From: <mgreenwood@xxxxxxxxx> Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2004 1:30 PM > My question is why this would necessitate the shutting down of the runway if > the incursion took place on a taxiway? > > Mark > > <snip> > The two planes -- a KLM Royal Dutch Airlines passenger aircraft arriving from > Amsterdam and a South Korean Asiana Airlines plane preparing to depart for > Incheon -- were taxiing towards each other, the officials said. They did not > collide. > > The runway at Japan's main international air hub just north of Tokyo was > closed for about an hour while workers removed the planes, they said. > <snip> Mt guess is that particular taxiway was the only safe way to get to that runway without using the runway for a taxiway, which isn't too good sometimes. Remember Tenerife? A further guess is that the situation occurred when the direction of use of the runway was being changed. This is the most probable way for the KLM to be ending up a landing at the runway end where the Korean was preparing to take off. I have always wondered for how long a runway was shut down when the wind changes, to avoid things like this. I know a very funny joke about this kind of event. The punchline is "Wasn't I married to you once?" from pilot to controller. Gerry http://www.pbase.com/gfoley9999/ http://foley.ultinet.net/~gerry/aerial/aerial.html http://home.columbus.rr.com/gfoley http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/pollock/263/egypt/egypt.html