Originally Posted by
Sliceback
I read these "but what if, what if" declarations and I wonder how some people get out of bed, drive, especially without a full face helmet, climb in an airplane and take off, or land, without a runway check followed by another runway check to make sure nothing fell of the first vehicle, followed by a 3rd vehicle to check that nothing came off of the second vehicle, etc, etc. What about the problems with mx issues and flight controls rigged 180 degrees out? Oh...I'm going to roll over and pull the sheets back over my head and hope that an airliner doesn't crash into the roof and my home and crush me.
You go hide in bed. We live in a world of what-if. We plan every takeoff for an engine failure and windshear and a master warning. We have equal time points to account for turnbacks or diversions, alternates, reservefuel. It's all about what-if, and when we go train, we don't train for anything else but what-if.
The point of this particular discussion is a clearance to land when another aircraft is landing ahead of us, and has, in fact, stopped on the runway to turn off...and isn't yet clear of the runway.
I won't accept a clearance if the airplane is still on the runway. I may be cleared to land, but if the other airplane isn't clear, I'm going around, and there isn't an air traffic control authority on the planet that holds the authority to deny my go-around...because there's no clearance required, and safety of flight takes front row.
The aircraft that just landed in front of me isn't moving away rapidly. THe distance is decreasing. If that aircraft has stopped (and it's his runway until he's clear of the runway), the distance is decreasing at the rate of my approach groundspeed. Nothing theoretical or what-if about that.
A controller has no business trying to talk a pilot out of an operational safety-of-flight decision. If the pilot announces a go-around, it is NOT the controller's place to try to talk him out of it.