Oh wow... ☹ Thanks for the further information.

They were cleared to cross 31L at K, but they crossed 4L at J instead. Pilot error.

Confirmation bias at its best. You can tell this crew is used to going to 31L. This is why you read back the runway assignment as a part of you taxi instruction, which the American FO did not. That would’ve at least triggered a “wait did he say 4L?” in the cockpit and probably would've prevented the whole thing.

So why isn’t this in the video?

Saw this one on the news. They said the Delta was up to 115mph when told to cancel.

Look forward to seeing that in the next update to the 7110!

I think the call needs to be "SHIT! Delta, STOP!". "WTF AA?"

@@user-pf5xq3lq8i Whaaaaaat?? ATC is to blame for this? Are you serious? Do you know anything about aviation. The AA pilots have a chart that shows them the route they need to taxi on and which runway they need to line up on. The ATC tower is simply confirming the route these pilots already have on their chart. The AA pilots should have taken an extra 30 seconds to look at that chart as they were being pushed back from the gate and then kept their eyes open for the 'light bars' that warn them about entering active runways. They were clearly asked to "cross runway 31Left at Kilo" (and she read back the directions). Nowhere did I hear ATC tell the pilots of AA to cross runway 4L straight ahead. It's shocking that the AA 106 was not asked to return to the gate.

@@ronb1057 Shouldn't he have told them to hold short?

@@A_youtube_channel_ they were not supposed to cross that , r3taddr

At a guess I'd say it's fair to assume 1943 was already in the process of cancelling when it got called out. Those big jets don't stop on a coin so they probably were already at it before tower said anything and saw the heavy and hit the brakes.

@@ihateusernamesgrrr They also don't accelerate that fast either though. It's really impossible to tell from the animation who noticed it first, but it's incredibly lucky that everybody acted so quickly and professionally. Aside from AA106 that is.. simple mistake, but it nearly cost hundreds of lives.

When he said "S.H.I.T.", it was a flashback to his Special High Intensity Training. Seems very effective!

I guarantee that DAL1943 was already several Sh*ts ahead of Tower in the cockpit. More like “Is he crossing? Noooo, don’t don’t don’t! Shi*! SH*T!! RTO!!!” well before Tower saw it.

​@@kathrynslye471 funny that if the delta plane saw the American, why didn't the American bother to look before crossing?

Thanks! 😃

@@VASAviation I agree, excellent! The only suggestion I have for even more clarity is marking runways too. And maybe also at least in the very beginning marking the aircraft.

@@pistonburner6448 Yeah I swear the earlier videos from years ago always had aircraft color-coded to match the subtitles. Super easy to register "who and where". The liveries look nice but not great for analysis purposes.

lol nice vid but for some reason said "to scale" when obviously its not

@@kalidilerious he says animation to scale meaning the approximate speed of each vehicle is to scale

Right?! When a JKF controller yelps an obscenity on an open mic, the safest place to be is the baggage claim 😂

@@cloverazar5315 You can hear in the background after they ask Delta if they need a few seconds the tower manager throwing f bombs in the background.

Lots of obscenities are said in a control room. Of course I am always extremely professional at all times and have never said anything inappropriate but I always keep my “side tone” on max. That’s where you can hear a little echo in your headset whenever the mic is hot. Again - not that I ever really need such a thing. No, sir - 100% HR compliant.

@@jc5495 oh Jesus, that’s exactly what I wanna hear from ATC, eh? Whoof. You can taste the cortisol when the Delta pilot exhales all “whoo” Jfc, rough day at the office for all involved and meanwhile the passengers in the back like “oh hey is that a KLM?”

@@spades9048 understood, your pavlov yourself to curse only when you unclick, gotcha!

CA who should retire paired with a clueless FO, not a good combination.

The instruction is rather vague though. "31L at KE, line up and wait" when KE is behind them. I think that caused a bit of confusion.

