Near-Miss on Runway Traced to Controller

An air traffic controller authorized a small plane to taxi across a runway at Los Angeles International Airport, then 32 seconds later cleared a Continental Airlines jet to take off on the same runway without ascertaining that the taxiing had been completed, according to tape recordings released Tuesday by the Federal Aviation Administration.

But an FAA official said it was not his agency’s prerogative to announce who was responsible for the ensuing collision--or near collision--last Wednesday between the Continental jet, carrying 84 people, and a twin-engine Cessna 310 piloted by a Lompoc man.

Six days after the incident, neither the FAA nor the National Transportation Safety Board, which is charged with investigating such mishaps, was ready to say whether the two planes had actually struck one another. The Cessna sustained a bent and torn tail, but it could have resulted from jet blast.

FAA spokeswoman Barbara Abels said the agency had first received a report indicating that safety board investigators had found a tear in one tire of the Continental jet, which would indicate that a collision had occurred. However, she said, this was later contradicted.

Abels said that only Gary Mucho, chief of the NTSB’s Los Angeles field office and in charge of the investigation, could say if a collision had occurred. Several calls to Mucho were not returned, and an assistant later said he would have no comment Tuesday.

The tape recordings released by the FAA were of the exchanges between two unidentified air controllers in the airport tower and the two aircraft.

The local controller had control over the Continental jet preparing for takeoff, and a ground controller handling planes on ramps, aprons and taxiways had control over the Cessna. But it was the local controller who told the ground controller that the Cessna could taxi across Runway 25 Right, where the collision or near miss occurred. Two seconds later, the ground controller did so.

Jack McMillen, manager of the quality assurance staff in the FAA’s regional office here, said that a minute and 43 seconds after the local controller gave his taxiing authorization, the air controllers in the tower at Los Angeles International Airport were told that the Cessna may have been hit. But, he said, the actual near miss probably occurred a little sooner.

The tapes contained no mention from the Cessna pilot that he had completed the taxiing before the Continental jet was authorized to take off, but there was a message to the tower from the Continental plane saying that the jetliner “just had somebody taxi across the runway as we departed.”

McMillen said there was no requirement that the plane that was taxiing notify the tower when the taxiing was completed. He said visibility between the control tower was impeded by lights on nearby buildings and the tails of parked aircraft, so it was possible that the controllers could not see what was happening.

McMillen said that new surface detector radar equipment--”so we can see the taxiways”--will be installed within the next year, and that a new, taller control tower, affording better visibility of the area involved, will be constructed in about three years.

He noted that both controllers involved have been reassigned to other duties that do not involve moving airplanes and said the FAA is continuing a 30-day investigation into the matter.

Meanwhile, an independent air travel safety expert, John Galipault of the Aviation Safety Institute of Worthington, Ohio, cautioned that there may be other key factors in the investigation besides the actions of controllers.

Galipault noted that the incident occurred at a point more than 8,000 feet down the runway from where the Continental jet began its takeoff roll. He said the air traffic controller may have had reason to believe that the jet would be well into the air by the time it reached the point where the incident occurred.

Galipault added that he has been told that the Cessna pilot has already been exonerated by investigators of any blame for what happened.