http://deadline.com/2017/02/harrison-fo ... 201911767/


NBC said the actor was piloting a single-engine Husky when he was instructed to land on a particular runway. Ford mistakenly headed for a taxiway instead, and his plane passed above a commercial 737 with 110 passengers and a six-person crew aboard. No one was hurt, and American Airlines Flight 1546 was able to leave for Dallas minutes later.
NBC News says Ford was heard on an air-traffic control recording asking, “Was that airliner meant to be underneath me?”

Well, that might just end his flying days. Certainly not good news. That could have been really bad.

Looks like a slow day in the news room. Carry on!

avi8tir wrote:

Looks like a slow day in the news room. Carry on!

An incredibly famous actor and pilot lands on a taxiway instead of a runway and almost hits a passenger jet carrying over 100 people and it's a "slow news day" for being mentioned? Ridiculous.

avi8tir wrote:

Looks like a slow day in the news room. Carry on!

Very serious incident that is being investigated by the FAA. Your comment is silly

avi8tir wrote:

Looks like a slow day in the news room. Carry on!

Landing on a taxiway and nearly hitting an occupied airliner is a slow news day? If you look at the airport in Google maps and visualize what happened, this was a pretty serious incident.

SNA from the north


taken from https://twitter.com/jacdecnew

The passengers and crew of AA1546 wouldn't consider this a "slow news day".

avi8tir wrote:

Looks like a slow day in the news room. Carry on!

This is actual news. A famous actor almost flies a plane into a nearly full passenger aircraft. That is much more interesting than most things people post on here. It's to the point where people are tired of talking about Air Canada's new livery and other nonsensical things like why someone ordered one plane instead of the other.

Ford is nearing his 75th birthday. He can afford pilots. Might be time to hang it up, Harry.

Seabear wrote:

The passengers and crew of AA1546 wouldn't consider this a "slow news day".

Except AA1546 is a daily MIA-GND trip... classic news media error.

Does anybody know the actual flight involved? Would love to figure it out so we can find the ATC tape

Answered my own question... looks like it was AA1456

[twoid][/twoid]

khpn wrote:

Answered my own question... looks like it was AA1456

It is AA 1456; it appears LiveATC has pulled that archive from its site.

I have to question the sensationalism of the news. Having landed on 20L and 20R you would almost have to forcefully land on taxiway "C". Depending on his direction of arrival he would have a short final to avoid 20R airliner traffic and the visibility was excellent at that time.

Quite often when the airliners are holding short of 20R they will stick out in to the arrival path for 20L.

It's very likely he was supposed to land 20R but misunderstood and landed 20L, not a taxiway. The AA flight was likely short of 20R and past 20L a little bit near 20L. It's a near miss in that planes were closer than they should be but not like they were going to hit because Ford saw the plane and asked why it was so close.

Looks like the AA 737 was N959NN

Didn't he also have a close call at SMO a few years ago too? What happened there.

Several papers now starting smear articles, where they mention his other two aircraft incidents (Helicopter and Plane crash) and imply it was all his doing. Makes my blood boil.

Take away the celebrity factor behind it and it's still newsworthy. Major error which could have had tragic consequences.

The above pic of SNA is so fake it is laughable.

rlwynn wrote:

The above pic of SNA is so fake it is laughable.

It's from a flight simulator. And it's accurate enough to understand what could have happened.

Seabear wrote:

The passengers and crew of AA1546 wouldn't consider this a "slow news day".

At least they would have had a tombstone that reads: "Murdered by Han Solo"... How cool is that?

Seabear wrote:

The passengers and crew of AA1546 wouldn't consider this a "slow news day".

They probably were not even aware of it!

Let's breathe a bit here people. While if in fact he did land on the taxiway and overfly AA holding short, that is a long way from saying he would have crashed into the airliner - which he obviously saw. One might speculate that he failed to notice he was lined up on the taxiway *because* he was more focused on the AA 737.

