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LaGuardia pilots raised safety alarms months before deadly runway crash

theguardian.com

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Re: LaGuardia pilots raised safety alarms months before deadly runway crash

#101

Post by pc86 »

inaros wrote: post #81
pc86 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Funny" enough if this controller had had a medical emergency (or just bad sushi) and been off the radios, this wouldn't have happened because the fire truck would not have received clearance to cross the runway and wouldn't have. Or at least would have crossed like the airport was uncontrolled, been much more careful and announced itself, and likely have seen the landing aircraft.

An empty tower at La Guardia with a bunch of airplanes in the air not getting a reply to their calls is Die Hard 2 stuff. Spare me the Pete Hegseth school of ATC...

I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. The GP is literally about a lone controller in the tower having a medical episode and what would happen after that.

Re: LaGuardia pilots raised safety alarms months before deadly runway crash

#102

Post by eviks »

krisoft wrote: post #88
eviks wrote: post #69

With all the advances in technology, can there be no navigation app that can just tell you you're on a collision course instead of relying exclusivly on playing broken phone between flying and driving meatbags via a sitting one?

There is actually a set of lights which should have displayed red towards the trucks. Were they not operating correctly, or did the driver ignore them is one of the questions the investigation will answer. The system is called Runway Status Lights. And in case there is a disagreement between the ATC clearance and the lights the drivers are supposed to not enter the runway. https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/r…

The description is a bit vague, but I guess this should've automatically caught the landing plane immediately after it got the approval and started landing?

> When activated, these red lights indicate that ... there is an aircraft on final approach within the activation area

Re: LaGuardia pilots raised safety alarms months before deadly runway crash

#103

Post by mmooss »

afavour wrote: post #59
Esophagus4 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True! Assumptions and speculation are always better. I’m glad we’ve made our conclusions up front before the report has even come out. That saves me a lot of reading!

Come on, this is silly. The fact that air traffic controllers are overworked is neither an assumption nor speculation. It is very widely documented.

It does not at all mean that this controller was overworked when this crash happened; that would be failed reasoning and misuse of evidence. It just raises the question, which should be looked at.

It's scary that so many don't seem to know the difference. This is how misinformation starts and spreads.

Re: LaGuardia pilots raised safety alarms months before deadly runway crash

#104

Post by annexrichmond »

antoineMoPa wrote: post #80
annexrichmond wrote: post #52

[flagged]

> Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Half the comments in this thread are not following the guidelines

Re: LaGuardia pilots raised safety alarms months before deadly runway crash

#105

Post by pc86 »

penultimatename wrote: post #92
pc86 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Funny" enough if this controller had had a medical emergency (or just bad sushi) and been off the radios, this wouldn't have happened because the fire truck would not have received clearance to cross the runway and wouldn't have. Or at least would have crossed like the airport was uncontrolled, been much more careful and announced itself, and likely have seen the landing aircraft.

And if an aircraft needs to land due to an emergency? It’s amazing things work as well as they do, the system relies on only one thing going wrong at a time. This accident was an example of multiple things going wrong at the same time.

Every accident is an example of multiple things going wrong at the same time.[0]

I'm going to pretend to know exactly what would happen in that precise scenario but I'm confident most commercial pilots get enough training to be able to handle it.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model

Re: LaGuardia pilots raised safety alarms months before deadly runway crash

#106

Post by mmooss »

RankingMember wrote: post #44
metalliqaz wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. Lets see what the NTSB recommendations say. However despite the downvotes I still haven't seen evidence that they were running understaffed at that moment. What I do know is that the developing emergency on the tarmac due to an apparently hazardous smell in another plane is likely the cause of the confusion that led to this incident. That's a trigger that could have been exacerbated by fatigue but we don't hav…

> I still haven't seen evidence that they were running understaffed at that moment. I think the disagreement you see is based on the definition of what "understaffed" means. Having one ATC to do ground and air control simultaneously seems like an under-staffing situation to begin with, regardless of whether it's a common practice.

> Having one ATC to do ground and air control simultaneously seems like an under-staffing situation to begin with

Do we have evidence that one controller did all ground and air? The only evidence I've seen was the NY Times said that, according to a source, two controllers were working and two more were in the building.

In situations like this there is as lot of disinformation. The best thing to do is not add to it - a pile of bad information is not improved by piling more on. The best thing is to patiently find reliable info and stick to it.

Re: LaGuardia pilots raised safety alarms months before deadly runway crash

#107

Post by SteveNuts »

pc86 wrote: post #58
FL410 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And therein lies the problem. Clearly, having one overworked controller running a combined tower is not safe nor sustainable.

Planes landing at a rate of one every 30-40 minutes isn't exactly "overworked."

What is the contingency/continuity plan if the single controller becomes incapacitated while on duty with no warning to pilots?

Re: LaGuardia pilots raised safety alarms months before deadly runway crash

#108

Post by duped »

ndiddy wrote: post #5

I just hope they don't try to pin this on the controller who was on duty and move on without putting plans in place for some sort of structural change. Controllers are forced to work 60+ hour weeks and overnight shifts, and the controller in question was working both ground and air control simultaneously due to staffing shortages. If you listen to the ATC audio, he was handling finding a spot for a plane that aborted…

It bothers me that everyone is laser focused on poor ATC staffing and working conditions (which is very valid, don't get me wrong). I think airport capacity should be fixed depending on ATC staffing. We need to have less air travel.

The way I think about it is this: substandard ATC staffing is just as bad as lacking jetways or damaged runways. When the airport can't land planes because of physical capacity constraints, flights get cancelled or delayed (literally happening today at LGA, flights are getting canceled because they're down one runway). The carriers need to eat the costs of forcing too much demand on ATCs.

Re: LaGuardia pilots raised safety alarms months before deadly runway crash

#109

Post by rekrsiv »

I am alarmed at the high number of supposed engineers on this thread that are seemingly unaware of how safety-critical systems work. Literally every other piece of this system has redundancy built into it. Robustness is never optional in a scenario involving human safety.

When did this lunacy become an arguable position?

Re: LaGuardia pilots raised safety alarms months before deadly runway crash

#110

Post by Someone1234 »

pc86 wrote: post #83
jakelazaroff wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are describing a staffing shortage.

"Staffing shortage" doesn't mean "you can fit more people in the tower." You can't think of any scenario having one controller makes sense?

In general, I can. In LaGuardia? Aside from right after 9/11 and during COVID-19 when almost all commercial travel stopped, I cannot.

I don't think people saying this stuff quite understand how busy LGA is even at night. I'd even go as far as to say that three minimum on duty with two in the tower at all times (for a ground/air split), would be the bare minimum for any hour or situation at LGA.

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