Preventing the Expected Disaster

The primary purpose of the ATC is preventing collisions, ensuring separation, and maintaining public confidence in the national airspace system.

There's been a recent spate of significant airport events. Planes have been cleared to land and/or cleared for takeoff on the same runways and they have come very close to each other and even too close to colliding.

Or: one plane was cleared to land on their own runway while another plane was cleared to land or takeoff on another intersecting runway, and the timing was such that they'd both be on the intersecting runways simultaneously.

These events are too close for comfort. They challenge the basic concept of no two objects occupying the same place at the same time. The people operating the system, orchestrating the airplanes at our airports, have failed to demonstrate good judgement and reduced the public's confidence in air travel.

There is a simple procedural change that would prevent many but not all of these events.

ACTION: add the following paragraph to the FAA ATC manual 7110.65:
3-10-14 Multiple Clearances. For single-runway or intersecting-runway operations, issue only one clearance (to either land or takeoff) at a time.

• Do not issue multiple clearances to land or takeoff in single-runway operations, either same-direction or opposite direction.
  
• In intersecting runway operations, only one aircraft may have a landing or takeoff clearance at a time. Issue a clearance to a successive aircraft only after the preceding aircraft has passed through the intersection, or has landed, turned off the runway, and there is no conflict.
  

Remove the following from the FAA manual 7110.65

• 3-9-5 ANTICIPATING SEPARATION
  Takeoff clearance need not be withheld until prescribed separation exists if there is a reasonable assurance it will exist when the aircraft starts takeoff roll.
• 3-10-6 ANTICIPATING SEPARATION
  Landing clearance to succeeding aircraft in a landing sequence need not be withheld if you observe the positions of the aircraft and determine that prescribed runway separation will exist when the aircraft crosses the landing threshold.

Effective: Immediately
Duration: These changes may be reversed in six months if the FAA administrator certifies they are no longer needed.

That's it. This is a small change that many controllers have used as a personal technique but it has never been a requirement. Recent experience calls for making this a requiment since judgement has not prevailed.

This will prevent events caused by ATC issuing multiple clearances and failing to intervene when necessary.

This would not prevent events driven by pilot error, which appears to include the recent JFK event where a pilot crossed an active runway.

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