Flight Deck Video Captures Botched Bhutan Landing - AVweb

News Discussion
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A shipment of Moderna COVID-19 vaccines to Bhutan was shaken and stirred after an unorthodox approach and landing at Paro in the high mountainous country. The Intra Asia Boeing 737-300 freighter departed Kolkata, India, last Tuesday for Paro and someone on the flight deck shot cellphone video that’s lit up aviation forums. The Aviation Herald has the most complete picture of what happened.

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/flight-deck-video-captures-botched-bhutan-landing
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Hmmm… let’s see; “can we start with having a talk with the Instructor that accomplished the CFR 61.56 Flight Review?”

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Whew that was a close call with that Cessna 150 doing touch and goes at 3600 feet.

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It’s hard to listen to someone that I greatly respect sounding so old and so unaware on frequency.
I hope he can learn from this mistake and evaluate what his future in aviation should be.

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That’s what I thought…

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Some how, Harry’s perception of environmental elements and events with respect to time or space became unreachable.

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Again!

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That is not the applicable measure. Can you say “PIC”?

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Listen for yourself (Two or Three times).
2020-04-30 08:42:13 N89HU KHHR (Harrison Ford) Runway Incursion
https://www.liveatc.net/recordings.php

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Hard to judge if this was bad decision making or just bad ears. Either way it’s not a great situation for a public individual who has generally been a positive ambassador for aviation.

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After over flying the AA 737 at SNA, his home base airport, and landing on the taxiway… Mr Ford was awarded the “Bob Hoover Award”… There’s a trend here… What will this award be?

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As a former ATC type guy for 38 years, including some of those years at the world’s busiest airports at the time, I’m personally declaring this a total non event. Although there is a “technical” requirement to protect the runway regardless of how, in you wildest dreams there is no safety issue at the moment, these type events happen all the time…both by pilots, AND also by controllers. You’ve all either done them or had it done to you if you’ve been involved in this for a while. I know I’ve sure seen and done both in my 60+ years of aviation. Harrison ended up crossing the runway at the very far west end of the runway and the nearest aircraft was way, way back up towards the east end of the runway, over half a mile. Technically wrong, I guess, if anyone is watching. But the only other aircraft would have had eventually to run off the end of the 3600 foot runway to hit Harrison, and only if Harrison had stopped in the middle of the runway while crossing.

Now, the controller…or ATC. Harrison said, '“holding short of 25”. The controller then commited a big controller technique error by prefacing his desire for Harrison to Hold Short with the word “CONTINUE” That is a “no no” in the controller world if you do not wish someone to do something. A pilot hears continue, many times that is exactly what he/she will do. (The word “cleared” should never be used either except for takeoff and landing).

Now about communications. It is always the controller’s requirement to hear readbacks and correct them if necessary, not the pilot’s fault for reading back incorrectly (even though some pilots do have their head up their, well you know, when they should be listening up better). Our form of communications does not insure what the controller says will always be heard correctly. Controller responsibility is to insure what he/she says is understood either by readback or observing actions.

And…the radio is no time to be doing “head butting” whether it is done by the pilot or controller. So the controller’s , “you need to listen up” is totally not necessary for a professional controller to speak…or it’s just muscle flexing.

This event at a busy facility would have been an absolute non event. Somebody did an “I’m gonna tell on you” somehow. And last thing…as a controller I used to always say to my cohorts, “If you live (work) in a glass house, do not throw stones”…unless you think you will be the only controller in ATC to lead a life of ATC perfection.

And, the controller again…he heard Harrison say he was crossing. Well, did the controller do anything correctly to prevent this “technical” issue from happening, no. The controller should have, if he observed Harrison still not compromising the hold short lines, said, “Negative! Hold Short! Hold Short! Acknowledge!” That would have resolved the issue. Or if Harrison had already crossed the lines (although there was no safety issue at all) the controller, to cover his ass should have told the other aircraft to “Go Around, traffic is crossing the far end of the runway” That would have corrected it technically. An non issue! Now…back to my cup of coffee.

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Think it wouldn’t be news if it wasn’t Harrison Ford, sounded like an honest mistake that he realized and apologized for. Is the picture right? Sure looks like Delmar Benjamin to me.

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It’s difficult to watch a man that I respect begin to demonstrate the loss of his his physical senses and situational awareness.

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Roger, thanks for a reasoned and fair analysis of the situation from both sides of the aisle. Rather than be quick to lambast Harrison for what SEEMS to be ‘another’ pilot error on his part, you realized that there’s more to the story. There always is. I don’t see a link to the actual communications in this event; you obviously must have heard it ?

