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SFO near miss might have triggered aviation disaster

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Re: SFO near miss might have triggered aviation disaster

#21

Post by wfunction »

ddeck wrote: post #14

Attempts to take off from or land on taxiways are alarmingly common, including those by Harrison Ford: Harrison Ford won't face disciplinary action for landing on a taxiway at John Wayne Airport [1] Serious incident: Finnair A340 attempts takeoff from Hong Kong taxiway [2] HK Airlines 737 tries to take off from taxiway [3] Passenger plane lands on the TAXIWAY instead of runway in fourth incident of its kind at Seattl…

Why in the world is this even a problem? Shouldn't what's a taxiway and what's not be indicated on maps or diagrams or something that pilots can see?

Re: SFO near miss might have triggered aviation disaster

#22

Post by rblatz »

rdtsc wrote: post #13

Without knowing the cause but if I had to guess this looks like pilot error. At least statistically that the leading cause of crashes. I am surprised pilots still manually land planes. Is the auto-landing feature not implemented well enough? But then it's relied upon in low visibility. So it has to work, they why isn't it used more often?

From what I understand pilots still practice landing in good conditions so they aren't completely out of practice if something goes wrong and they have to manually land the plane.

Re: SFO near miss might have triggered aviation disaster

#23

Post by FiloSottile »

rdtsc wrote: post #19
FiloSottile wrote: post #4

I am just a passenger, but this looks very over-blown. A pilot aligned with the taxiway, that's bad. But no pilot would ever land on a runway (or taxiway) with 3 planes on it. Just search the Aviation Herald for "runway incursion". And indeed, he spotted them, communicated, went around. Aviation safety margins are so wide that this does not qualify as a near-miss.

This isn't quite a regular "runway incursion". That term is usually reserved for a taxiing aircraft (or maybe a service vehicle) which didn't stop in time at the threshold and went a bit beyond it. This is more like runway "confusion". A term I made up, not sure if there is such an official name for it.

Right, I meant that if pilots sort-of-routinely spot runway incursions, they surely won't land on 3 wide-body jets sitting there.

This is why you want human pilots, instead of computers, not the opposite. A human can apply common sense and decide not to land on three planes after all even if it looks like a cleared runway.

Re: SFO near miss might have triggered aviation disaster

#24

Post by ddeck »

meowface wrote: post #7
FiloSottile wrote: post #4

I am just a passenger, but this looks very over-blown. A pilot aligned with the taxiway, that's bad. But no pilot would ever land on a runway (or taxiway) with 3 planes on it. Just search the Aviation Herald for "runway incursion". And indeed, he spotted them, communicated, went around. Aviation safety margins are so wide that this does not qualify as a near-miss.

Right, I'm confused by this. Surely the pilot would notice at least one of the planes he'd be inevitably crashing into well before he started to land?

>Surely the pilot would notice at least one of the planes he'd be inevitably crashing into well before he started to land

In theory yes, but the risk is that the plane you crash into is not yet on the taxiway or that poor visibility or tunneled focus prevents you from noticing it.

You don't need to be moving quickly to have a significant accident. The deadliest aviation accident in history (583 fatalities) resulted when two planes collided on a taxiway (edit: actually on the runway) in dense fog [1].

Edit: as correctly pointed out below, the actual collision took place on the runway at significant speed.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster

Re: SFO near miss might have triggered aviation disaster

#25

Post by csours »

FiloSottile wrote: post #4

I am just a passenger, but this looks very over-blown. A pilot aligned with the taxiway, that's bad. But no pilot would ever land on a runway (or taxiway) with 3 planes on it. Just search the Aviation Herald for "runway incursion". And indeed, he spotted them, communicated, went around. Aviation safety margins are so wide that this does not qualify as a near-miss.

> Aviation safety margins are so wide that this does not qualify as a near-miss.

I think you have this kind of backwards here. If you were going in for an amputation, and they only prepped the wrong leg, would that not be a near miss?

Rare incidents are hard to reason about and measure because they are so rare; but there are things that lead up to rare events - like being on approach to the wrong runway, that are less rare, and so they are easy to measure.

After you have plans and procedures to stop the actual rare disasters, reducing near misses is the most effective way to stop disasters.

> But no pilot would ever land on a runway (or taxiway) with 3 planes on it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster

Re: SFO near miss might have triggered aviation disaster

#26

Post by notatoad »

meowface wrote: post #7
FiloSottile wrote: post #4

I am just a passenger, but this looks very over-blown. A pilot aligned with the taxiway, that's bad. But no pilot would ever land on a runway (or taxiway) with 3 planes on it. Just search the Aviation Herald for "runway incursion". And indeed, he spotted them, communicated, went around. Aviation safety margins are so wide that this does not qualify as a near-miss.