@@aeternusdoleo4531 That 31L at KE was for a different aircraft. AA106 was told to cross 31L at K @2:45

@@aeternusdoleo4531 Another fool who can't tell 185 from 106

@@aeternusdoleo4531 If my understanding is correct, the "31L at KE, line up and wait" was for AAL185, not AAL106. AAL106 was instructed to cross 31L at K, but instead crossed 4L at J.

He was in a panic looking for the departing flight info to call out

He sounded quite panicked to me. I think there will be a lesson for the controller out of this incident, even though the main cause was the runway incursion.

I was on a flight out of KATL a couple of years ago where the controller canceled our takeoff clearance only a few seconds before we were to rotate. I went back and listened to the tapes and I wouldn’t say she was panicking but she was excited. And this was for a screw up on the automated runway incursion system. There really wasn’t a heavy jet across the runway. If there had been, I imagine there would have been a few curse words on the tape there too. It’s a good thing there wasn’t one. It was a fully loaded MadDog. We stopped but I don’t think we could have stopped if it had a been a real incursion. Our pilots could see there wasn’t anything in the way so I’m not sure if they really hit them that hard. It still took a while for the brakes to cool down.

I mean... he literally said "Sh*t", then went silent for a second and THEN issued the "cancel T/O" instruction. Not that I am blaming ATC - having ground traffic to just roll into your active is one of the most scary things for a tower controller - but he definitively was a little panicked...

@@QemeH it almost sounds like it was someone else that said Sh@t.

I would be shitting in my pants with that experience. Another Tenerife would have been sad 😢😢😢

his voice was shaking

I only hear relief and adrenaline.

That “oof”

I understood they all received free dry cleaning receipts and a pack of diapers.

@@tomperkins5657 and at least a month's supply of Valium, I hope!

I thought the same thing as well….

Aviate, Navigate Communicate in full swing there!

You can hear the Delta crew was definitely shaken up too.

@@Karpiel73 Hope they had a go bag with a change of clothes...

Delta crew needed new underwear for sure that had to be scary to watch from the flight deck. I wonder if they saw the aircraft and rejected before tower even cancelled their clearance.

@@brandonadams7837 I"ll bet they did exactly that the moment they saw an incursion. Can't imagine anyone competent who would see that and continue.

@@guntrain212 obviously they wouldn't but it's a long runway and at night so maybe they didn't see it before ATC cancelled their TO clearance, or maybe they did.

The sheer stupidity of still using humans to coordinate all this instead of automating it

@@dijoxx And how would that have played out in this situation? The computer would have planned the same initial maneuvers that the controller did, only when the pilot makes a wrong turn, the computer is gonna sit there and buffer, recalculating like your car's GPS. The human in this instance saw/identified the problem and deployed a solution faster than a computer could have, and not only that, the solution only affected the two aircraft involved, rather than everyone else as well.

If it were due to the insanely busy controllers, sure. But this one is on a dumb pair of pilots who don't know 1) the alphabet 2) their runway headings 3) how to listen to the automated voice calling out runways you're about to enter 4) all of the above.

@@dijoxx Aren't you forgetting. Computers are programmed by us humans

Watching several videos and a mini docuseries on Tenerife it amazes me that an accident as bad as it was didn't happen more often. Besides the arrogance of the pilot, the lack of or fear of the F/O to question the Captain that airport had zero ground radar, very bad visibility almost daily and outdated FAA protocols. Sure an unforeseen amount of events occurred that lead to all those planes being there at an airport not capable of handling large planes at that volume but it is still pilots operating these planes and I feel with all the automation of planes with pilots applying AP as soon as gear up and now more planes using auto land it makes pilots IMO becoming greatly dependent on computers rather than training. While we probably wont have another Tenerife again, with automation becoming mainstream I feel these near collisions and deviations are going to get more frequent. Just my thoughts.

True. Imagine the ridicule and shitting on those involved.. if that happened in some African or Asian country.

That's why the runway and taxiway designations are included in clearances. When the Tower says "cross 31L at K" you immediately know that you should be on K, and you should see markings indicating that you are about to enter 31L. Definitely not J, nor 4L. But, this is humans performing highly stressful work, so, shouldn't really be talking while sitting on my comfy couch.