IF, as you say, the controller used the word “continue,” I don’t see how anyone could hold Harrison responsible for … um … continuing. That’s pretty cut and dried from where I sit. And if the controller ‘yelled’ at him subsequently, that – too – is unprofessional. In this evolution and using your analysis, it sure sounds like Harrison didn’t do anything wrong. As you say, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. And there were multiple paths to correct the situation, too

Having flown in busy SoCal for 27 years, I can attest to the fact that some controllers lose sight of the forest for the trees … i.e., they’re RESPONSIBLE for ensuring correct communications. Some of them aren’t real good on the radio, talk too fast and their actual voice inflections impact good communications. When in doubt, double check is a good modus operandi. If I had been Harrison, I’d have done just that.

A few years ago, I was in a new LSA flying with an elderly (read slow) friend who was showing off his new machine. We were landing at a busy airport in FL and had received clearance to land when I heard the tower clear a second faster airplane to land behind us. As the LSA was rolling out, I heard the second airplane call short final. We had just passed a connector taxiway so I yelled at my friend to make a L ~135 deg turn and head for that taxiway to clear ASAP as opposed to rolling out which would have taken far longer. The tower chewed us out for that saying he wanted us to roll out. That was NOT in his instruction. I see this all the time. ATC issues dual “clear to land” orders. When I learned how to fly 50 years ago, that wasn’t done. In todays “runway incursions are mortal sins” environment (at least in the FAA’s eye), why are they doing that? This peeped me off so I decided to deal with it directly and called the tower after I got home.

I got into it with the controller and told him that if he was going to violate anyone for the evolution, violate ME as it was I who told my friend to clear the runway ASAP by the quickest means. I reminded him that – as I see it – when I’ve been cleared to land and HAVE landed, the runway belongs to me until I clear. The conversation ended amicably but I decided to delve into it deeper.

Turns out in the 7110.65, it is permissible for a controller to issue dual ‘cleared to land’ commands if certain spacing is observed or verified. Fine and dandy but I never heard of the 7110.65 until many years after I learned how to fly. I don’t know of any pilots who know about it, either. So – again – sometimes it IS up to the controllers to initially issue a command and then follow up by ensuring it’s going the way he intended. Most controllers are pretty good that way but a few … I think they’re just doing a job for pay.

Thanks again … you made my morning. Harrison better be absolved here as I see it. Randy – below – seems to agree.

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Mark,

Seems like a pretty big leap. Especially when none of us were there to know what actually happened.

Young folks make mistakes too, even if it turns out that’s what did happen.

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For everyone who is being so quick to pile onto Harrison Ford for being either too senile and/or incompetent to fly you should really read Roger’s very in depth description above. Also please listen to the realtime recordings as well. They’re on several sites to include YouTube. You’ll then see it’s not as cut and dry as you think. In addition to the fact that the controller hit his mic button AFTER beginning to talk so that the instruction was muddled, he had already instructed him to hold short of the runway, which Ford had done. In a normal situation the next instruction Ford should have heard was permission to cross. There was no reason for ATC to instruct to continue to hold. That’s not SOP. So when you put that together with a quick and slightly garbled msg, I’m sure Ford did indeed believe he heard “Continue across” instead of “Continue to hold”. IMHO ATC doesn’t have a leg to stand on in this situation.

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Roger,
This was an excellent analysis. Thank you for taking the time to share this.

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A bunch of comments above.
Getting to the headlines - What is there to investigate? over

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Roger’s comment about this runway crossing/incursion was perfectly said, in my opinion. BITD, pilots and Air Traffic Controllers got along to get along. Unless you were a completely unsafe pilot things got worked out without anyone calling the cops.
Here is an example: I’m a captain on a scheduled commuter plane to Nantucket, there is a once in a lifetime Eclipse of the sun directly over ACK: ‘Eclipse of the Century’: When Nantucket Went Dark in 1970. The entire population of small planes are buzzing around the airport, getting a word in edgewise to ATC is impossible. Well, there was no problem whatsoever, because the Tower and pilots used common sense and pilots did the right thing to stay safe. The Tower controller would say, “plane landing continue”, “Twin, on final, continue,” (that’s me in a C-402, hanging on the props!), “plane taking off, continue” and so on. The same for take off, basically not too much said by anyone, but just professional work by all in a bee hive of activity. If someone would have called the cops that day we’d all be in trouble. The desire to take a peek at the eclipse was difficult to control for all pilots that day as I recall, my co-pilot having to get eyes checked having looked at the eclipse.
BTW, ‘Wings’, the sit-com, is spot on, except our little airline pilots were funnier. When I’d arrive over the OM inbound, Ginger, the cook put on the eggs and bacon and, yes, we knew most of the passengers and the folks on the island.