Re: the plane "arrived" or "has arrived" an hour ago

Originally Posted by
azhu
The answer is B
Why not D? Because 'an hour ago' locates the arrival clearly in the past.
In my (very) vague memory, my teacher has told us that when describing the arriveal or leaving departure of trains/ships/planes, we use simple past instead of past perfect. Is this the reason why the answer should be B?
It's nothing to do with arrivals and departures; it is to do with how we locate the action in time. The following are all correct:
The train has left, so we'll have to catch the next one.
The train left an hour ago.
The train had left by the time John got to the station.
Our train was leaving as we got to the platform.
Context is always important; labelling is rarely important.