TIPH as a Trap for all Players

Taxi into position and hold (aka "line up and hold position") is used globally to adjust and minimize delays between arriving and departing traffic. Now and again, as happened at Midway Airport Chicago on Sunday morning, a pilot or air traffic controller gets it wrong and an aircraft will be cleared to land on that same already "occupied" runway. A Diamond Star DA40 was cleared to "take position and hold" on Runway 22 right at Midway at about 1140am. Simultaneously a Piper Malibu was cleared to land on Runway 22 Left. With things getting ever busier, the controller decided on the spur of the moment to switch to a landing on 22 Right and, you guessed it, he landed the Malibu over the top of the lined up and waiting DA40. Midway is the 30th busiest airport in the US and racks up nearly 300,000 movements a year. Despite the activity level, in Midway's 80-year history the airport has recorded only 21 incidents and accidents, with only one prominent one since 1976. The Sunday morning incident will be logged by the FAA as an "operational error."