To the editor: I am a 10,000-hour, airline-rated pilot and flight instructor. I have never landed on a taxiway, as actor Harrison Ford mistakenly did at John Wayne Airport, but I almost have a few times. (“Harrison Ford's close call in another airplane mishap was unusual and troubling, experts say,” Feb. 15)
A number of airports in the Los Angeles area have multiple runways, often with a large one for the heavy planes and a smaller one for general aviation. Normally there are taxiways on each side of the two-runway complex and often a taxiway between the two. In that most of our airports were military fields, many of them have long, wide taxiways, built to handle World War II fighters and bombers.
Ford made a simple mistake and will undoubtedly get a reprimand of some kind. I hope the Federal Aviation Administration doesn’t decide to make a high-profile example out of him and instead treats him as they would any of us in the same situation.
Darcy Vernier, Marina del Rey
Article and comments: http://www.latimes.com/opinion
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I don't give him flak for mistaking the taxiway for runway, it is the flying overtop of another aircraft that is what I call horrible judgement. Even if that had been the correct runway, if there is an aircraft on it... you just don't fly over and land in front of it. That creates the possibility of not just crashing into it as you fly over, but of it attempting to takeoff while your on your landing roll and crashing into the back of you. As far as I can tell he completely gave up being the PIC and expected the tower to do it for him. But what do I know, I'm not a million hour airliner kind of guy.
ReplyDeleteTime to give up flying, Harrison! At 74, you're no spring chicken any more. I say this as a seventy-four (74) year old former airline pilot.
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