Abstract of the NTSB Report on Air Canada flight 759's taxiway overflight at SFO [pdf]
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Re: Abstract of the NTSB Report on Air Canada flight 759's taxiway overflight at SFO [pdf]
#2As per https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/NR20180925b.a...:
>The full report will be available on the NTSB website in several weeks.
Re: Abstract of the NTSB Report on Air Canada flight 759's taxiway overflight at SFO [pdf]
#3The report identifies good preventive measures. Autotuning the ILS would be handy, as would an aural alert for lateral deviation, perhaps announcing, "Localizer, Localizer."
The crew may have caught the closure of 28L and planned better with a review of NOTAMS before top of descent and including them in the approach briefing.
When I'm up there, and sleepy, I ask for a coffee and pull out the NOTAMS for one last look before we pull up the approach in the computer, manually set up the radios, and do the briefing.
On final approach, more precise ground based monitoring would be nice to have in case things are fubar in the plane.
Re: Abstract of the NTSB Report on Air Canada flight 759's taxiway overflight at SFO [pdf]
#4It's kind of baffling to me that there's a system for detecting collisions with other airplanes in the sky (TCAS) and a system for detecting collisions with the ground (EGPWS) but not system for detecting collisions with other airplanes on the ground. This easily could have killed a thousand people.
Re: Abstract of the NTSB Report on Air Canada flight 759's taxiway overflight at SFO [pdf]
#5I'm not operationally familiar with SFO. But based on experience at other airports, a taxiway at night can be a sea of black at even 100' above the ground. I would probably see airplane navigation lights at some point, but would I bet my life on it? No. So this incident has to be taken seriously.
However, I'm still not clear from this reporting how the crew mistook blue taxiway lighting for white runway lighting. This isn't supposed to be subtle, and I haven't ever experienced it to be subtle.
Edit: OK there is a partial explanation here that appears as though at the time they committed to taxiway C as runway 28R, the visual cue they relied on was airplane lighting looking like it was runway lighting. Airplane taxi and takeoff/landing lights are white, navigational lights are green or red. Strobes usually aren't on while on the ground or at least probably shouldn't be.
It's an interesting dilemma. And fatigue is a significant contributing factor as well.
Re: Abstract of the NTSB Report on Air Canada flight 759's taxiway overflight at SFO [pdf]
#6It's kind of baffling to me that there's a system for detecting collisions with other airplanes in the sky (TCAS) and a system for detecting collisions with the ground (EGPWS) but not system for detecting collisions with other airplanes on the ground. This easily could have killed a thousand people.
Different problems, no? Trying to pick out an airplane against the ground is different from detecting an object in the air, which doesn't generally reflect radio back, and detecting the ground, which does reflect. The problem you're describing requires you to differentiate between two things that both reflect signals back to you. It's obviously do-able since the military does it all the time for targeting. However, I doubt it's cheap and there might be cheaper ways to do it that don't leverage the two systems you've mentioned.
Re: Abstract of the NTSB Report on Air Canada flight 759's taxiway overflight at SFO [pdf]
#7It's kind of baffling to me that there's a system for detecting collisions with other airplanes in the sky (TCAS) and a system for detecting collisions with the ground (EGPWS) but not system for detecting collisions with other airplanes on the ground. This easily could have killed a thousand people.
Different problems, no? Trying to pick out an airplane against the ground is different from detecting an object in the air, which doesn't generally reflect radio back, and detecting the ground, which does reflect. The problem you're describing requires you to differentiate between two things that both reflect signals back to you. It's obviously do-able since the military does it all the time for targeting. However, I…
TCAS uses active transponders, not radar reflection. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_collision_avoidance_sy...
Re: Abstract of the NTSB Report on Air Canada flight 759's taxiway overflight at SFO [pdf]
#8It's kind of baffling to me that there's a system for detecting collisions with other airplanes in the sky (TCAS) and a system for detecting collisions with the ground (EGPWS) but not system for detecting collisions with other airplanes on the ground. This easily could have killed a thousand people.
Different problems, no? Trying to pick out an airplane against the ground is different from detecting an object in the air, which doesn't generally reflect radio back, and detecting the ground, which does reflect. The problem you're describing requires you to differentiate between two things that both reflect signals back to you. It's obviously do-able since the military does it all the time for targeting. However, I…
TCAS works via the transponders of other aircraft, which they actively transmit.
Re: Abstract of the NTSB Report on Air Canada flight 759's taxiway overflight at SFO [pdf]
#9As a private pilot, small planes going down occasionally are just a fact of life. But this incident scares me. There were four planes lined up on the taxiway the Air Canada narrowly missed. The worst aviation accident ever was a collision of two 747s resulting in 583 deaths: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster - this could have doubled that number.
Re: Abstract of the NTSB Report on Air Canada flight 759's taxiway overflight at SFO [pdf]
#10I'm not operationally familiar with SFO. But based on experience at other airports, a taxiway at night can be a sea of black at even 100' above the ground. I would probably see airplane navigation lights at some point, but would I bet my life on it? No. So this incident has to be taken seriously. However, I'm still not clear from this reporting how the crew mistook blue taxiway lighting for white runway lighting. Thi…
I don't understand it either.
Here in Seattle, SeaTac airport has a parallel taxiway (Taxiway Tango) with a long history of being mistaken for a runway. The list of things tried so far to resolve the issue is interesting:
https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2015/12/31/tango-ta...