71–80 of 435 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 great…
Can we have "might have triggered" changed to "could have triggered" in the title?
Title is from the original article. What's your reason for could instead of might?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks! But why do you even have to map your diagram to what you're seeing? Isn't there a GPS system that shows you exactly where you are on the map and where you are going to go in the next few minutes? It doesn't seem like there should be any mental or visual processing to figure out that you're heading toward the wrong runway, right?
It's a matter of scale. Even on a modern HSI, the difference in distance between the runway and the parallel taxiway is probably the width of the indicator icon. Very hard to see on instruments. Much easier to see by looking out the windscreen.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They do. They have different lighting systems/colours etc. to differentiate them. Taxiways generally have green lights along the centerline to guide aircraft rolling on the ground, but runways usually have white (bright) lights along the edges . There are times when even THAT causes confusion, because sometimes the taxiway centreline lights can look like the edge lights of the runway - especially if the light is refr…
Seems like a very good argument for autopilot landings.
Not all runways are equipped for ILS landings. Sometimes the ILS equipment gets taken out of service for maintenance. And even autoland has its limitations.
There's an mp3 of the radio chatter here: https://forums.liveatc.net/atcaviation-audio-clips/7-july-ks... > Audio from the air traffic controller communication archived by a user on LiveATC.net and reviewed by this newspaper organization showed how a the confused Air Canada pilot asks if he’s clear to land on 28R because he sees lights on the runway. > “There’s no one on 28R but you,” the air controller responds. > A…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
.
It is a very Silicon Valley thing to assume that everyone else is an idiot and needs to be disrupted, with not a thought given as to why things are the way they are. Sort of funny to watch it from the side I assure you that there is a reason AM is used. The reason is that in the case that two stations are transmitting, everyone will be aware of it and the stronger signal may be heard. This is not something that FM ca…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, autolanding, or if the pilot was using ILS (Instrument Landing System), then this problem would almost never happen, as they would be aware there was a problem. However, most pilots eschew automation especially on short finals, and prefer the 'hand fly' the aircraft in so that they can maintain complete control over the aircraft. Not a bad thing, and pilots want to actually fly the plane at crucial times. When h…
Fantastic explanation, and the question on my mind the entire time is "but why??"! Surely the copilot can look at a map (when I say map I don't mean a piece of paper -- I mean a digital one with GPS and everything) and see their trajectory while the pilot is landing, right? Like I'm imagining there should be something on the plane that shows them their trajectory and the runway information. If there is, why isn't it…
Commercial aircraft have a HSI (horizontal situation indicator) located front and center on the panel in front of the pilots. This instrument presents about 12 distinct pieces of information to the pilot, but once again, on short finals, the pilots is mainly concerned with (1) airspeed (2) altitude (3) rate of descent on this instrument. All of which are displayed on the left and right edge of the HSI in the form of moving bars. The information in the centre with relation to position and orientation is discarded as unnecessary 'noise' under this extremely high workload.
You are right in that the co-pilot has to work in conjunction with the pilot to ensure safe flight. Indeed, in many cases, it was the co-pilot (or non flying pilot) that alerted the flying pilot as to an imminent danger. But that doesn't always happen either. Take the case mentioned elsewhere here of the worlds worst aviation disaster. In that scenario, the junior co-pilot of the KLM jet notified the Captain (who was one of the the most senior pilot in KLM at the time) TWICE that he thought the PanAm jet was still on the runway, only to be ignored.