2000-01 · NASA ASRS report 460250
A BE30 PLT; FLYING SINGLE PLT; MISUNDERSTOOD TAXI INSTRUCTIONS AND CROSSED RWY 26 AT YUM IN FRONT OF A DEPARTING BONANZA.
THERE WAS NOT MUCH TFC ON THE GND FREQ; AND I ASKED TO TAXI FOR DEP. MY POS WAS ON THE NORTHERN FBO RAMP. THE CTLR ADVISED ME TO TAXI TO RWY 35 VIA TXWY ONTO RWY 17; BACK TAXI TO RWY 35; HOLD SHORT OF RWY 26; CONTACT THE TWR FOR FURTHER TAXI ON RWY 17. I HAD BEEN TO YUM ABOUT A MONTH BEFORE AND SO I GLANCED AT THE ARPT DIAGRAM ON MY COMMERCIAL CHART TO IDENT THE TXWY THAT WOULD START ME ON MY WAY. I ALSO AT THIS TIME LOOKED FOR A PARALLEL TXWY TO RWY 35; TO WHICH THERE IS NONE. AS I CAME UP TO RWY 17; AND MADE THE L TURN TO BEGIN MY BACK TAXI; I OBSERVED ONE OF THE MIL ACFT ROLLING OUT ON A RWY (IT WAS RWY 3). I MADE A MENTAL NOTE THAT THE RWY I WAS TO HOLD SHORT OF; AND I CONTINUED MY TAXI. I THEN SWITCHED TO THE TWR FREQ. ABOUT THE SAME TIME I SWITCHED; I LOOKED OUT MY L WINDOW AND SAW A BONANZA RIGHT OVER MY HEAD WITH THE LNDG GEAR IN THE WELL. MY FIRST THOUGHT WAS 'THAT'S STRANGE; THEY LET ACFT DEPART OVER YOU WHILE YOU ARE TAXIING.' MY NEXT THOUGHT WAS THE REALIZATION OF WHAT I HAD DONE. THE LCL CTLR THEN CALLED AND INQUIRED IN A DEMANDING WAY; 'WEREN'T YOU TOLD TO HOLD SHORT OF RWY 26?' I ADMITTED TO HIM THAT I WAS TOLD THAT; BUT THAT THE ACFT DOWNFIELD HAD CONFUSED ME AND THAT I THOUGHT THAT WAS THE RWY I WAS TO HOLD SHORT OF (RWY 26 IN MY MIND; RWY 3 IN ACTUALITY). OF COURSE; MY MIND WAS NOW A BLUR. I COULD NOT BELIEVE WHAT I HAD JUST DONE. THE DEPARTING BONANZA DID NOT RPT ANYTHING TO THE TWR; SO I ASSUME HE WAS ROTATING ABOUT 1500 FT AWAY AND DID NOT SEE ME. HE CROSSED OVER ME AT ABOUT 50-75 FT AND HIS DEP PROFILE SEEMED NORMAL AND WHEN THE TWR RELEASED HIM; THERE WAS NO DISTURBANCE IN HIS VOICE OR QUESTIONS ASKING WHAT HAD JUST HAPPENED. I THINK HE WAS TOTALLY OBLIVIOUS TO THE INCIDENT. I WAS ASKED TO GO TO A DISCRETE FREQ WHERE ALL MY PLT DATA WAS COLLECTED. I THEN COLLECTED MYSELF AND RESUMED THE FLT. FLYING SINGLE PLT ALL THE TIME; I HAVE TRIED TO DEVELOP GOOD HABITS. I RECEIVE YRLY PROFESSIONAL TRAINING. ONE OF MY HABITS IS TO COMPLETE MY CHKLIST PRIOR TO MOVEMENT SO THAT I MAY FOCUS ALL MY ATTN TO THE ACFT WHEN IT IS MOVING. THE AIRPLANE WAS DEPARTING FROM MY BLIND SPOT AND I WAS TOTALLY SURPRISED AT A THREAT FROM THAT AREA. I SEEMED TO KEY ON THE MIL ACFT ROLLING DOWN RWY 3; BECAUSE IN MY MIND; I FIXATED ON THAT ACFT AND WAS SURE THAT WAS WHERE ANY CONFLICTS WOULD COME FROM. ANOTHER CONTRIBUTING FACTOR WAS THE