Aircraft

Summary

On 31 July 2012 at about 18:05 local time, a an aircraft of an unrecorded type was involved in an incident near Arlington, Virginia, United States. The number of people on board was not recorded. The NTSB has published a probable cause for this accident; it is quoted in full below.

Date

31 July 2012 at 18:05

Classification

Incident

Location

Arlington, Virginia, United States

Coordinates

38.8897, -77.0994

Aircraft

Not recorded

Registration

Not recorded

Operator

Not recorded

Operating rule

Unknown

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Aircraft damage

Not recorded

NTSB number

OPS12IA849

Injuries not recorded.

A hearback/readback error on the part of the tower traffic management coordinator, who did not understand the request being made by the approach control area supervisor and then communicated that misunderstanding to the local controllers. Contributing to the incident was the lack of standard coordination procedures between the tower and approach control for temporary runway changes and the accepted practice of operations supervisors being distracted by non-operational duties while responsible for tower operations and interfacility coordination.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record. This site does not paraphrase or interpret it.

Read the full NTSB narrative

The airport had been using runway 1 for arrivals and departures all day. Because of thunderstorms south of the airport, the approach control area supervisor for Mount Vernon (MTV) attempted to coordinate with the airport tower supervisor to stop departures from runway 1 and temporarily land arrivals on runway 19, opposite to the traffic flow in use. According to the airport’s standard operating procedures, requests for runway changes must be approved by a tower supervisor, but the tower supervisor was unable to take the call because he was on a different phone line and distracted by administrative duties. Instead, a traffic management coordinator took the coordination call. A misunderstanding occurred between the MTV supervisor and the traffic management coordinator. The coordinator stated that she had missed the supervisor's reference to use of runway 19, and instead thought arrivals would be continuing to use runway 1, only with reduced spacing. The coordinator relayed the incorrect information to the local controllers responsible for the runways. The local controllers subsequently released two departures from runway 1 and both flights lost required separation with the first arriving airplane inbound from the northwest to land on runway 19.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.