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SFO near miss might have triggered aviation disaster

mercurynews.com

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Re: SFO near miss might have triggered aviation disaster

#281

Post by mrunkel »

martijn_himself wrote: post #234

I get that this was a manual (non-ILS) landing, but why is there no audio warning to indicate the aircraft is not lined up with the runway?

That audio warning is only available on the newest planes, but even if it is available, if the ILS is off/not tuned in, there is no way for the plane to know it's not lined up.

I can understand wanting to hand-fly the plane, but ILS should always be on just as a reference/check.

I also think the linked article is making much to big a deal about this: * The pilot checked in because he saw lights on the runway, he was probably very close to aborting the landing anyway. * We don't know how far away the plane was when the go-around command was given. * People overestimate how easy it is to see the runway/airport at night. You only really get to see real resolution when you're pretty close.

Re: SFO near miss might have triggered aviation disaster

#282

Post by cyberferret »

MarkMc wrote: post #232
cyberferret wrote: post #54

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…

What about an audio warning: "Alert! You are about to land on a taxiway!". Wouldn't that be useful?

Could be, but there have been many cases of pilots missing an audible warning while under heavy workload too.

Most notably the Adam Air(?) crash in Indonesia, where the crew were so intent on debugging a faulty minor flight computer that they simply didn't hear the the warning klaxon indicating that the autopilot had become disengaged and the plane ended up rolling over, entering a spin and crashed into the sea.

Re: SFO near miss might have triggered aviation disaster

#283

Post by dsfyu404ed »

mckoss wrote: post #240
dx034 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's likely that the controller would've seen it as well after the Air Canada pilot indicated that he saw planes on what he believed was the runway. Even if not, the pilot would've probably aborted the landing since he saw the other aircrafts. So it was certainly a dangerous situation but I doubt that a crash would've happened without that pilot's comment (it was certainly helpful though).

Controllers in the tower do not have a good visual perspective to see runway alignment. I don't think they would have caught this. At night, there are many visual cues to see the runway environment - it sounds to me like this complacent pilot ignored many red flags and was about to drive his plane on top of those on the taxiway. A big heavy airliner can't just stop its decent instantly; it's a good thing that pilot o…

When you're descending at a rate suitable for human cargo in good weather there's plenty of room to maneuver.

A C-5 that's trying to drop out of the sky ASAP before anyone can shoot at it is a different story.

The pilot and copilot were clearly in WTF mode since there were planes on what they thought was the runway. If nobody had spoken up it would likely have gone back and fourth between them and the tower a few times ("are you sure the runway is clear?") and in all likelihood they would have caught it. If they didn't the pilots would have likely requested to go around. Backing off of what you're doing and assessing the situation when anything is not quite right is SOP in every facet of aviation.

Re: SFO near miss might have triggered aviation disaster

#284

Post by woliveirajr »

mckoss wrote: post #251
mate_soos wrote: post #219

Before crying pilot error, we must all read Sydney Dekker's A Field Giude to Understading "Human Error" (and fully appreciate why he uses those quotes). Don't immediately assign blame to the sharp end. Take a look at the blunt one first. Most likely not a pilot error. Assigning blame is a very human need, but assigning it to the most visible and accessible part is almost always wrong.

I can't imagine any scenario where this is not pilot error (unless you had a power failure of the airport lighting systems).

The point is that it doesn't help to know that it was a pilot error, because a pilot is human, and humans in the same situation might make the same mistake - and the main goal is to prevent accidents, not to have accidents happening all the time and saying "it was again human error".

It boils down to:

1 - Was the "error" intentional? If so, how to prevent someone from doing it again?

2 - Was it a real error, with no intention of any kind? If so, how to prevent that someone makes it again?

Re: SFO near miss might have triggered aviation disaster

#285

Post by woliveirajr »

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?

The point is that it doesn't help to know that it was a pilot error, because a pilot is human, and humans in the same situation might make the same mistake - and the main goal is to prevent accidents, not to have accidents happening all the time and saying "it was again human error". It boils down to: 1 - Was the "error" intentional? If so, how to prevent someone from doing it again? 2 - Was it a real error, with no intention of any kind? If so, how to prevent that someone makes it again?

Re: SFO near miss might have triggered aviation disaster

#286

Post by peteretep »

jpatokal wrote: post #157
sohkamyung wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was also SIA Flight 006 which crashed while taking off from the wrong (closed) runway at Taiwan[1], which was big local news in Singapore at the time. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore_Airlines_Flight_006

Mistaking runway 05R for 05L when both are parallel is more understandable though. It was also at night, in poor weather, and the airport had not blocked off the unusable runway (!) and did not have the gear to track aircraft locations on the ground.

I'm surprised there isn't more explicit tooling in the cockpit to stop that happening

Re: SFO near miss might have triggered aviation disaster

#287

Post by bronco21016 »

dorfsmay wrote: post #228
cyberferret wrote: post #54

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…

> most pilots eschew automation especially on short finals Don't pilots have a legal requirement to manually fly a minimum number of landings per month?

Sort of.

A pilot is required to have at least 3 takeoff and landings in the type of aircraft he is to be operating in the preceding 90 days.

And I say sort of because an autopilot coupled ILS approach down to 100 ft above the runway still counts. This mean that as long as the pilot set up the automation correctly the airplane will have him lined up and on proper vertical path at 100 ft. He can disconnect autopilot and gently set it down.

So one, mostly automated, landing per month is all that is required.

Re: SFO near miss might have triggered aviation disaster

#288

Post by Agathos »

briandear wrote: post #239
gambiting wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stupid question - can you be certified as a commercial pilot if you are colourblind?

You can’t even be certificated as a Private Pilot if you are colorblind.

My father is red-green colorblind and he flies small planes.

Re: SFO near miss might have triggered aviation disaster

#289

Post by amelius »

Piskvorrr wrote: post #277
amelius wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the GPS in my car shows two lanes, it clearly marks whether I should take the left or right one.

...but it sometimes detects your position as being in the other lane than where you actually are (or even a block away).

I suppose that a GPS in an airplane should always take the precision of the instrument into account. If it can't determine which lane it approaches, perhaps it should show a warning sign, and/or highlight the lane that should be taken.

Re: SFO near miss might have triggered aviation disaster

#290

Post by Piskvorrr »

wfunction wrote: post #279
Piskvorrr wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? From here, it looks as if you're doing your best in refusing to understand. Here's a hint: context . If you're en route, even an approximate position within hundreds of feet is great for navigation; please stow your straw men back where you found them. In this case, the issue is with landing , where you need a precise position; "probably tens of feet, when it works" is exactly the sort of accuracy that's n…

The issue is you're treating this as though (1) cruising can be done on autopilot via GPS because it doesn't need much accuracy, (2) landing can also be done on autopilot because we have more accurate systems, but (3) the transition between the two requires manual intervention because the plane can't reliably locate itself accurately enough to get in the right position for landing systems to take over. But that simpl…

Nope. (3) The transition between the two requires manual intervention, as those are very different flight modes, using different systems and there's no automagic way to switch between them; the quote from the linked article is an oversimplification akin to "computers can do almost anything - therefore what do we need programmers anyway?"
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