They can easily collision alert and guidance systems . It's 2023

@@pinecedar180 They have those (TCAS) but you still need pilots to pay attention. "Current year" arguments are nonsensical.

@@MuhammedGemci Actually you can. a) because you or your loved ones could be on the plane and b) They're SUPPOSED to be capable of operating the aircraft safely in FAR more stressful situations than taxiing to the damn runway. Not only did they BOTH fail to follow instructions, they BOTH failed to simply LOOK OUT THE WINDOW for traffic on the runway they illegally crossed.

As they say in the biz: “better to push paper than gurneys”

but the FAA didn't do anything about it, then another 4 more incidents occurred the same way.

Except that the subtitles are always wrong. Always. Rare to see a video where they aren't and I don‘t get it. He understands the biggest gibberish (which is awesome), but then the easiest things are wrong (e.g. the phone number).

@@EmotionalWeather somebody decided to put the 6 button next to the 7 button in my keyboard. Blame him, please.

@@VASAviation Yes, I get that in this case. Look, I am not trying to be rude or anything. It‘s just something I notice on a lot of videos and it drives me mad 😂

@@VASAviation I hate when that happens

@VASAviation - you are a pilot, some people ( not me ) expect you to be p e r f e c t !

It probably would have been safer to take the day off

i hope he was wearing brown pants

Yeah, to clean his underwear. ;)

I think the crew of DAL1943 as well... "the aircraft returned to the gate after running some checklists". I wouldn't be surprised if the pilots took a while to compose themselves. (Or possible bring in a fresh crew, with fresh underwear... )

@@realulliI think they probably hit the brakes hard enough that they had to get the mechanics to check the aircraft again before it could take off.

Ditto. The AA crew is gonna have some 'splainin to do.

three jets?

@@falconwarrior920 Yes. What is your question again?

@@falconwarrior920 yep, listen to the audio and read the comment again.

@@trueilarim I wanna listen to all 30+ on the ground, you think kennedy is that quiet? jeez

@@falconwarrior920 And they ALL must have something more important to say than the 3 mentioned?

Exactly what I was thinking. Visibility would have been no excuse either. (Not that that would ever be valid.)

Nothing like a Teneriffe .. The plane on the runway had a positive departure clearance.. AND a positive STOP clearance !!!

@@sncy5303 The KLM Captain was 100% at fault... Rolling without a CLEARANCE. With appalling SOP ,CRM and airmanship .

not even close, Drama.

I think the KLM at Tenerife was rolling much faster than here - may be wrong, just seems like the Delta just started rolling...

Follow the colors of text and around the aircraft

@@VASAviation Ok, I see that now, it was just confusing because the American aircraft isn't identified until half way through the video after everything has happened.

@@stargazer7644 I have to agree with this statement. I watch every single one of your videos, and this is the first time I've stopped a video to play back from the beginning, because I thought I had missed something.

I agree too. One of the more confusing videos. All of your videos are in a linear format, so it is odd that you start half way through and then put the beginning at the end (the misunderstood clearance that starts them crossing the wrong runway).

+1

But that wouldn’t have been as it happened. AA106’s taxi instructions were issued a while prior to all the drama on the runway.

Agreed. I’ve heard the other comms with the full taxi instruction and it really does help you to see what they did wrong. Obviously they crossed the runway without a clearance but the context of knowing they were cleared across the runway just not that runway does help. Doesn’t at all excuse it though.

Doing that would significantly dilute the context that the ground and tower controllers are different people and the tower controller wasn't in contact with the crossing aircraft and wasn't absolutely certain what they got told.

This isn't supposed to be a mystery drama. We're using this as a tool to see what happened and learn from it. We can understand that tower and ground are on separate frequencies, and that AA106 was only monitoring ground. It still helps us get the full picture.

No! With all the different call signs and instructions that are given quickly at different airports you can realistically listen to either ground or tower.

