Here is more about the runway incursion incident on 2023-01-13, when an American Airlines Boeing 777 mistakenly crossed an active runway from which a Delta Air Lines Boeing 737 was beginning its takeoff run at the same time.
The tower controller called the Delta flight cancelling the takeoff clearance, and the Delta crew rejected the takeoff, resulting in violent braking, coming to a stop around 300 metres short of the American plane. Had it continued to accelerate toward takeoff, a catastrophic collision could have occurred.
From the air traffic control transcript, it seems pretty clear the American crew misunderstood their taxi clearance and, rather than turning to cross another runway on the way to the takeoff runway, instead made a dog-leg and proceeded to cross the active runway.
Given the two dimensional surface, the finite/manageable number of intersections on any given airport and the very high stakes when errors occur - this begs for an anti-collision system like TCAS which works in the air. One could even imagine a system of programmable lights to guide an aircraft as it progresses over the airport surface. Realtime taxi routes ought to lend themselves to fail safe automation and error prevention.
Here is a system “Follow the Greens”, which claims to do this. Heathrow Airport in London has such a system of lights, but it is manually operated from a light control panel. The system at the link proposes to automate the illumination directly from taxi clearances.
I also wonder, listening to the recording of the tower to aircraft radio transmissions, why and whether it’s wise that all of the people on the radio sound like they’re contestants in a fast-talking sweepstakes. Given the limited audio bandwidth of these communication channels, the fact that cockpit crew have engine noise intruding into their headphones, and that a number of crews receiving taxi and takeoff clearances do not have English as their mother tongue, would it be too much to speak slower, enunciate more clearly, and ask for a read-back if the instructions are complicated?
I also wonder whether there already exist data links, whereby aircraft could receive pre-formatted taxi instructions by text. Just as there are standard instrument departures in flight, why not standard taxi instructions from a given gate to the active runway, varied real time as needed for changes in traffic and active runway(s). I think already in use are data texts from airline companies to aircraft, though I’m not sure.