Right, I'm confused by this. Surely the pilot would notice at least one of the planes he'd be inevitably crashing into well before he started to land?

>Surely the pilot would notice at least one of the planes he'd be inevitably crashing into well before he started to land?

Which seems to be what happened here - the pilot aligned with the taxiway, noticed he was in the wrong spot, and the tower told him to try again.

Re: SFO near miss might have triggered aviation disaster

#27

Post by cyberferret »

meowface wrote: post #7
FiloSottile wrote: post #4

I am just a passenger, but this looks very over-blown. A pilot aligned with the taxiway, that's bad. But no pilot would ever land on a runway (or taxiway) with 3 planes on it. Just search the Aviation Herald for "runway incursion". And indeed, he spotted them, communicated, went around. Aviation safety margins are so wide that this does not qualify as a near-miss.

Right, I'm confused by this. Surely the pilot would notice at least one of the planes he'd be inevitably crashing into well before he started to land?

At night, and if he was fatigued or on instruments for a long time before that, the disorientation could have easily lead to such an error.

LOTS of planes accidentally line up on the taxiway if visibility is reduced and cockpit workload is high. Heck, aircraft have even taken off on non active runways at the most advanced airport in the world with disastrous results at night. [0]

Inclement weather on approach at the end of a long flight can also lead to crew pressing home while under confusion, as in the case of the Korean airlines accident that landed short. [1]

More recently, at SFO too, the Asiana B777 crash was something that should have been almost impossible in a modern jetlines, but over reliance on automation and lazy piloting lead to that disaster.

[0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHekCU9CYvI

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II4dwx00v28

Re: SFO near miss might have triggered aviation disaster

#28

Post by Pinckney »

ddeck wrote: post #24
meowface wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, I'm confused by this. Surely the pilot would notice at least one of the planes he'd be inevitably crashing into well before he started to land?

>Surely the pilot would notice at least one of the planes he'd be inevitably crashing into well before he started to land In theory yes, but the risk is that the plane you crash into is not yet on the taxiway or that poor visibility or tunneled focus prevents you from noticing it. You don't need to be moving quickly to have a significant accident. The deadliest aviation accident in history (583 fatalities) resulted w…

You're mistaken. The KLM plane took off when it was not cleared, and they collided at 260km/h.

Re: SFO near miss might have triggered aviation disaster

#29

Post by Tuxer »

wfunction wrote: post #21
ddeck wrote: post #14

Attempts to take off from or land on taxiways are alarmingly common, including those by Harrison Ford: Harrison Ford won't face disciplinary action for landing on a taxiway at John Wayne Airport [1] Serious incident: Finnair A340 attempts takeoff from Hong Kong taxiway [2] HK Airlines 737 tries to take off from taxiway [3] Passenger plane lands on the TAXIWAY instead of runway in fourth incident of its kind at Seattl…

Why in the world is this even a problem? Shouldn't what's a taxiway and what's not be indicated on maps or diagrams or something that pilots can see?

(pilot here) Yes, they are very well shown on maps, but it can be hard to map your diagram to what you're seeing, especially if it's raining or if it's at night, and even more if you're tired.

I never made the mistake, but can see how somebody in bad conditions would.

Re: SFO near miss might have triggered aviation disaster

#30

Post by FiloSottile »

csours wrote: post #25
FiloSottile wrote: post #4

I am just a passenger, but this looks very over-blown. A pilot aligned with the taxiway, that's bad. But no pilot would ever land on a runway (or taxiway) with 3 planes on it. Just search the Aviation Herald for "runway incursion". And indeed, he spotted them, communicated, went around. Aviation safety margins are so wide that this does not qualify as a near-miss.

> Aviation safety margins are so wide that this does not qualify as a near-miss. I think you have this kind of backwards here. If you were going in for an amputation, and they only prepped the wrong leg, would that not be a near miss? Rare incidents are hard to reason about and measure because they are so rare; but there are things that lead up to rare events - like being on approach to the wrong runway, that are les…

> After you have plans and procedures to stop the actual rare disasters, reducing near misses is the most effective way to stop disasters.

Oh, full +1. This is a bad incident that should result in an investigation and maybe safety recommendations.

My point is that aviation has been at it for so long, that a "bad incident" is very far removed from what the common interpretation of "near miss could have triggered greatest disaster" (#1 on HN) would suggest to a random observer.

(And I think the author knew it, and went for clickbait.)

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