Narrative:

I had just completed position relief giving the position to another controller when aircraft X reported clear of runway 13R. I had never spoken to aircraft X therefore he landed without a landing clearance. At this time of the morning dfw airport was conducting their daily runway inspections. Runway 13R had already been inspected; runway 18L was closed and being inspected. We had a layer of scattered to broken clouds at 1600-1800 and it was quite windy. The sun was rising and visibility was poor at best due to the glare off the window shades. Final monitor was open. Aircraft spacing on final was 3-4 miles and speeds slow due to the high wind. Just prior to beginning position relief I had planned to depart an aircraft from runway 18R between a heavy and an regional jet because approach was providing 6 mile spacing due to the wake turbulence. I briefed my plan to my relief. I never saw aircraft X on final to runway 13R and do not recall the flm telling me that approach had called to coordinate a 13R arrival which is our normal practice due to the impact of the cro (converging runway operation) operation on departures. One final thought: 13R is behind the tower. Due to having a quick turn last night and the fact that all the traffic was on 18L and 18R; I was sitting on position which I only do when I am tired and/or the traffic is light. I wouldn't recommend opening our second local just to handle one airplane but my being anchored to a chair didn't help me scan the area as well as I would have liked. Sitting isn't a factor in not seeing an aircraft on the final on the radar; but one does get into a routine at times and tunnel vision is a possibility. There are no procedures in place to transfer radar data of arrivals from the TRACON to the tower. At my previous facility we were to ensure that all arrivals were on a tower data block prior to communications transfer. In addition to avoiding a surprise because the tower did not quick look approach data blocks; this practice also gave control of the radar data to the tower; should they need to change anything or do a handoff. It also kept it clear who was responsible for providing separation for those aircraft. And; that was back in ARTS. Today; we have stars at dfw so there is another benefit of putting the arrivals on a tower data block - they would be white instead of green like every other data block on the radar. I think this would have increased my situational awareness because I simply wasn't looking for anyone on the 13R final. Just a few minutes earlier and this could have been a tragedy with 5 vehicles on 13R conducting a runway inspection. While that is not very likely because I had put the X on 13R when the airport closed it; I also didn't need a go around in the middle of that push either.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: DFW Tower Controller reported of an aircraft landing on a runway without a landing clearance.

Narrative: I had just completed position relief giving the position to another controller when Aircraft X reported clear of runway 13R. I had never spoken to Aircraft X therefore he landed without a landing clearance. At this time of the morning DFW airport was conducting their daily runway inspections. Runway 13R had already been inspected; Runway 18L was closed and being inspected. We had a layer of scattered to broken clouds at 1600-1800 and it was quite windy. The sun was rising and visibility was poor at best due to the glare off the window shades. Final Monitor was open. Aircraft spacing on final was 3-4 miles and speeds slow due to the high wind. Just prior to beginning position relief I had planned to depart an aircraft from Runway 18R between a heavy and an regional jet because approach was providing 6 mile spacing due to the wake turbulence. I briefed my plan to my relief. I never saw Aircraft X on final to Runway 13R and do not recall the FLM telling me that approach had called to coordinate a 13R arrival which is our normal practice due to the impact of the CRO (Converging Runway Operation) operation on departures. One final thought: 13R is behind the tower. Due to having a quick turn last night and the fact that all the traffic was on 18L and 18R; I was sitting on position which I only do when I am tired and/or the traffic is light. I wouldn't recommend opening our second Local just to handle one airplane but my being anchored to a chair didn't help me scan the area as well as I would have liked. Sitting isn't a factor in not seeing an aircraft on the final on the radar; but one does get into a routine at times and tunnel vision is a possibility. There are no procedures in place to transfer radar data of arrivals from the TRACON to the tower. At my previous facility we were to ensure that all arrivals were on a tower data block prior to communications transfer. In addition to avoiding a surprise because the tower did not quick look approach data blocks; this practice also gave control of the radar data to the tower; should they need to change anything or do a handoff. It also kept it clear who was responsible for providing separation for those aircraft. And; that was back in ARTS. Today; we have STARS at DFW so there is another benefit of putting the arrivals on a tower data block - they would be white instead of green like every other data block on the radar. I think this would have increased my situational awareness because I simply wasn't looking for anyone on the 13R final. Just a few minutes earlier and this could have been a tragedy with 5 vehicles on 13R conducting a runway inspection. While that is not very likely because I had put the X on 13R when the airport closed it; I also didn't need a go around in the middle of that push either.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.