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Near miss at Bergstrom


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The audio makes pretty obvious this was the fault of ATC.  And it’s not the first one of these at AUS.  There was another near-miss just a few weeks ago involving American and Delta.  There’s a real problem at Austin ATC, and it needs fixing now.

Even without a collision, it’s remarkable that Southwest didn’t get caught up in the turbulence from FedEx.  The 767 is a big plane, and a 737 trying to take off really shouldn’t be that close to one.

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8 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

The audio makes pretty obvious this was the fault of ATC.  And it’s not the first one of these at AUS.  There was another near-miss just a few weeks ago involving American and Delta.  There’s a real problem at Austin ATC, and it needs fixing now.

Even without a collision, it’s remarkable that Southwest didn’t get caught up in the turbulence from FedEx.  The 767 is a big plane, and a 737 trying to take off really shouldn’t be that close to one.

I mean, for starters, there's too many fucking planes for the airport. ABIA needs to be twice as big.

Edited by ztejas
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Austin is pretty busy for a non-Bravo airport, but clearing a 737 to takeoff when there’s a 767 on short final in CATIII visual conditions seems like a very poor choice…this isn’t Heathrow or JFK where runway utilization has to be absolutely maximized.  Hats off to the FedEx pilot for staying cool and focused.  That felt ‘Air Canada landing on the taxiway’ levels of danger close.  

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2 hours ago, Homercles said:

Austin is pretty busy for a non-Bravo airport, but clearing a 737 to takeoff when there’s a 767 on short final in CATIII visual conditions seems like a very poor choice…this isn’t Heathrow or JFK where runway utilization has to be absolutely maximized.  Hats off to the FedEx pilot for staying cool and focused.  That felt ‘Air Canada landing on the taxiway’ levels of danger close.  

I'm not defending ATC but I feel like you're underselling how busy ABIA is during peak traffic. Given it's size it has to be one of the most chaotic airports in the country. 

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The FedEx pilot knew something was up.   he clearly heard the landing clearance for himself, and the takeoff clearance for SWA.   he even fucking clarified with the tower and they told him no issue plane would be gone.

 

sounds like Fedex never trusted that, and once he heard SWA  giving their take off notice,  Fedex aborted, but had to get enough power to pull away, getting them within 75 actual feet of each other, plus take the SWA plane tail height and the FedEx wheels down  it was probably less than 30 feet maybe 25 feet of fucking clearance at one point.

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Just now, Surly Bevo said:

One nice thing about DFW.  It's so fucking big that I am pretty sure they rarely, if ever, use runways dual purpose takeoff/landing.  

I mean, here in Austin, we HAVE the runway capacity.  It's just that we're using most of it for bike lanes at the moment.

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I thought they landed on one runway (west) and departed on the other (east); do they takeoff and land on both runways all the time?

Surprisingly, no. Both runways are used for takeoff and landing simultaneously. Depends on the direction of departures and arrivals. However, last month they were doing a trial of landing one and taking off the other.39c916811cf356c8a38f62d7235642dd.jpg
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6 hours ago, ztejas said:

I'm not defending ATC but I feel like you're underselling how busy ABIA is during peak traffic. Given it's size it has to be one of the most chaotic airports in the country. 

Maybe and I hear you but given the massive amount of ramp space, two runways, and no airspace to share with nearby major airports I don’t think it’s insane enough to call a quick takeoff in those conditions without at least an ‘expedite’ call.  
 

I feel like San Diego with the unique approach / single runway / volume and Nashville with their narrow alleys would be more challenging for overall operations.  

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in the audio, it sounds like when ATC realizes a collision might be imminent the first thing they say is 'Southwest abort' and the SWA flight replies 'negative' - were they already going too fast and were thus committed to takeoff? 

did the FedEx pilots actually see the SWA plane and pull up on their own??

Edited by mchookem
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11 hours ago, mchookem said:

in the audio, it sounds like when ATC realizes a collision might be imminent the first thing they say is 'Southwest abort' and the SWA flight replies 'negative' - were they already going too fast and were thus committed to takeoff? 

 

This is what I thought.

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50 minutes ago, Rip76 said:

This is what I thought.

 

11 hours ago, 4th and 5 said:

That’s the FEDEX pilot telling SWA to abort

which is highly unusual 

I think it was FedEx saying “swa abort”. ATC would’ve used a full call sign and different terminology. SWA said negative, likely because they were beyond the speed at which you are committed to going. 

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13 hours ago, Homercles said:

Dude made a visualization (in severe-clear) based off available data.  Damn close. 

 

how am i supposed to trust this when he has some bullshit united tail marking on a supposed swa flight?

jesus christ that was close. someone seriously fucked up.

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18 minutes ago, Your Mom said:

 

I think it was FedEx saying “swa abort”. ATC would’ve used a full call sign and different terminology. SWA said negative, likely because they were beyond the speed at which you are committed to going. 

It was definitely FedEx calling "Southwest abort," because it's the same voice that then announces that FedEx is a "go" around.

That you've got FedEx telling Southwest to abort is a real problem.  ATC has completely lost control of the airspace.  And FedEx can't tell Southwest to abort because he has no idea what speed Southwest is going (presumably Southwest had already passed V1, so it couldn't safely abort).

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