Narrative:

An airbus was in position on runway 19L with another airbus was on final for runway 19L. The airbus on final was fast due to a tailwind and was s-turning. The departing airbus was cleared for takeoff and rolling. The squeeze play was tight and as the situation progressed it became fairly apparent that it wasn't going to work out. As the arrival crossed the threshold LC1 failed to send him around. At this point the departure aircraft was approximately 4;000 feet down the runway and had not rotated. When the arrival was around the 1;000 ft marker and flaring out LC1 issued go-around instructions which was too late for the aircraft to comply due to the phase of flight. At this point the departing airbus was still on departure roll and not airborne. I recommend that if an airplane needs go-around instructions; they need to be issued the go around prior to the arrival aircraft crossing the runway threshold. Better control judgment should have been applied. Perhaps maintaining a higher level of situational awareness should have been applied. I think if aircraft limitations were understood better and controllers can think more about the high levels of concentration required by flight crews upon landing then this situation could have been averted. The aircraft should have been issued go-around instructions prior to crossing the runway threshold.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: IAD controller described a very close arrival vs. departure event involving two Airbus aircraft; the departure was approximately 4000 down the runway when an arrival crossed the runway threshold; the arrival unable to comply with go around instructions issued during flare out.

Narrative: An Airbus was in position on Runway 19L with another Airbus was on final for Runway 19L. The Airbus on final was fast due to a tailwind and was S-turning. The departing Airbus was cleared for takeoff and rolling. The squeeze play was tight and as the situation progressed it became fairly apparent that it wasn't going to work out. As the arrival crossed the threshold LC1 failed to send him around. At this point the departure aircraft was approximately 4;000 feet down the runway and had not rotated. When the arrival was around the 1;000 ft marker and flaring out LC1 issued go-around instructions which was too late for the aircraft to comply due to the phase of flight. At this point the departing Airbus was still on departure roll and not airborne. I recommend that if an airplane needs go-around instructions; they need to be issued the go around prior to the arrival aircraft crossing the runway threshold. Better control judgment should have been applied. Perhaps maintaining a higher level of situational awareness should have been applied. I think if aircraft limitations were understood better and controllers can think more about the high levels of concentration required by flight crews upon landing then this situation could have been averted. The aircraft should have been issued go-around instructions prior to crossing the runway threshold.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.