Probable Cause
The NTSB completed its investigation and found that the east tower controller had given the west tower controller permission for the Aer Lingus to depart on 15R. While coordinating other traffic, he forgot about releasing that aircraft and cleared the US Airways for takeoff. Local procedures required the east controller to wait until the departure on 15R had passed through the intersection before clearing the aircraft on runway 9 for takeoff. The NTSB reported that the probable cause of the incident was that the east local controller failed to follow FAA Order 7110.65 and local procedures which resulted in a runway incursion.
After the incident, the Boston tower changed its procedures so that only the west local controller may initiate a departure on the crossing runway 15R, and that once the east controllers accepts the release the aircraft must be cleared for takeoff within five seconds. Further, to reduce the chance of this type of incident happening again, aircraft must not be held on runway 9 waiting for their takeoff clearance while there is a departure on 15R. Once the departure has cleared the intersection, local west must inform the east controller that the intersection has been cleared.
Read more about this topic: 2005 Logan Airport Runway Incursion
Famous quotes containing the word probable:
“It makes me hate accepting things that are probable when they are held up before me as infallibly true. I prefer these words which tone down and modify the hastiness of our propositions: “Perhaps, In some sort, Some, They say, I think,” and the like.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“I hope I may claim in the present work to have made it probable that the laws of arithmetic are analytic judgments and consequently a priori. Arithmetic thus becomes simply a development of logic, and every proposition of arithmetic a law of logic, albeit a derivative one. To apply arithmetic in the physical sciences is to bring logic to bear on observed facts; calculation becomes deduction.”
—Gottlob Frege (1848–1925)