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Some confusion from the get go on the FlexJet crew reading back taxi instructions and it didnât end well. They reached the last layer of defense. Luckily SWA was heads up and went around. Major catastrophe averted. 
And that right there is why we practice balked landings with less than 50 ft to touchdown (in rare cases touching down).
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Normally I see these things and the proximity and danger are grossly exaggerated. It gets laughable but for the fact that people believe the hype and fly in fear. But this? This 50/50 would have been a fireball had the crew not punched it. Good for them. The jet also at least had the wherewithal to accelerate. Had SWA not gone around, I think it would have been a missâbut only just by feet.
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IMO at best case it would have been like the incident last year where the Hawker wing-tagged the tail of the Citation Mustang while taking off without a clearance.
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The angle of the video makes it look closer.
There is about 650m from the aimpoint to the intersection. Now, thatâs too close - of course, but it looks worse in the rear angled video.
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I wanna hear the Tower Convo, cause this is just another in a big stack of ATC Fails already in just 2 months into 2025.
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VASAviation has already posted it.
Also, I donât think this one is really on ATC, quite honestly.
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Definitely not on ATC. Heck the DCA accident wasnât either. Their job is to tell us what to do. Our job is to comply. They are supposed to monitor compliance but only as a secondary responsibility when workload permits.
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Listening to that I think itâs 100% on the Flexjet pilot. Now WHY he seemed to be so confused all the time needs an investigation because when it comes to âpreventableâ accidents, a pilot whose focus isnât 100% on taxiing around a busy airport and following ATC has to be top of the list.
To me it sounds like he was holding 2 conversations at once, like he was on a phone or someone else was talking to him in the cockpit and his attention was divided. I donât know if that jet has a CVR or not, because that would be important to catch.
Hereâs a questionâif it was proven that the issue was a passenger or someone else who was NOT the copilot was trying to talk to the pilot and not going away, what is the recourse? Itâs the pilotâs responsibility but not really âfaultâ per se. Can the NTSB/FAA go after a passenger/no fly list them for something like that?
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Sterile cockpit is the rule whenever the airplane is moving under its own power and until the parking brake is set. Distractions are ALWAYS the pilot in commandâs fault. If distracted by a passenger, snake, topless tug driver, whatever, their only action is to stop and set the brake. Having said that, I had a runway infraction of my own 10 years ago at West Palm. We werenât distracted. We misunderstood the instructions. What saved my bacon was a very honest and thorough sole-sourced report AND the fact the PBI has an odd taxiway layout around the terminal that generates above average infractions. Mistakes happen.
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Weâve already have what 15 major incidents of collisions and near misses.
Deconflicting and managing airspace,
Most of these incidents have been because of ill-advised, last second, without checking, changes to instructions by ATC, and pilot mistakes. If the ATC wasnât understaffed, many of the changes likely wouldnât have happened, or would have been vetoâd by another controller citing route confliction, if they were actually there to over watch the routesâŠ
in the case of PAT25/CRJ, ultimately despite all the other factors and missed cues, systems being off, the main preventing factor would have simply been, they not been there, and they were not supposed to be. Donât make changes and expect or rely on pilots to mitigate other issues, just donât put them in that position in the first place.
The CRJ was instructed to change to that runway during final, when the aircraft ON that runway should have been held short on the taxi, allowing the CRJ to land, and the airspace remain conflict free. Being short staffed, no one was there to think ahead and hold the other aircraft off the runway, to keep from having to re-route CRJ to RW 33, to land, while the other plane was taking off from the intersecting runway. Most of the busy airfields are straight up directing traffic on the fly, hoping everyone is perfect and doesnât make mistakes, hears every radio call, and flies like a computer, or get lucky. The amount of near misses from pilot deviations could have been straight up prevented with better ATC or Ground Controller Management.
Moving the CRJ to runway 33 conflicted the routes from the get go. not only with PAT25 but the Aircraft on the other intersecting runway. Having a short staffed Controller crew led to several missed communications after the change, let alone that the change conflicted the routes.
In the case of the FlexJet, again, they were told to hold short, yes, but they were put into that route confliction position by the ATCâs instructions, they should have just held on the taxiway and not told to make the left turn onto the runway to cross another runway. better yet, the taxiway north and around the runway was clear, so why they didnât put the Flex going around the perimeter taxiway instead of THRU multiple runways is beyond me.
And thatâs not even getting into the recent incidents from the last 48 hours with planes running over ground vehicles or colliding with them.
@SkateZilla this happens ALL the time. And it always has. Iâve been switched at DCA a dozen timesâincluding the very RW change combo in the accident. Try changing from 15 to 19 when asked over the Pentagon!* Happens. Iâve done it. With three intersecting runways, thereâs not much choice. You are totally correct about staffing. THAT is kinda newâan enduring symptom of the pandemic. But the complex use of and changes of runways is normal. Professionals deal with it. What wasnât normal was for the Blackhawk to be well east of, and above its assigned visual route and called âin sightâ. Easy solution to that one. Donât allow visual separation at night.
*Worth mentioning I havenât been to DCA in at least eight years. The unique MO of that airport goes way back.
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Did the Flexjetâs ground check-in come across as sloppy or distracted to anyone else? My only official experience with phraseology is a semester of ground school I was observing for some linguistics research, and the phraseology they taught for the ground check-in always included current parking position and intention/request, and Flexjet communicated neither at first. That was the thing that leapt out at me for some reason. Seemed like the Flexjetâs cockpit was distracted.
But that ground school was the primary phase where they were going to be flying DA-20s in Arizona. Is commercial and IFR phrasology different?
The phraseology is the same for allâthe AIM is the guide for all. I havenât heard or read the transcript but to answer the general question, some common-sense brevity is beneficial. Normally itâs âWho are you? Where are you? Where do you want to go?â But if, say, UPS has one ramp at the airport and just one outbound exit from that ramp then âHello Ground. UPS 123. Information âPapaââ might be perfectly acceptable.
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