The latest issue of the FAA Safety Briefing Magazine includes a story by Tom Hoffmann offering pilots six tips on taxiing.
The first is a good one for more than taxiing: Expect the unexpected.
“With the excitement of the destination in your head, the chatter of anxious passengers, and changes that crop up, it’s understandable that pilots can become distracted and sometimes complacent during taxi. Throw in an unexpected taxi clearance, some marginal weather, and/or a heavy amount of aircraft activity, and you’ve got a recipe for a potentially deadly runway incursion on your hands,” Tom explains.
His other tips deal with airport hot spots, ATC, hold short lines, and continuing education.
Check out the full article here, then add your own tips for safe taxiing in the comments below.
Alas, given that the aircraft leaving the runway has the right of way, there isn’t an easy answer when you’re already on the taxiway. The observant landing pilot will select a non-conflicting taxiway … at airports where such is an option :-/ Otherwise, yeah, it can be challenging — and not anyone’s fault!
The picture for #5, Don’t Cross the Line, is backwards. I.e. the message is correct – don’t cross the solid line without a clearance before entering the runway. But the picture shows an aircraft exiting the runway – in that case, the pilot is required to cross the line, and there’s no clearance involved. The only exception is when the controller has given the pilot instructions to do otherwise.
That pic is NOT from the FAASafety magazine article. It looks to me like the folks at Medium just grabbed another pic that looked cool and stuck it in. Oops 🙂 I guess #7 should be “trust, but verify”!
My first “Taxi Tip”, would be LOOK at the taxiway before you enter it to see if there is someone else already there, and what direction they are traveling.
It happens with great frequency that I am taxiing down the taxiway, with all the lights that I have flashing, and someone, either coming off the runway or off the parking ramp, pulls onto the taxiway coming directly at me. There are often few places to pull over and there have been a few collisions on that taxiway.
Another version of that conflict – years ago I saw people at one airport being taught to first taxi to the taxiway (completely blocking it), and then calling ground control. Once I was the one inbound to the ramp and I was completely blocked. With a call to ground control first, the controller could have advised the departing traffic to hold on the ramp temporarily.