homepage Forums SimHQ Community Community Hall Harrison Ford - not dead but ego/pride putting others at risk

I'd say he should get that training and prove himself still capable. If he passes, he's good to go.

You can't let this slide as "one of those things", but I see no need to revoke his license over it.

You can take traffic school when you get a ticket, after all.




The Jedi Master

Probably he was distracted and just thought "remember Harry, John Wayne 20L is the small one aside the more obvious one" and completely neglected to put 20R in the picture. Or worse "L is at the left", full stop. I am afraid it's an age thing.

Stupid mistake but I have to agree with the others, Ford is an excellent pilot who has handled emergencies very skilfully in the past.

His really big mistake this time was to try to land when another aircraft was under him. In the US you're never allowed to land if an airliner has lined up on the runway in front of you, it's a mandatory go around even if ATC doesn't tell you. And even though though the airliner was lined up, he landed anyway, and it turned out to be a taxiway - a double whammy. This was a big mistake. Sorry it happened to him.

That being said this is a fairly common occurrence in the aviation world. It happened several times with commercial airliners flown by commercial pilots at large airports last year in Japan alone where the ATC and pilot standards are quite high. Mistakes happen. You try to learn from the past and ensure it doesn't happen again.

The airliner afaik was waiting at the end of the taxi way for Ford to land to cross 20L on the way to 20R.

Serious but an honest and not so rare mistake, I've seen it almost happen a few times when there is a lot of chatter over comms and the pattern is very active.. If this was "john smith pilot" instead of a celebrity, It wouldn't have even made the news..

Whether he gets any disciplinary action will depend on whether he's burned his ASRS "get out of jail free" card yet. He'll have to file the form and see what happens.

I'd guess he'll get a 709 ride. It takes a lot of the FAA to actually pull your ticket.

From what I understand, his other two mishaps were an engine out and wind sheer and not his fault.

Would ATC not advise him to check his approach or is it something that happens too fast? Meaning from the ATC's perspective it could still look like he's aiming for the correct runway until the very last minute and they realize he's no where he's supposed to be? Also I'm curious as to whether the airliner was maybe told to halt by some ATC person paying attention to the apparent danger unfolding or was he sitting there because that is where he was told to go to and hold short and thankfully the timing happened to be fortunate? I guess I'm wondering if the airliner was still in the process of rolling and moving, making his way down the taxi way. Was he still moving on the taxiway as Ford flew and landed over him?

Can't be sure, but the angle from the tower probably could not tell he was off that bit. Also they are used to aircraft being a bit off centerline adjusting for the wind. No information on wind for his landing. But they aren't looking that closely at an airplane on short final.

If you take a close look by zooming in on the link



John Wayne Airport


and look to the right where it reads 19 L. There is a twin engine airplane there and just behind it are dashed yellow and solid yellow lines on a blackish stripe. That is the "holdshort" line where a departing aircraft holds until instructed to proceed to the runway for takeoff or to cross that runway to another location. That apparently is where the commercial airplane was. Actually it would be on the other side of the line from the one in the photo. You hold on the side with the solid lines. It would have been holding short there because of Fords landing on that runway. So that is why he came in over the airplane on the ground. For a pilot that is a huge red flag. The runway markings read 19 L instead of 20 L because they are assigned on magnetic compass heading and since the magnetic heading slowly changes over time, runways are updated to match. So it changed from 19 (190 degrees) to 20 (200) degrees. They round to the nearest 10 degree so a change of just a degree or two can change the rounding process.

Did I make that clear or did I complicate it ?

Airport is bigger than I thought it was.

Sadly, I disagree. I know I have slowed down mentally as well as physically. Don't believe me? Try going back to college.

It's a very busy airport and runs alongside a major freeway, and because of that one can see planes landing and taking off all the time.

+1

Also, I always mean to tell you: Good for you for doing that. It's not easy, I'm sure, going back at your age. People can laugh if they want, but I think doing that takes quite a bit of courage, because it is so out of your element. I don't think I could do it very easily. I've considered it but always said "nah." You may end up inspiring me to do it. Anyway, again, good for you brother.

Thanks Airdrop.

Do it man! You sound like you are at a turning point in life, and the Over-"Educated" College administrators of America need someone with more credentials than I to go "Hey, that's not only age discrimination, it's dumb!"

Had a really fun time today in my English Composition class. If you had told me a few months ago that was possible I would have laughed in your face.

Yeah, we slow down. That's certainly not any reason to come to a screeching halt. I am backing off the full time stuff though. This semester is NUTS!

They don't know what to think of me....which of course, I like. Learning is cool, at any age IMO.

I very well may. I really really want to be a high school teacher. I can't think of much better to finish up my working life than teaching kids and maybe coaching some ball at the same time. We shall see!!

Or....you could just coach and coast a bit for awhile.....taking time to stop and just think is good.

It's very cool you enjoy coaching kids.

In here it shows what I was saying about the commercial jet at the holdshort line waiting for him to land before proceeding.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4229206/Harrison-Ford-spotted-air-investigation-hold.html


The John Wayne Airport is laid out oddly with the terminal and commercial jets on one side and having to cross to the other side of the field to use the large runway and small general aviation doing the opposite. Makes for a lot of taxiing and runway crossing.

I think his crash with the historical plane was bad luck, or good, depending on point of view.
Getting a plane down after engine failure is not easy and he did well i think.

Yes, he handled that well. They just like to refer to that even though they have little understanding of what happened. It is just easy and spectacular for them to focus on. Look at the video near the bottom where he flies a "classic spitfire" ...

I wonder how many hours he has ?

I don't see where there is a RWY 19L. I only see 20L and 20 R in that link. And actually, when runway numbers go up (ie, from 27 to 28) it is because there are more than 3 runways with the same heading. In short, there is already a RWY 27 L, R, and C. A 4th runway heading 270 magnetic would then be numbered 28, or 28L, R, C depending on if there are more runways.

v6,
boNes

I guess that depends. When I took off at John Wayne Airport years ago, they had given me a short taxi and let me use RWY 2L. Maybe it was slow that day and they didn't mind giving me the closest runway, but it didn't involve me having to cross any other runway or any long taxi to another. I finished my checks at the hold short, got clearance to take off, and went from there.

I'll tell you one thing: the airspace is CRAZY. LAX and the surrounding airports--and there are alot of them--make for a confusing mush of Class B, Class C, and other airspaces that is hard to keep track of and stay legal in, plus then add the mountains to the equation and other air traffic and it gets to be a confusing mess. When the people at SNA found out I am from Chicago they thought that because of ORD that the airspace must be confusing and crazy but really it's not, especially compared to that Los Angeles airspace. Makes the head spin. I'd almost say maybe Ford was confused with information overload from that but I'm also guessing he is no stranger to this airspace at all.

v6,
boNes