane was apparently doing. “Hold short of runway” is the standard instruction to stop short and wait before entering the runway (usually because of oncoming traffic landing on the same runway) - which is what the plane should have done. There is no “taxi to holding point” in the standard lexicon, for good reason: because a pilot might unthinkingly regard “holding point” as the takeoff line when the ATC actually meant “hold short of runway.” “
Additionally, I read on a reputable aviation site that the red lights across the taxiway at the hold point (before the active runway) were not functioning. This isn’t an excuse to go past them, but perhaps a contributing factor.
Another might be the pilot of the Dash-8 was tired (from all the time-sensitive earthquake relief work), and/or had “get-there-itis,” knowing that lives might be at stake among the earthquake survivors.
The NYTimes reader isn’t exactly wrong, but he’s not fully right.
The Japanese controller used correct ICAO radio terminology. Which is "taxi to holding point [whatever] (for) runway [whatever]. Which means taxi to the taxiway or point mentioned and hold there just short of = just off the runway.
The FAA uses non-standard terminology. For years the FAA used “taxi into position and hold” to mean enter the runway and await takeoff clearance. Meanwhile the rest of the world used “line up and wait”. After enough Americans screwed up while overseas thinking “taxi to holding point …” meant “go onto the runway”, the FAA switched to using the ICAO phraseology, and the US’s “taxi into position and hold” was consigned to the history books. Explicit “hold short of runway [whatever]” clearances are used only when the subsequent intent is to cross that runway, not take off on it. That’s true for both FAA & ICAO radio procedures.
The automatic red lights at runway entrances are a system that’s still being deployed worldwide. It’ll be decades before they are everywhere. The absence of those lights is completely ordinary, and depending on which airline-scale airports one frequents may be far more the norm than the exception. When they are present, that’s a nice belt-and-suspenders. Nothing more.
The ones I’m familiar with are controlled by a computer watching the radar. When the computer sees an airplane is close enough to landing or is rolling past the takeoff position, the taxiway entrance lights go red. When the computer sees somebody taxiing across the runway, red lights near the start of the runway turn on so airplanes about to take off don’t, and those landing are warned the runway is occupied. Flying a long final on a clear night you can see the red “don’t land” lights turn on and off several times as planes taxi cross the runway downfield or people ahead of you on final land.
The big picture is you don’t land, take off, or taxi onto a runway contrary to red lights. If you’ve been told to do so, or think you’ve been told to do so, stop and ask to resolve the discrepancy. Do not cross red lights no matter what. The absence of red lights means “do what you’ve been told”. Which leaves open the possibility of mistake or confusion at either end of the radio.
Had the lights been installed and functioning normally, then depending on timing the Dash-8 may have had no red lights to see at the point they taxied past them. Once settled on the runway downfield a bit there’d be no red lights ahead for them to see. As the A350 was approaching the runway with the Dash-8 sitting there unnoticed they’d be the ones to see red warning lights and (we hope) react to them. Again if such lights were installed and if they were working. Which it appears they probably were not.
The stop bar lights are installed but currently unserviceable for taxiways C1 through to C14. The Dash 8 entered at C5. Interestingly this information is not published by NOTAM, as far as I can tell, but is instead listed in one of many pages of “Operational Restrictions” in the Jeppesen airport pages.
Thanks, LSL (and Richard). So, it’s looking like the Coast Guard pilot really did screw up, confirming early speculation (of course, we don’t know everything yet). One wonders what contributed to this. I mentioned fatigue and get-there-itis – both would be understandable, perhaps exacerbated because (as I read somewhere) the Coast Guard plane had left its gate about an hour before the incident. (I don’t know why it didn’t depart sooner – not weather or de-icing, I don’t think. Busy time for commercial jets, and just had to wait its turn? Dunno.)
The passenger plane was on it’s nose so the front gear likely struck at or near the cockpit of the other plane which would account for the crew deaths. It was a 140 knot impact so it would have been quick.
Yes you normally have the taxi light on when taxying then the strobe lights go on entering the runway and landing lights on when receiving clearance to take-off. This can all vary with company SOP but is generally tru as a minimum.
It smells to me like the Dash-8 had entered the runway and was lined up for takeoff awaiting clearance. Assuming that understanding is correct …
The stationary Dash-8 weighing 30 to 40K lbs would have been struck from behind by 450K lbs of heavy machinery doing ~140 knots. IMO the Dash-8 was cleaved in half by the A350 nosegear which weighs easily 5,000 lbs all by itself. Then the Dash-8’s wreckage ended up with the A350 forward fuselage sitting on top of it. It didn’t hurt for long.
Actually, reading the Jepp page I linked to earlier a bit more thoroughly I see it is a list of unserviceable items due to taxiway and runway works and the actual times are promulgated by NOTAM. I don’t see a NOTAM for the stop at lights specifically and if there was one it may have been removed as the accident site itself has a number of NOTAMs.
Even as a non-pilot I can comment on both of those, from the days of my youthful training for a PPL. While I don’t remember the exact words, the instructions I was given at one point were clearly to taxi onto the runway and hold. Which of course I did, but I still remember sitting there wondering WTF was going on, since the runway was clear and there was obviously no one about to land from behind me as I was sitting there on the threshold. And then, moments later, a great big bizjet swooped in for a landing on an intersecting runway right in front of me. Do I also understand correctly that holding on the runway threshold is no longer a thing?
So yeah, although youse guys have a bazillion times more experience than I ever did, this rank amateur thinks that being told what you’re holding for sounds like a good idea.
