Can anyone provide a reference for when you are officially runway vacated? Debate over last week seems to polarise between when the aircraft tail is clear of the runway edge versus you have to have crossed the runway hold line. I’m wondering if it is down to local procedures perhaps?
Tail clear of runway hold line for me.
Edit: ahhh, I see you want a reference…
FAA FAR AIM makes clear all parts of the plane must be past the holding line:
http://www.faraim.org/aim/aim-4-03-14-207.html
(See 4.3.20 section b)
Someone else will have to provide the EASA reference.
Entire aircraft must be past line. Don’t have a reference though. Same going other way, any part of aircraft over hold line is an incursion.
Balliol wrote:
Can anyone provide a reference for when you are officially runway vacated? Debate over last week seems to polarise between when the aircraft tail is clear of the runway edge versus you have to have crossed the runway hold line. I’m wondering if it is down to local procedures perhaps?
Anything but the aircraft tail is clear would be unreasonable. Compare a PA28 with a B747. With a minimal distance CAT I holding point, the tail of the 747 wouldn’t even have left the actual runway when the nose passes the holding line.
OTOH with a PA28 you could probably get away with saying you have vacated the runway when the nose passes the holding line — most likely the tail will have passed when you have finished the radio transmission!
At uncontrolled airfields I normally announce when tail is clear of runway. It’s only really for the benefit of the guy landing behind. If visibility is poor or runway sloping and they can’t see me.
Don’t think I ever had rower ask me when runway vacated, but in that case would use tail pass holding point.
I never really understood this question. Surely it is only relevant at uncontrolled fields? And what does “officially” mean at an uncontrolled field?
Myself usually call “clear of the runway” when I am clear of it 
and sure to not re-enter. If I do at all, I have been known to forget. And guess what, even the rather strict powers-that-be at my homefield have never complained.
After all, what GA pilot is ever entering a runway without being able to see for themselves what the others are doing? What is indeed the necessity or the practical use of this “clear of the runway” call, bar courtesy?
Jan_Olieslagers wrote:
Surely it is only relevant at uncontrolled fields?
No, in poor visibilty you can hear it at large airports as well: “callsign XYZ, report runway vacated”. So that tower can issue the next take-off or landing clearance. Ground radars are quite good these days, but not up to the last 2 or 3 meters.
I am sure that every pilot, if he has some sense for self-preservation left, will only call “runway vacated” when he is hundred percent certain that the last little bit of the static wicks of the tailplane is behind that CAT II holding line…
Well, I have zero experience of all that, but I think if I were working the tower frequency I would only rely on what I could verify for myself and not be dependent on what any pilot says. Which does not make your words untrue about what a pilot will state, and mean it, and have carefully checked the info – but we all mistakes, don’t we?
I once got a stern telling off at Henderson, Las Vegas for reporting “runway vacated” when I was well clear of the runway although I hadn’t completely crossed the hold line which was some way from the runway. I was reminded by the controller that I wasn’t technically vacated until I’d crossed the line.
Jan_Olieslagers wrote:
After all, what GA pilot is ever entering a runway without being able to see for themselves what the others are doing? What is indeed the necessity or the practical use of this “clear of the runway” call, bar courtesy?
There are plenty of airfields where it’s not possible to see traffic on the other end of the runway, from the ground. This can be the case due to a “hump” in the runway.
I’ve a really strong dislike for such airfields!
