Not if everything is working perfectly, but if something happens to the plane on the runway, like it stalls out or otherwise can't move out of the way for whatever reason, there's not going to be any time for air traffic control to reroute the incoming plane. The pilots might be able to make some last-second evasive maneuvers, but huge passenger jets aren't that maneuverable in a 14-second window. The idea is that there should always be a large enough window of time that if something goes wrong on the runway, the incoming plane can be safely and easily routed somewhere else. 14 seconds just isn't long enough when you're talking about these huge jets full of people. It's a completely unnecessary risk with potentially catastrophic consequences, and it can be avoided entirely by spacing things out a little more.
I'm not a pilot, but I'll bet ten bucks there is a known time-frame within which a landing can be safely aborted, and that's probably the amount of time that the runway should be completely clear.
Not if everything is working perfectly, but if something happens to the plane on the runway, like it stalls out or otherwise can't move out of the way for whatever reason, there's not going to be any time for air traffic control to reroute the incoming plane. The pilots might be able to make some last-second evasive maneuvers, but huge passenger jets aren't that maneuverable in a 14-second window. The idea is that there should always be a large enough window of time that if something goes wrong on the runway, the incoming plane can be safely and easily routed somewhere else. 14 seconds just isn't long enough when you're talking about these huge jets full of people. It's a completely unnecessary risk with potentially catastrophic consequences, and it can be avoided entirely by spacing things out a little more.
I'm not a pilot, but I'll bet ten bucks there is a known time-frame within which a landing can be safely aborted, and that's probably the amount of time that the runway should be completely clear.