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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]

#51

Post by outworlder »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #42
SaberTail wrote: post #13

If anyone would like to listen to the ATC radio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW-ETmZU0u8

I love hearing ATC radio. I think the guy who did the classic SR71 story about upstaging everyone on some California flyby noted this pretty well - even in the times of near peril pilots and ATC will be the cool-as-steel that keep everyone calm.

Another interesting one is the guy that was suffering from hypoxia.

"Unable... to control... altitude" "Unable... to control... airspeed" "Unable... to control... heading" "Other than that, everything A-OK!"

Guy landed safely after ATC realized it was hypoxia and ordered the flight to descend.

EDIT: link https://fearoflanding.com/accidents/accident-reports/hypoxia...

Re: Abstract of the NTSB Report on Air Canada flight 759's taxiway overflight at SFO [pdf]

#52

Post by outworlder »

gok wrote: post #4

It'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.

TCAS alerts about "conflicts" with other aircraft on take-off and landing all the time. It's just that those are almost always false positives, so they get ignored.

There are many aircraft on the ground at airports. Given the high approach speeds, this is probably a non-trivial problem.

Re: Abstract of the NTSB Report on Air Canada flight 759's taxiway overflight at SFO [pdf]

#53

Post by nraynaud »

oasisbob wrote: post #10
cmurf wrote: post #5

I'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...

make them jagged? (I'm half serious, if they are that much dangerous, then sorry for the people taxiing). They could also be made falsely jagged at night with the lighting system.

Re: Abstract of the NTSB Report on Air Canada flight 759's taxiway overflight at SFO [pdf]

#54

Post by geofft »

sokoloff wrote: post #32
tetrep wrote: post #17

> Cockpit voice recorder (CVR) information was not available for this incident because the data were overwritten before senior Air Canada officials became aware of the severity of this incident. How long are recordings normally kept? I would assume at least a few days for mundane flights (storage is cheap, isn't it?) but any sort of incident similar to this I would assume they keep recordings for much longer, if only…

It's a loop recorder. When that aircraft was certified, only a 30 minute loop was required. If that aircraft was newly certified, it would now require a 2 hour loop.

Can they not sync the recording elsewhere once they land and every passenger has a high-bandwidth internet connection the second the wheels are on the ground? (Is it too hard to certify that a system that connects to the internet is safe?)

Re: Abstract of the NTSB Report on Air Canada flight 759's taxiway overflight at SFO [pdf]

#55

Post by throwaway5250 »

sokoloff wrote: post #25
throwaway5250 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I give up--why shouldn't airplane strobes be on while they're on the ground?

Harms night vision adaptation of other pilots. My SOP is beacon (red, top and bottom) on with aircraft battery bus on, strobes on only when on an open runway, landing lights on when cleared for takeoff (or lined-up and waiting in position for takeoff). That seems to be a fairly common SOP for aircraft with separate control of beacon vs strobe. It communicates a small amount of additional information, but more relevan…

I guess that sounds good, though it might sound less good after a mass casualty collision.

Wonder if we couldn't have "ground strobes" visible only to viewers looking downward at a significant angle.

Re: Abstract of the NTSB Report on Air Canada flight 759's taxiway overflight at SFO [pdf]

#56

Post by DuskStar »

outworlder wrote: post #50
zkms wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm surprised that remote video cameras aren't used by tower controllers. I'm surprised that forward-looking infrared cameras aren't more commonly used in civilian aircraft, especially given the availability of staring arrays with decent resolution/framerate that don't require cooling. Even without the requisite certification for use as a for-realsies landing aid, it's nevertheless a useful tool to get situational…

They are more commonly found aboard 'experimental' aircraft because of the certification issues you pointed out.

And high-performance infrared cameras are also probably one of those things that end up on arms control lists. (Since it's not just useful for spotting planes on your "runway", but also for spotting tanks or people on your hill requesting an ordnance delivery)

Re: Abstract of the NTSB Report on Air Canada flight 759's taxiway overflight at SFO [pdf]

#57

Post by joncrane »

SaberTail wrote: post #13

If anyone would like to listen to the ATC radio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW-ETmZU0u8

OMG that is just pure gold! The United guy is SOOOO laconic. Like him speaking up on the open freq saved hundreds of lives and he sounds like he's reading yesterday's corn future prices.

Re: Abstract of the NTSB Report on Air Canada flight 759's taxiway overflight at SFO [pdf]

#58

Post by jrnichols »

oasisbob wrote: post #10
cmurf wrote: post #5

I'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...

a google search for "taxiway landing" shows that this has happened quite a few times - with full passenger loads in some cases.

Re: Abstract of the NTSB Report on Air Canada flight 759's taxiway overflight at SFO [pdf]

#59

Post by joncrane »

joezydeco wrote: post #35
cmurf wrote: post #5

I'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…

Watch this A380 landing at SFO, and watch the pilot's reaction when he's told he's cleared to land visually on 28L, but to expect the ILS for 28R. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENe89j89tBA What's up with that?

I watched way more of that than I should have. It was way more interesting than I thought it would be.

I would love to be an airline captain.

Re: Abstract of the NTSB Report on Air Canada flight 759's taxiway overflight at SFO [pdf]

#60

Post by ryandrake »

abaillargeon wrote: post #24

I've been anticipating the release of this report this since I heard about the incident. I work on an avionics product that's designed to prevent this exact scenario. We use the aircraft's position along with a database of runways and taxiways to determine if the aircraft is approaching the runway the pilot intends. If we determine the aircraft is landing, we issue a visual and aural alert to the pilot ("TAXIWAY LAND…

Curious: what inputs feed your system? Presumably at least localizer and GPS, but anything else? What accuracy / confidence interval do you require in order to make a call?
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