I have personally been holding short of 20L and had an R-22 to a practice auto-rotation right over us.....all with the towers approval.

rlwynn wrote:

The above pic of SNA is so fake it is laughable.

To be fair, it does say "GoogleEarth" right there in the bottom left of that image.

The taxiways don't look anything like runways.

If find this speculation more logical :

ikramerica wrote:

It's very likely he was supposed to land 20R but misunderstood and landed 20L, not a taxiway. The AA flight was likely short of 20R and past 20L a little bit near 20L. It's a near miss in that planes were closer than they should be but not like they were going to hit because Ford saw the plane and asked why it was so close.

I highly doubt any media source got the details of this incident correct. Once the true, factual, details come out, this will likely be NOT NEWSWORTHY. Per the above post, the AA flight was likely cleared to hold short of 20R between 20L and 20R and the landing aircraft likely landed on 20L as the AA aircraft was taxiing to the 20R hold short line. Perhaps the AA aircraft wasn't 100% clear at the safest point and the landing aircraft continued to land.

If every incident like this got reported in the news today, CNN would have more "near miss" BS stories than they currently report on Trump.

Francoflier wrote:

At least they would have had a tombstone that reads: "Murdered by Han Solo"... How cool is that?

Han shot first.

I heard some of the ATC audio on another site and Ford was cleared to land on 1L and the AA 737 was holding at taxiway D-B, the southernmost entrance to 1L on the west side. Perhaps his base-to-final turn was right at the numbers and he overflew the 737? I read he landed on a taxiway, but I am not sure there is any evidence to support that. One of the AA pilots did complain that the aircraft flew over him by 25 feet and the tower asked if the aircraft clipped the tail of the 737.

greg3322 wrote:

I heard some of the ATC audio on another site and Ford was cleared to land on 1L and the AA 737 was holding at taxiway D-B, the southernmost entrance to 1L on the west side. Perhaps his base-to-final turn was right at the numbers and he overflew the 737? I read he landed on a taxiway, but I am not sure there is any evidence to support that. One of the AA pilots did complain that the aircraft flew over him by 25 feet and the tower asked if the aircraft clipped the tail of the 737.

I've heard the same. NBC News has some transcribed text from ATC (which was garbage at best) and he asked if the airliner was meant to be below him and per NBC, ATC said " you landed on taxi C." Now we all know they don't talk in terms of A,B,C so it was hard to figure out what was right or wrong.

With what's been published, what seems to me is the AA 737 was probably holding short of R20L at the approach end as instructed for Mr. Ford to land. It seems to me Mr. Ford landed on the parallel taxiway, C, near the terminal.

I'm not familiar with the layout but by looking at satellite imagery, an aircraft holding short of R20L would be directly under the "final" for txy Charlie. Also, the profile for txy C "may" look like a parallel runway to the actual runways.

GoSteelers wrote:

I'm not familiar with the layout but by looking at satellite imagery, an aircraft holding short of R20L would be directly under the "final" for txy Charlie. Also, the profile for txy C "may" look like a parallel runway to the actual runways.

That's the way I took it, that it was holding short of 20L waiting for his plane to land and he flew directly over top of it to land on the taxiway between the terminal and 20L.

"Near miss?! It was a near crash!"

greg3322 wrote:

I heard some of the ATC audio on another site and Ford was cleared to land on 1L and the AA 737 was holding at taxiway D-B, the southernmost entrance to 1L on the west side. Perhaps his base-to-final turn was right at the numbers and he overflew the 737? I read he landed on a taxiway, but I am not sure there is any evidence to support that. One of the AA pilots did complain that the aircraft flew over him by 25 feet and the tower asked if the aircraft clipped the tail of the 737.

That audio is likely a fake since there hasn't been a 1L at SNA in over two years. And it appears to have been posted by ATC Memes, which should tell you all you need to know.

LiveATC cuts the audio just as AA1456 is starting to taxi after pushback, but this is the instruction from the tower:

Twr: "American 1456...turn right there at Lima, cross runway 20L, traffic's on a mile and a half base, a Liberty, runway 20R, line up and wait."