Indeed.

About 450 total soles between the two aircraft from what I understand.

@@jimw1615 450 soles? Assuming that everyone was wearing shoes and there were no amputees on board, would there not have been more like 900 soles on board? Not to mention the shoes in their luggage. Why that number could have easily been over 1000!

I think deltas plane stayed overnight if I read it right

Probably Delta, I imagine he absolutely smoked the tires and brakes

@@CAPDude44 , Thanks. Yes, Delta

@@CAPDude44 , Thanks, yes Delta. v

Possible Code Brown situation in both AC. Maybe Delta needed some freshening up.

Less than of a quarter of ATC are women.

@@stephen3762 And 50% of the ATC involved in this incident are women. What's your point?

@@jenna_gia You know what my point is.

Yeah you don’t wanna be sitting blind on an active runway let alone in JFK, this was just the controller saying I haven’t forgotten about you I know where u are!

the problem for me is that no body bothered to just look outside before crossing. I always look outside for a second before I cross a runway.....

@@solidamanda And with signage and lighting, there just is no excuse.

Which makes me wonder. ATC at big airports do have collision warning systems right? In at least one of VAS's videos you can hear the alarm in the tower coming through the mic. I'm curious what first alerted ATC to the problem - looking out the window, looking at ground radar(is that what it's called?), or a collision warning system going off.

@@chris-hayes The pilots have lights for that, too, at least at most major airports now. It's a relatively recent addition (last several years,) but I would assume that JFK has them by now. They're called runway status lights and they should have been showing a bunch of red lights to the AA crew as they were crossing.

@@solidamanda that doesn't do you much good in a line up and wait scenario because from a few thousand feet away it can be hard to tell initially if the plane is waiting or rolling towards you until it gets closer.

Yep, you can hear the "oh fuck, we're screwed" in the Heavy's voice when atc says "you're currently short of 31L"

Who do they speak to when they call the number?

@@jeoff1954 usually a ATC supervisor. The call will be recorded so they can go back and listen to your version of the story. It will be sent to the chief pilot at your airline and from there it’s out of your hands. You’ll most likely be put on a temporary grounding (depending on your airline and Union contract it could be with or without pay).

watching this made me think about that too

That silence was likely anything but. The Tower was likely on the phone or getting a supervisor to explain what just occurred during that silence also likely getting someone to relieve him so he could focus on the incident. Delta was getting off the runway and then performing the RTO emergency checklist. AA106 were likely reviewing the directions the received from ATC (which is often jotted down) probably also making some sort of announcement to the FAs and possibly the passengers.

You still got the number to that truck driving school? Truck Masters I think it was

@@wizardmix I’m sorry, I neglected to file that joke’s flight plan before it flew right over your head

​@@cloverazar5315 Did you calculate your fuel in metric or imperial for that joke? Anyway I just felt like writing.

Better than code blue... 😰 (Except the song named Code Blue by T.S.O.L. is fantastic)

and an extra week of vacation and a promotion

@Joe Garfield two different AA planes

@@JustSayN2O AA106 probably gets a vacation, too!

I think more likely he earned some more training! Pretty bad when your in such a hurry to direct the plane you can't give the directions properly!

and probably needed to change his pants

had it been foggy, it would have been another one.

Atc have radars right? So of course they would have easily caught it. Their first priority is to monitor runway and movements around it, so there’s no way they would have missed that unless they are taking a nap lol

@King-2077 they had radars back then too. Atc has to monitor a lot of planes and with the speed of the delta increasing rapidly he had no time available

​@@renataavgeri1132 Tenerife airport in 1977 didn't have airport radar.

@karthickjayaraman2090 it had but it was inoperable

Same. It's all over the internet. v

💯

...so true. Distraction is a killer and if they weren't massively distracted after that they can't be human.

That flight absolutely should not have been allowed to depart

Closest distance was about 1000 ft according to the FAA.

