King Air C90 E90
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Confusion; Communication Breakdown; Situational Awareness
ATC Issue All Types; Conflict Ground Conflict; Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Ground Incursion Taxiway
Air Traffic Control Issued New Clearance; Air Traffic Control Issued Advisory / Alert
Airport; Procedure; Human Factors
While I was training a Developmental on Local Control; Ground Control taxied out a King Air requesting Runway 19 via Charlie/Alpha.A CRJ-700 landed Runway 15 and the Developmental instructed him to turn right on Bravo and hold short of Runway 19. The developmental then instructed a CL30 to line up and wait on Runway 15 and advising 'traffic crossing down field'.The Developmental then cleared the King Air to 'cross Runway 15'. The King Air then crossed the Runway 15 hold short line and turned towards the Runway 19 threshold; deviating from Taxiway Alpha. I pointed out to the Developmental to 'watch the King Air'. The Developmental then instructed the King Air to 'make a hard left and stay on Alpha; then a right; hold short Runway 19.' the King Air was very confused but after some further direction cleared the runway 15/19 intersection. The Developmental then cleared the CL30 to line up and wait for takeoff. When the BTV airport administration created a 20 year master development plan they planned to extend Runway 19 past Runway 15 due to the confusion it caused for aircraft departing Runway 19. Unfortunately; before the construction of the Runway 19 extension occurred; the airport administration did not seriously confer with the airport users to explain that the extension would be in the form of only a displaced threshold of approximately 400 FT in length. There is absolutely no benefit to this runway extension. It; frankly; is a safety hazard that has been a contributing factor in many go-around's; unnecessary increased runway occupancy times; and aborted takeoffs. These occur on a very regular basis.The vast majority of aircraft that use Runway 19 are small single or light twin engine aircraft that are capable of taking off and landing on runways shorter than Runway 19. Runway 19 should have never been extended to mitigate confusion if the airport was truly interested in mitigating confusion then they should have shortened Runway 19 as not to intersect Runway 15. This would have left approximately 2;000 FT available; a sufficient amount for the aircraft currently using it. Although it is a; unrealistic recommendation I feel that Runway 19 should be shortened.
Following a modest ground conflict between departing and taxiing aircraft on and/or crossing Runway 15 at BTV the Ground Controller discussed his belief that recent modifications to the intersecting Runway 19 have contributed to increased frequency of such events.