Unsafe ATC practices in US airspace (2)

Continuing with my call for a reappraisal of potentially unsafe practices in the US air traffic control system, I will now add the following to my list:

“Hold short of Runway X”. Evidently, this instruction, which requires a correct readback, was instituted in order to enhance safety by preventing an aircraft from entering an active runway. However, I believe that in fact it is part of an unsafe practice that allows ATC to clear an aircraft to cross one or more runways before coming to a stop. A safer practice is to rule that all aircraft should always stop before entering or crossing any runway; at controlled airports a positive clearance from ATC would be required before proceeding to enter or cross a runway.

The danger of a clearance which includes permission to enter or to cross a runway is that it is open to misinterpretation or that the crew can mistake one runway for another or for a taxiway, which is not uncommon.

For example, in the ground collision between a Japan Air Lines Airbus A350 and a Japan Coast Guard DHC-8 which occurred at Tokyo Haneda Airport on 2nd January 2024, ATC instructed the DHC-8 to “taxi to holding point C5”, but the surviving captain of this aircraft asserted just after the accident that he had been cleared for take-off. The DHC-8 proceeded to enter and line-up on the runway, where it was hit by the landing A350. Of the six crew on-board the DHC-8, only the captain survived; all 379 occupants of the A350 managed to evacuate the aircraft before it was completely destroyed by fire.

Another recent example was the near-miss at Chicago Midway International Airport (MDW) on 25th February 2025. A Bombardier Challenger 350 CL-35 was operating under General Aircraft (GA) rules as Flexjet flight 560 and was initially given a clearance to taxi to runway 22L via taxiway F and to hold short of runway 4L. When they were on taxiway F, ATC instructed them to turn left onto runway 04L, cross runway 31L and then hold short of runway 31C. The flight crew initially read back the instructions incorrectly; the ground controller immediately reissued the instructions and received a correct readback. After turning left onto the runway 04L with a width of 150 ft, the crew crossed runway 31L, mistaking it for a taxiway and then proceeded to cross runway 31C believing it was runway 31L.[1] At that moment a Boeing 737-800 operating as Southwest Airlines flight 2504 with 136 passengers and six crew, was about to land on runway 31C. The airliner was below 100 ft when the co-pilot realized that the business jet was going to cross runway 31C; he called for a go-around and the captain executed it, with the airliner reaching within 25 ft of the runway surface before climbing away. The Boeing passed with a vertical separation of 75 ft and a horizontal separation of 200 ft behind the Bombardier. In this case, the change I propose would have required the business jet to stop before entering runway 04L and before crossing runways 31L and 31C,[2] but better safe than sorry. In 2001, another business jet strayed onto the runway at Milan-Linate Airport in Italy, killing all 110 passengers and crew on an SAS airliner, four more persons on the ground as well as the four occupants of the smaller aircraft.  

[1] It is noted that runway 31L/13R has a width of just 58 ft and its runway signs and hold-short line on runway 04L can be difficult to see from an aircraft turning onto runway 04L from taxiway F because these markings are just 75 ft from the centerline of taxiway F and just where the nosewheel of the aircraft would be straightening out. Runway 31L/13R has no surface markings crossing runway 04L/22R. From the lack of tire marks on runways 13L/31R and 04L/22R, it appears that these are mostly used as taxiways.

[2] It appears that runway 31R/13L was decommissioned between 2023 and 2024; it is now a taxiway.