FAA: 2 planes nearly collide in Fort Lauderdale

[AlphaSigOU]

Originally Posted by DeltAlum

I was in an airplane landing in Denver a couple of years ago and we were literally "over the fence" (over airport boundry) probably less than 500 feet in the air and had to "go around." The pilot announced that there was still another aircraft on the runway.

Thankfully, someone caught it, be we should have never been that close behind another landing airplane.

Probably some dipshit who either: crossed the 'hold' line (that solid and dashed line painted on the taxiway no one is supposed to cross without permission from ATC) or a lazy-ass who's too slow to clear the runway after rollout.

Try doing a go-around in a 'Mad Dog' MD-80... Back when Continental flew MD-80s I was flying into 27R at IAH (Houston Intercontinental) when the captain hit the 'TOGA' (take off/go around) switch and we were forced into a go-around. After some serious, quick fighter-jock maneuvering from the captain with the concurrence of ATC we lined up into the crosswind runway complex (15L)and landed without a problem without having to get back into the landing queue for 27R. Sure enough, the previous aircraft didn't clear the runway.

BTW... I was self-loading cargo, not flight crew.

[DeltAlum]

Originally Posted by AlphaSigOU

Probably some dipshit who either: crossed the 'hold' line (that solid and dashed line painted on the taxiway no one is supposed to cross without permission from ATC) or a lazy-ass who's too slow to clear the runway after rollout.

It was either the latter or ATC just let us get too close behind.

At DIA, a runway is almost never used by both arrivals and departures at the same time and runways and/or taxiways don't cross anywhere on the airfield.

(following for AlphaSigOU and others who might be interested...)

One of the things they did right with the "new" Denver airport was put it on a 55 Square Mile site, which was the largest in the world at that time, so there is room for up to twelve runways. It opened with four and is now up to six. There is also room to expand all of the three concourses and additional room to build two more. There is enough room between concourses for jets to push back from each side, and two additional jets to taxi between them simultaneously. Also, because of our altitude, thin air and heat during the summer, one of the runways is either 16 or 18,000 feet to allow any jet to take off with a full load of passengers and fuel for non-stop flights to Europe or the Pacific Rim. We also have the only pedestrian bridge that aircraft actually taxi under between the main terminal and Concourse A.

When it opened, DIA was the only airport in the world that could land three airplanes at the same time in near zero visibility. It may still be. They figured that might never happen, but there was a mini-blizzard and they actually did it on opening day.

ETA a funny story. I helped televise the opening day. All of the local TV stations have fiber optics in multiple areas of the airport, and we all had the gate covered for the first arrival. Unfortunately, the jetway froze to the ground and they couldn't move it so they had to move the plane to the next gate over.