Plane on runway forces jet to abort landing

The pilot of a Cathay Pacific cargo plane aborted his landing after seeing a Lufthansa jet preparing to take off from the same runway he was to use

HONGKONG -- A Boeing 747 cargo plane was forced to abort its landing at Hongkong's international airport on Sunday after a plane was spotted preparing to take off from the same runway, a Civil Aviation Department spokesman said yesterday.

There had been a ""missed approach'' incident at the airport at Chek Lap Kok, on outlying Lantau island, involving a Boeing 747 aircraft, she said.

The pilot of the 747 had been forced to circle the airport before landing on another runway, she added.

Her remarks followed a newspaper report that the pilot of a Cathay Pacific cargo plane, returning to Hongkong from Taipei, aborted its descent after seeing a Frankfurt-bound Lufthansa jet prepare for take-off.

The South China Morning Post quoted a Cathay Pacific spokesman as saying that both planes were cleared by air traffic control, but the Cathay pilot decided to abort his landing after he saw the plane on the ground.

Lufthansa declined to comment on Wednesday, saying only that flight number 739 took off without any problem.

""Operations were normal that day. We do not see the need to give out flight information in such cases,'' a Lufthansa spokesman said.

The Civil Aviation Department spokesman said that safety was not compromised in the incident.

The spokesman pointed out that there had been no incidents since ""the loss of standard separation incident'' earlier this month in which a Dragonair flight and a China Southern Airlines jet flew within 170 m of each other after taking off from the airport.

In January, there was a close call in mid-air between Dragonair and SilkAir Airbus planes carrying about 300 passengers.

A government report in May showed that there had been 28 air traffic incidents -- these refer to any unusual happenings involving air traffic during the operation of aircraft or air traffic control -- at Chek Lap Kok since July 1998, of which 15 had arisen through inaccurate information provided by air traffic controllers.

Last year, a China Airlines plane was forced to abort its take-off from Chek Lap Kok to avoid straying into the path of an incoming plane.

An airport source said: ""Don't just blame the controllers, they are working under a system. The reason is simple -- the government lost the cream of its air traffic control staff to overseas countries due to the emigration rush of the 1980s and '90s.''

However, Hongkong's Civil Aviation Department said that its controllers were well qualified and Chek Lap Kok's safety record was comparable to that of any advanced international airport.--AFP

http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/asia/ea11_0825.html

-- Doris (reaper1@mindspring.com), August 25, 2000