Not sure what happened after that obviously. Curious to know more as it seems the information we're all looking for is missing.

That is correct. The runway designations in question were changed in 2014 from 19L and 19R to their present 20 Left and Right magnetic designations.

I'm also curious about the ATC missing transcript and audio. Last evening during our local Los Angeles TV news we could hear a brief excerpt of a startled American Airlines pilot reporting a light aircraft flying over his aircraft, missing them by an estimated 20 to 25 feet. The SNA tower controller apparently saw Harrison Ford's Husky fly so close to the Boeing 737-800's tail that he inquired "did he clip your tail?" To me that is a definition of a near-miss.

Interestingly many news shows are treating this incident as if "heck it could happen to anybody." Me-thinks if the pilot of that Husky were Theodore Throttle he would by slapped with an FAA violation so fast his head would spin.

Is it just me or is he just very very unlucky when flying
Now jokes aside, maybe now its time to quit flying Mr. Ford.

wn676 wrote:

greg3322 wrote:

I heard some of the ATC audio on another site and Ford was cleared to land on 1L and the AA 737 was holding at taxiway D-B, the southernmost entrance to 1L on the west side. Perhaps his base-to-final turn was right at the numbers and he overflew the 737? I read he landed on a taxiway, but I am not sure there is any evidence to support that. One of the AA pilots did complain that the aircraft flew over him by 25 feet and the tower asked if the aircraft clipped the tail of the 737.

That audio is likely a fake since there hasn't been a 1L at SNA in over two years. And it appears to have been posted by ATC Memes, which should tell you all you need to know.

LiveATC cuts the audio just as AA1456 is starting to taxi after pushback, but this is the instruction from the tower:

Twr: "American 1456...turn right there at Lima, cross runway 20L, traffic's on a mile and a half base, a Liberty, runway 20R, line up and wait."

Not sure what happened after that obviously. Curious to know more as it seems the information we're all looking for is missing.

Again, is there any actual confirmation from any reliable source that he landed on a taxiway and not 20L? The ATC instructions seem to indicate that AA should go to the foot of the runways, cross the 20L threshold and wait for clearance for 20R.

Depending on how quickly the AA bird got there and how short the AA bird held (if he held too short, he's blocking 20L which he should not be doing), there will be fault to find all around.

Ford is likely very used to flying in to SNA and is usually cleared for 20L not 20R, so without thinking correctly, he lined up for 20L and maybe even heard 20L in his mind even when they told hime 20R.

ikramerica wrote:

Again, is there any actual confirmation from any reliable source that he landed on a taxiway and not 20L?

None that is publicly available, from what I can tell. Like I said, the LiveATC recording cuts out right before the alleged incident, and that's usually our best source of information.

wn676 wrote:

LiveATC cuts the audio just as AA1456 is starting to taxi after pushback, but this is the instruction from the tower:

Twr: "American 1456...turn right there at Lima, cross runway 20L, tratraffic's on a mile and a half base, a Liberty, runway 20Rffic's on a mile and a half base, a Liberty, runway 20R, line up and wait."

Not sure what happened after that obviously. Curious to know more as it seems the information we're all looking for is missing.

That transcript creates more questions than it answers. What really isn't clear is if the landing traffic is landing on 20L or 20R. The phrase "traffic's on a mile and a half base, a Liberty, runway 20R" implies there is traffic landing on 20R. But lining up and waiting on 20R makes no sense if there's a plane landing on 20R. If the plane is landing on 20L I would expect some instruction to expedite the crossing of 20L. Harrison Ford has already been found guilty by the online message board investigators but there may actually be more to the story than a private pilot blundering into airspace beyond his skill level. After all someone who could fly the Millennium Falcon can certainly land a small airplane in daylight at SNA.

ikramerica wrote:

IPFreely wrote:

Alright guys...I'm putting the flame suit on...I accidentally pulled the file from yesterday, not Monday. So, disregard that whole exchange.

