Advanced and new technology should certainly be effective in helping reduce the runway incursion problem (Flight International, 4-10 June) but I hope the industry does not fall into the trap of depending on technology and ignoring or paying only lip service to procedural improvements.
Leaving San Francisco around midnight I am faced with a single controller working about five different frequencies, ground, tower, approach and so on. He is busy, and the problem is exacerbated by the fact that the aircraft transmissions are not retransmitted on all the frequencies he is working. I have been cleared, for example, from the ramp to the holding point of the runway I will take off on, crossing two active runways en route, in one breath of taxi instructions, with not once the specific words used: "Cleared to cross runway X". Five minutes later, on reaching and faced with crossing said runways, I had trouble getting a word in edgeways to clarify the situation. When I finally succeeded, I was admonished by the controller and told I had been cleared "all the way".
The Federal Aviation Administration needs to look at manning, procedures and delivery technique first to ensure total reliance is not placed on technology. I trust the review of pilot and controller phraseology reported to be happening is thorough and results in a worldwide (ICAO) standard set of instructions being adopted. Possibly even more important is that an effective education programme is put in place that will overcome US controllers' inclination (often due to the pressure of the job) to take shortcuts in wording, use abbreviations and talk so fast that at best they have to say it all again to foreign carriers for whom English is a second (or third) language.
Capt DJ Shaw
Via e-mail
Source: Flight International
