LOS ANGELES — A Boeing 777-300 airliner was mistakenly assigned to a taxiway at Los Angeles International Airport last week that was too short to handle its lengthy fuselage, resulting in a minor runway incursion, federal officials said Friday.
Air traffic controllers and Federal Aviation Administration officials said the aircraft had a radar designation tag that was unknown to controllers when the All Nippon Airways flight from Tokyo landed at LAX on June 19.
The tag, which appears on radar screens, tells controllers what type of aircraft they are handling. A Boeing 777-300 is usually designated “B773,” but the tag for the All Nippon flight was “B77W,” a new international designation that controllers had not been told about, FAA officials said.
Because controllers did not know the exact Boeing model that had arrived, they said they directed the pilot to a taxiway that was too small, causing the tail to jut 5 feet into a safety zone around one of the northern runways.
A Boeing 777-300 is 242 feet long, about 33 feet longer than a standard 777.
An FAA spokesman said the incident was designated a minor runway incursion because the All Nippon jetliner had intruded slightly into the safety zone and because there was no chance the aircraft would have crashed.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