But when you do go looking for Monday's file, it is indeed "not found" between 1930z and 2030z.

The tower controller is giving two separate instructions. What he is saying to the AA is: cross R20L, traffic is on base. Then, R20R, line up and wait. It's very typical phraseology.

The full story isn't out there, but some things to think about. American is notorious for two things: taxing slow, and not having numbers. Again, I don't work there but it sure looks like it is a short route from the terminal to the runway. At initial contact, the controller might have given those instructions, about lining up an waiting, only to have American come back and say they aren't ready. Then the controller would more than likely have him hold short of R20L, which would place him in the spot near txt C. Again, only conjecture

Now jokes aside,

Oh, I think we can come up with a lot of jokes for this one!

"Han, you can't land on a taxiway!"
"Never tell me the odds!"

“You’ve never heard of the Millennium Cessna? … It’s the plane that made the SNA run in less than 12 runway incursions.”

"Look, Your ATC Tower Worshipfulness, let's get one thing straight. I take orders from just one person: me."

"Traveling through controlled airspace ain't like dusting crops, boy."

And finally,

"Mr. Ford, I'm from the FAA."
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

This may shed more light: https://www.aviation-safety.net/wikibas ... ?id=193603

From local eyewitness accounts the American Airlines Boeing 737-800 was holding on taxiway Lima, short of runway 20L, with its tail over taxiway Charlie.

Harrison Ford is a huge supporter of aviation; read a Flying or AOPA magazine. Invariably you'll find Ford at large general aviation events in Oshkosh, Wisconsin or Lakeland, Florida.

TMZ has now posted a photo clearly showing Harrison Ford landing on the taxiway Charlie so this is no longer an allegation but a confirmed incursion.



http://www.tmz.com/2017/02/16/harrison-ford-plane-landing-photo/

Bottom line is if he thought there was an issue he would/should have gone around but at the time seems to have thought he was landing on the runway. Even if this was true why did he not go around if he though an incursion was occurring with the AA 737

garpd wrote:

Several papers now starting smear articles, where they mention his other two aircraft incidents (Helicopter and Plane crash) and imply it was all his doing. Makes my blood boil.

As far as anyone can tell, the only person that made an error here was Harrison Ford. I wouldn't be so quick to vindicate him. He screwed up.

Aptivaboy wrote:

Now jokes aside,

Oh, I think we can come up with a lot of jokes for this one!

"Han, you can't land on a taxiway!"
"Never tell me the odds!"

“You’ve never heard of the Millennium Cessna? … It’s the plane that made the SNA run in less than 12 runway incursions.”

"Look, Your ATC Tower Worshipfulness, let's get one thing straight. I take orders from just one person: me."

"Traveling through controlled airspace ain't like dusting crops, boy."

And finally,

"Mr. Ford, I'm from the FAA."
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

LOL

Ford is losing his brain screws. He narrowly escaped death in a crash less than a year ago- and now this.
I mean WHO THE HELL MISTAKES A TAXIWAY FOR A RUNWAY.

The old man's mind has gone the way of his recent movie choices: loony and un- explainable.
The FAA should take his license away before he gets somebody killed.

IPFreely wrote:

After all someone who could crash-land the Millennium Falcon safely at lightspeed can certainly land a small airplane in daylight at SNA.

There, fixed it for you.
You are welcome!

"Fly Yes!, Land No!" - Indiana Jones

highflier92660 wrote:

This may shed more light: https://www.aviation-safety.net/wikibas ... ?id=193603

From local eyewitness accounts the American Airlines Boeing 737-800 was holding on taxiway Lima, short of runway 20L, with its tail over taxiway Charlie.

Harrison Ford is a huge supporter of aviation; read a Flying or AOPA magazine. Invariably you'll find Ford at large general aviation events in Oshkosh, Wisconsin or Lakeland, Florida.

Good link,explains a lot, thanks.