BACK TAXI ON THE DEPARTING RWY. IT IS VERY RARE AT A CTLED ARPT TO BACK TAXI THE FULL LENGTH OF THE DEPARTING RWY. ADD TO THIS THE FACT THAT THE GND MARKINGS ARE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT ONCE YOU ARE ON A RWY. I HAD ALREADY CROSSED A RWY HOLD BAR; AND SINCE I DID NOT SEE ANOTHER ONE BTWN ME AND WHAT I THOUGHT WAS THE RESTR RWY; I SAW NOTHING THAT MADE ME QUESTION MY LOCATION ON THE ARPT. I THINK IT IS A MATTER OF CONDITIONING; WHENEVER YOU CROSS A RWY YOU SEE THE YELLOW DASHED AND SOLID HOLD LINES AND YOU KNOW YOU ARE XING A RWY. THIS WAS NOT THE CASE FOR ME; I SAW NO YELLOW LINES THAT MAKE YOU SUBCONSCIOUSLY LOOK TWICE. I ALSO WAS THROWN ABACK BY THE ACFT DEPARTING ON RWY 26. IT MAY HAVE BEEN A XWIND WHICH ALLOWED THAT DEP; OR IT MAY HAVE BEEN A FRIENDLY CTLR GRANTING A PLT REQUEST. I WAS NOT GIVEN THE OPTION TO TAXI TO RWY 26; WHICH WOULD HAVE BEEN EQUIDISTANT FROM MY POS; THEREFORE; I COMPLETELY BLOCKED THE RWY 26 LOCATION FROM MY MIND. (I ASSUMED SINCE MIL TFC WAS DEPARTING ON THE MIL RWY; CIVILIAN TFC WOULD BE USING THE SAME RWY I WAS TOLD TO TAXI TO; RWY 35.) HOW TO AVOID IN THE FUTURE: BETTER MARKINGS ON XING RWYS TO HELP IDENT WHERE YOU ARE IN CASE THERE IS SOME CONFUSION. SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS BY THE TWR PERSONNEL WHEN YOU ARE CONDUCTING NON-INDUSTRY STANDARD TYPE OPS (BACK TAXIING FULL LENGTH). CTLRS ASSIGNING ACFT THE SAME DEP RWYS TO MINIMIZE RWY INCURSIONS. IF THERE HAD BEEN A LAHSO MENTIONED ON THE ATIS; MAYBE I WOULD THEN HAVE LOOKED AT THE ARPT CHART A LITTLE CLOSER TO IDENT THE LAHSO (ALTHOUGH I SEE THIS AS A MINIMAL IMPACT).
Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.
Loading the flight search…
Pick an aircraft model — Boeing 737, Airbus A320, A380, Boeing 787 Dreamliner and more — enter your origin airport, and FlightFinder shows every route that plane flies from there with live fares.
We support Boeing 737/747/757/767/777/787, the full Airbus A220/A319/A320/A321/A330/A340/A350/A380 family, Embraer E170/E175/E190/E195, Bombardier CRJ and Dash 8, and the ATR 42/72 turboprops.
Search and schedules are free. Pro ($4.99/month, $39/year, or $99 one-time lifetime) unlocks the enriched flight card — on-time stats, CO₂ per passenger, amenities, live gate & weather — plus My Trips with push alerts.
Live schedules come from Amadeus, AeroDataBox and Travelpayouts. Observed routes (which aircraft actually flew a given city pair) are crowdsourced from adsb.lol ADS-B data under the Open Database License.