I also wonder if Delta already was in the process of aborting takeoff before they were told to as I imagine they saw the plane crossing the runway... maybe? Hopefully! Great job either way

The person that runs this channel makes great content, but the captions are frequently full of typos and incorrect transcriptions, and someone should teach them what “to scale” means.

@@Fastvoice That's not far when the plane was doing 100kts

@@craig00000 It was more like 115 knots which is roughly 5 seconds for 1000 feet. So the headline could be: "5 seconds away from catastrophe"

nope never! vas rocks

yes LAX has lights on the taxiways that turn on when the runway isnt safe to enter

Yes they have to clear right/left, however at a busy airport like JFK they will have aircraft line up and wait while aircraft cross. Very common to look down a runway and see lights from an aircraft on it. Head on it can be hard to tell if and aircraft is headed toward you.

@@atcdude067 ope i totally misread that, im stupid lmao

Took them a long time to clean the cockpit and cabin!

@@Boz_-st4jt was going to say. The DL crew likely had to go back to the hotel to change their boxers.

That's because when a jetliner has to brake hard for an emergency takeoff rejection, their brakes massively overheat and both the brake pads and in most cases the thermal fuse plugs in the tires will also melt -- this deflates the tires in order to save them from exploding. That's why the ATC asked DL1943 if he *could* clear the runway or whether he needed to make safety checks before attempting to move; he was basically asking if the airliner's tires had blown or whether he could still taxi clear before the thermal plugs went. Unfortunately, this means the aircraft rejecting takeoff typically has to be taken out of service until it can be fully checked over by mechanics, hence the flight delay.

@@DesiArcy Thank you for explaining this. I was wondering why the flight was cancelled.

@@Boz_-st4jt And their pants

The way the video was made is fine for me but I get what you're saying. We hear the crossing instruction when the controller said " we'll listen to the tapes" We then hear the recording like we are the controllers replaying what happened. Subtle but it works.

You can look up the recording of Harrison ford's call to the tower. Idk about others but I've heard that one.

@@rachelduke1580 yeah i remember that one...

He will say it's not the pilots lack of attention and airmanship but their training and other cultural reasons....they were never taught to........

Yes. This is very confusing to me right now. Maybe both captain and first officer just didn't pay close attention. Kinda hard to believe though

@@micheleh5269 Don't be confused. ..... A professional crew will listen to the other clearances being giving to other aircraft ...especially take off clearances. AND before they cross ANY runway will do a very positive RUNWAY CLEAR check....and verbally confirm that ..... There is a good reason aircraft put their lights on before take off......!! It's not just a reminder that they have take off clearance and for bird avoidance. .. There are very distinctive markings and signs to define that there is a runway ahead. SOLID LINES across your taxiway before a runway denotes a STOP is required unless you have a clearance. It is that simple...

@Joe Garfield plane involved is AAL106 and was clearly told to cross 31L at K and continue on to 4L @02:45 and they crossed 4L at Juliet instead Don't confuse with instruction to AAL185 (31L at KE line up and wait) Not an ATC's mistake

Yeah this video is a bit confusing if you can't keep track of the callsigns. I would prefer to just have the linear timeline of events without weird flashbacks.

I still don't get it

The first instructions given are for a different AA flight(AA185) than the 777 (AA106)that crossed the runway. 4L was the active runway so all aircraft were being told to cross 31L at KE. AA106 screwed up and didn’t follow taxi directions.

@@DerDepp2 the video by flightwatch on yt is quite a bit clearer

@@dew9103thank you!

The important part of Ground is in the video

AAL106 was instructed “runway 4L taxi bravo, hold short of kilo”, AAL read back correct and proceeded onto J short 4L, instruction was then given to cross 31L but pilot was short 4L, a mistake on both ATC and Pilot in my opinion.

I have heard them and they were replayed here one plane was clearly told to take off on 4 L and the other clearly -and read it back 31 L (search around other sites and you can find the ground tapes. The problem I have is that the pilot should have caught it that everyone else had been cleared on 4 and he was on 3 and should have questioned why the change before proceeding

@@lightinggeek_uk2477 How is that a mistake on the ATC? They gave the proper instruction, pilot failed to execute.

