A380
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 7
Time Pressure; Communication Breakdown; Confusion; Distraction; Situational Awareness
Conflict Airborne Conflict; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Airspace Structure; Procedure
While working combined LC1/LC2 (local control) shortly after our midnight traffic turned to over ocean procedures; Ground Control passed Aircraft X's flight strip for departure off runway 24L. The north complex is used for opposite direction arrival traffic while the south complex is used for departures so it was a non standard situation already. Due to the many airport restrictions Aircraft X could not make it to the south side of the airport as planned. Rather than delaying our over ocean traffic procedures to allow the (multiple) Aircraft X type departures our FLM chose to allow the unsafe situation to develop. I coordinated with the SCT arrival area to build me a hole so that I could depart the north complex opposite direction. While Aircraft X was going into position I noticed that the arrival aircraft (Aircraft Y) had already begun to turn base despite the fact that the previously coordinated traffic had not yet begun to even roll for departure. I issued an immediate left turn heading 210 (standard over ocean departure procedure) to Aircraft X. After every Aircraft X type departure we are required to conduct a runway inspection afterwards so I coordinated with arrivals for Aircraft Y to land on the parallel runway (6L) and issued an S turn to the north for spacing. While Aircraft X was departing and turning the proximity became less than the required and visual separation could not be used since the type aircraft was a type where visual separation cannot be applied. The over ocean operation at LAX is a dangerous situation. With the growing impact of design group 6 aircraft during the known traffic turn around it should be delayed or removed as a standard operation. Aircraft pushed off gate onto E well before the traffic turn around and when they were not imminently ready it led to this situation because it was stuck going to runway 24L since it has no other option to turn the aircraft around. There is only 1 taxiway available and to use the runway would mean that they have to taxi the length of the runway before it could exit and get to the south complex. Our over ocean operations tells us to issue a turn of 210 (not enough to provide 45 degree course divergence; 205 at least needed) and to use visual separation with our departure/arrival traffic but this cannot be done when there is this type of aircraft involved so we should not be faced with an impossible situation. If we were not forced to use over ocean traffic (at midnight) then this situation would have been completely routine.
LAX Local Controller describes a loss of separation during a opposite direction operation.