Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 11
Confusion; Situational Awareness; Training / Qualification; Distraction
ATC Issue All Types; Conflict Airborne Conflict; Deviation - Track / Heading All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Procedure
Aircraft X was landing Runway 34 while Aircraft Y was departing Runway 25.  Due to newly implemented converging runway rules; this was a loss of separation.   Local Control (LC) tried to control the situation by withholding landing clearance; but did not react quickly enough to resolve the situation.  At the point the Local Controller realized separation did not exist; they allowed Aircraft X to land Runway 34 rather than send the aircraft around and into Aircraft Y. LC also tried to offset Aircraft Y; which pilot did not comply and would not have resolved the situation.  Additionally; Aircraft X did not fly the approach to Runway 34 as published and thus shortened his time to the runway and LC did not see the aircraft cut the corner.  FLM alerted LC that the aircraft was cutting the corner; the expectation was the controller would square the aircraft's final or turn the aircraft east to land Runway 25; instead the controller cleared the aircraft to land.  At that point; the aircraft was low on final and any evasive maneuvers would have been too dangerous.  Local Controller disputed the loss of separation with the FLM; they believed the departing aircraft Aircraft Y was through the intersection prior to Aircraft X crossing the Runway 34 threshold.  As the FLM; I saw the aircraft was still over the Runway Safety Area when the aircraft landed.  The controller working Ground Control when questioned appeared to agree with the FLM; but did not want to dispute what the Local Controller said. This is the first event since implementation of new rules; a good opportunity to use this in [this] facility is to instruct the controllers to prevent events from happening in the future.  Also; the misapplication of offsetting the runway should be addressed.  The union has been briefing the facility on these new changes.  The FLM asked the union to put out a General Announcement in CEDAR addressing; that telling an aircraft to offset when departing will not fix this issue.
MRI Tower FLM describes operational error due to miss use of the new converging runway rules.