Welcome

Welcome to this course on Runway Incursions for pilots and ATCOs.

Pilots and ATCOs generally only train operationally with their own specific role in mind, and while CRM/TRM and human factors training covers factors and competencies which might impact or interact with the other role, it rarely extends to specifically focusing on those direct interactions. But multiple incidents and events are attributed to pilots and ATCO interactions where conflicting goals, misconceptions and human factors are key contributors.

So, the point of this course is not to provide full technical details or procedures related to a specific role – you probably do enough training on that within your role! And it definitely isn’t about telling you how to do your job. Instead, it is designed to highlight/refresh you on the threat of runway incursions, to pinpoint some of the factors which may lead to them and to develop awareness of some of the actions that might be taken to reduce the risk of them.

But why all the stuff on the other role?

Well, because we know pilots often ask questions like “Urgh! Why does ATC always space us so tightly on approach?!” and controllers sometimes say things like “Crew are always slowing down when we’ve told them not to, and it messes up our spacing!”

We want to help you answer those questions, but we also hope you might come away with a slightly changed perspective where, instead of asking things like that, you ask stuff like “I wonder what my doing this might mean for them?”

In short, we hope the outcome will be a broader understanding for you of the challenges and requirements faced by the other role, an awareness of how actions you take can impact the overall situation, and above all we hope it will enable you to build a better shared mental model with the other role during operations because this is a primary mitigation/barrier to events like runway incursions!

What will be covered?

We are going to look at what are some of the primary factors leading to runway incursions, so that you can “see them coming” a little better, and understand it more from the other role in terms of their challenges, requirements and experience.

Then we will review some terrifying case studies which will hopefully make sure you never do anything that might lead to a runway incursion…

…But just incase, we will also go over a bunch of actions which both role can take to help prevent, manage or mitigate them.

So let’s get ON with it

But not ON to the runway, unless you have a clearance…

#Lesson Number 1