Other sources ( https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/japan-airliner-fire-1.7072315 ) say that the coast guard aircraft was a dash-8.
5 crew is a lot for a cargo flight actually. I wonder why there were so many on board.
JAL A359 at Tokyo collided with Coast Guard DH8C on runway and burst into flames
121–130 of 515 posts
Re: JAL A359 at Tokyo collided with Coast Guard DH8C on runway and burst into flames
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's rarely that straightforward: most all runway collisions involve ATC giving correct instructions, but the crew mishears them, misunderstands them, hears them correctly but accidentally goes to the wrong runway/taxiway, etc etc. And there's usually complicating factors like terrible weather, diversions to unfamiliar airports etc in the mix as well. What remains the world's worst single aviation disaster in Tenerif…
All of which would be prevented if the plane refused to steer onto a runway that it knows is occupied. The ATC computer should talk to the plane computer.
Re: JAL A359 at Tokyo collided with Coast Guard DH8C on runway and burst into flames
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
I doubt your “other domains” are as safe and reliable as the aviation industry. An automated system may be possible to make, but will require a huge undertaking to bring even close to the current safety standards, and would introduce its own safety issues
If I step into the elevator door, it doesn’t squash me and the elevator won’t move.
In the past six years there was some accidents just in the EU, at least one decapitation happened in the elevator of an hospital what I know. Or in the city were I live, a fail in a badly lubricated brake when an old person was entering (open door) sent the elevator to the top, just a few weeks after passing the monthly -supposed- maintenance service of the manufacturer.
The maintenance seriousness in aviation is superior to an elevator, but even like that, the last human layer decision should not be avoided.
For example, bad behaving sensor feeding a fin balancing algorithm introduced by the manufacturer to avoid the need to redesign an unbalanced plane to accommodate larger motors it was designed for, and pilots unable to make the plane follow their commanding due such algorithm blind decisions priority... has crashed planes.
Re: JAL A359 at Tokyo collided with Coast Guard DH8C on runway and burst into flames
#124I'll speculate: this looks like textbook runway invasion where miscommunication leads to two different aircrafts being allowed on a runway at the same time. Reminds me of LATAM 2213, which led to the very first Airbus 320 neo being written off [1]. Essentially, clearance to enter a runway has to be expressively given and confirmed in non-ubiquitous language ("Flight ABC requesting clearance to enter runway 01"). Yet…
it is crazy to me that all of this still relies on humans giving verbal clearance over radio. Shouldn’t there be a universal standard to communicate clearances to the computer systems of the airplanes and other runway vehicles? And shouldn’t there be a small, well-tested core system that makes sure clearance never conflicts? How on earth does all this still depend on skilled individuals not making a mistake? We got o…
Human to human open discussion is superior to computer to computer in the business of flying/navigation.
It might make sense at some point in the future where an autopilot system knows how to taxi, take off, troubleshoot issues by itself during the critical phases of flight and so on.
And like others said, aviation is one of the safest industries on the planet.
Re: JAL A359 at Tokyo collided with Coast Guard DH8C on runway and burst into flames
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Shouldn’t there be a universal standard to communicate clearances to the computer systems of the airplanes and other runway vehicles? And shouldn’t there be a small, well-tested core system that makes sure clearance never conflicts? ATC entering instructions into a computer, then pilots reading and interpreting from their computer, and then operating their plane, probably is slower and the context switches between…
I didn’t say that anyone should enter anything manually into a computer, nor did I claim that a human reading a computer screen is how an automated runway system would ensure safety. As an aside, humans are not doing a good job at driving cars and should leave that to the computers.
Is there a car autopilot system that good on the market that only you know about? And that can replace the driver completely?
Re: JAL A359 at Tokyo collided with Coast Guard DH8C on runway and burst into flames
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Over 50%, sure, but 50% of a very small number. How many deaths do you expect keeping passengers from being distracted at these times would prevent? (I expect if you compare that to the number of people inconvenienced by the rule it's a terrible trade off.)
