The quality of air traffic control at the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport encountered turbulence again yesterday after a Taiwanese actress wrote on her blog about her flight aborting a landing because another aircraft was on the runway.
“The aircraft was preparing for landing and suddenly pulled up,” Bowie Tsang (曾寶儀) wrote. “Later, the pilot apologized to passengers, saying he had to go around because another aircraft occupied the runway. I’d never had this experience before. It was scary.”
Media reports said the sudden go-around “terrified about 400 passengers.”
The Civil Aeronautics -Administration (CAA) said Tsang’s flight was China Airlines (CAL) flight CI532, a Boeing 747-400.
The incident occurred on Wednesday afternoon when the CAL aircraft was about 2 nautical miles (3.7km) from the runway.
The CAA said airport control tower personnel had calculated that EVA Airways (EVA) cargo flight 692, also a 747-400, could take off before the CAL aircraft landed and instructed the pilots on the EVA aircraft to stand by at the end of the runway.
“The EVA cargo flight was then given permission to take off after the control tower determined that an Air Macau aircraft had landed and left the runway,” CAA Deputy Director General Lee Wan-lee (李萬里) said.
At that point, the CAL aircraft was about 7 nautical miles from the airport.
Lee said that although the EVA flight received instructions to take off at 15:12:17 (3:12pm), it did not leave immediately. At 15:12:54, control tower personnel decided to ask the CAL aircraft to go around after they realized that the EVA cargo aircraft showed no sign of moving.
Lee said that the pilot of the EVA cargo aircraft did not take off immediately because he saw the Air Macau flight was still on the runway.
The CAL aircraft was about 2 nautical miles from the runway at the time of the decision. Airport regulations stipulate that a “go-around” must be made when an aircraft is 0.7 nautical miles or more from the runway, Lee said.
Aside from foreign objects on a runway, factors such as low -visibility, wind shear and insufficient buffering distance between two landed aircraft can also force pilots to fly around and do a second approach for landing, Lee said.
Meanwhile, the CAA said an investigation into a runway incursion incident on Thursday last week showed it was caused by errors by control tower personnel.
The incident occurred when a CAL cargo flight was taking off. At the same time, an EVA cargo flight was given instructions to continue taxiing at the other end of the runway.
“Two EVA cargo flights were on standby: EVA652 and EVA612, and flight 612 was supposed to go first,” Lee said. “Instead, the control tower gave permission for takeoff to flight 652, which could only go straight across the runway to take off.”
Lee said the control tower quickly identified the error and canceled the CAL flight’s takeoff.
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