@@mattz1230 the instruction was correct but the aircraft was holding short of the wrong runway. Yes, the pilot is mostly to blame, but safety lies with the ground controller who, at JFK will have a surface movement radar which shows exact positions of aircraft. The pilot was wrong for taxing the wrong way but the ATC has the responsibility of knowing where the aircraft are, clearly a lapse in judgement on both parts in my opinion

Just a logical guess but STOP STOP STOP could apply to anyone and also doesn’t really make clear what you want to stop. If you didn’t quite catch the ATC saying your callsign (noisy cockpit with engines running at takeoff power) you might not be sure who that is for and don’t want to abort, find out it wasn’t for you and now you have to wait to cool brakes. If you hear “cancel takeoff clearance” at most airports that is only going to be one plane so you know immediately it’s you.

because you have to use exact and precise phraseology. Just saying stop but not saying what to stop doing can cause confusion. Using non standard phrases has caused accidents before

Too vague, commands need to be brief and specific.

@@kmills1231 ICAO standard is "stop" for a rolling aircraft and "cancel" for a stationary one. The ATC used non-standard phraseology for the situation.

That's just wrong. Who? What? Where? They're talking to dozens of planes. You can't just yell stop and expect a response.

It also shows how safe flying is and how many things have to go wrong for an actual crash to occur

31L, not 3L. But, otherwise, yes.

Thanks for the idea!

@@VASAviation Thanks so much for getting this out - it's been in the news and I was curious if and when we'd see it on here, and how much this audio would clarify what happened. I want to echo the above posters comment. I'd love to see another video that includes the ground audio for 106 and the delta flight, speeding up the delays and chatter with other planes. Regardless, thanks so much for your hard work and getting this published so quickly!

yes, do we know the full taxi instructions given to AAL106 from the time they left the ramp???

Good catch. Thanks. v

Its no different if your driving and almost get into an accident You just go on. They are professionals. .

@@proudbirther1998 Generally, you're not likely to get t-boned by another vehicle going upwards of 160 mph. And it's also very unlikely that your accident would result in hundreds of deaths and the closure of one of the busiest airports in the world.

@@proudbirther1998 Uh, no.

Agreed. Really, assuming AA is just blundering across the active runway without clearance and without looking, in cases like this disaster should be averted one way or another: either the Delta pilots see the other plane and reject, or they get a RIMCAS alert and reject, or they get a call from Tower and reject. When the report lands it'll be interesting to see what first prompted them to reject, but hopefully we'll discover all those passengers' lives weren't solely reliant on that call from the controller...

The pilots almost certainly saw the other aircraft moving into the runway and aborted before the controller was able to cancel their clearance.

I can almost guarantee the Delta guys had already recognized the intruding plane, and were in the process of rejecting the TO before ATC said anything. They were probably busy with the reject procedure and callouts when the controller said to, which is why it took them a couple calls to respond back.

@@bradskis81 most likely. I found that most of the time that was the case. The alert doesn’t happen till the departing aircraft reaches 60 mph.

We only know that the airplane got the day off. The crew could have been immediately assigned another flight!

@@davidvancina4478 Very Unlikely

@@davidvancina4478 I believe you that this is a possibility. But the airplane did never have any issue, just the crew might have had one. So, in my opinion, there would be no reason to change the hardware but keep the software. The problem was cearly software-related.

Indeed it was a strange editing decision to play their taxi instructions after the incident had occurred.

the Delta flight was delayed, not cancelled outright. The same pilots flew out the following day with a new FA crew. All pax were offered accommodations but some chose to stay in the airport overnight, and others chose not to re-board at all.

My guess is that the Delta was probably already stopping before the ATC instruction to.

Of course they are looking at the runway in front of them before and during takeoff. Yes.

@Jeff Conard even if they look, it's hard to tell if a plane is rolling already from that distance

😂😂

actually it was S*HT LOL