I once heard a wise doctor say that even if the chance of survival for a medical operation is either 10% or 90%, the practical chance the patient is battling is always 50% because he either lives or dies from that operation. Likewise, the chance of someone being in an aviation accident is close to nil (you're more likely to be in a car accident), but you are either going to be in an aviation accident or not (a 50% ch…
There's a 50% chance that this doctor failed probability
Re: JAL A359 at Tokyo collided with Coast Guard DH8C on runway and burst into flames
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
I once heard a wise doctor say that even if the chance of survival for a medical operation is either 10% or 90%, the practical chance the patient is battling is always 50% because he either lives or dies from that operation. Likewise, the chance of someone being in an aviation accident is close to nil (you're more likely to be in a car accident), but you are either going to be in an aviation accident or not (a 50% ch…
> even if the chance of survival for a medical operation is either 10% or 90%, the practical chance the patient is battling is always 50% because he either lives or dies from that operation I think this is rarely a productive way to think about it. For example, the chance that I might die in the next year is somewhere between 0% and 100%, and actuarial tables put it somewhere around 0.3%. [1] Should I refrain from ha…
Well, using this logic, every day you have a 50% chance of dying, since you either die or you don't. Or perhaps every second you have a 50% chance of dying.
...obviously this "math" doesn't quite work out.
Re: JAL A359 at Tokyo collided with Coast Guard DH8C on runway and burst into flames
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are huge numbers of opportunities to trade off inconvenience against reduced death. For example, we could prohibit radios in cars because the music and adjustment can be distracting and lead to collisions. Or ban cars entirely since they're much more dangerous than walking and public transport. We could require everyone to wear an N95 all winter. Ban phones for the entirety of the flight, and prohibit books as…
In this case, however, the impact is knowable: https://etsc.eu/increasing-the-survival-rate-in-aircraft-acc... Furthermore, distracted or unprepared passengers impact the evacuation of others trapped behind them. I’ve participated in evacuation training for flight attendants and have personally witnessed how a bungled jump down evacuation slide led to a 5-10 second delay. This was equated with ~20 fatalities due to s…
My objection isn't that the impact of banning electronics during takeoff and landing is unknowable; that's not the main issue with banning car radios, cars, or bare faces either. Instead it's that the impact is too small to be worth the cost.
Re: JAL A359 at Tokyo collided with Coast Guard DH8C on runway and burst into flames
#129This is why you follow cabin crew instructions and DO NOT CARRY YOUR LUGGAGE out of the aircraft in an emergency. Your luggage is not worth more than a fellow passengers life. Contrast this with evacuation footage of western passenger planes..
>> Your luggage is not worth more than a fellow passengers life. I was going to say a major narcissist would disagree, but they probably don't have many of those in Japan. And then you followed up: >> Contrast this with evacuation footage of western passenger planes.. Is that for real? It would not surprise me, but is there documentation of this difference in deplaning? Or other areas?
Re: JAL A359 at Tokyo collided with Coast Guard DH8C on runway and burst into flames
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are huge numbers of opportunities to trade off inconvenience against reduced death. For example, we could prohibit radios in cars because the music and adjustment can be distracting and lead to collisions. Or ban cars entirely since they're much more dangerous than walking and public transport. We could require everyone to wear an N95 all winter. Ban phones for the entirety of the flight, and prohibit books as…
The inconvenience vs risk threshold here is similar to bucking a seatbelt which is hard to argue is a poor investment. Aircraft may be very safe on a per mile basis, but those risks are extremely concentrated around takeoff and landing. Which are fast events, so the risk per second is relatively high even though flying is generally much safer than driving.
I agree that the case for banning electronics during takeoff and landing is much stronger than the case for banning them for the whole flight, but I'm primarily objecting to FrustratedMonky claiming that we shouldn't ever chose policies that would lead to additional deaths, regardless of the level of inconvenience that this would impose.
If you wanted to give a fermi calculation for the fraction of aircraft traveler deaths that this proposal would prevent I'd be happy to think more about this, and you might convince me. My sense that the tradeoff is not worth it is based on thinking that (a) there aren't that many deaths to be prevented and (b) banning the devices wouldn't increase the chance of survival during an evacuation by very much.