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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

#121

Post by flakeoil »

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…

In the video it looks as if the other emergency vehicles have stopped and only the first truck is driving. Maybe they missed the light or it turned red just after the first truck passed the light.

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

#122

Post by bombcar »

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #111
rekrsiv wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can a single human being reliably and robustly maintain a safety-critical system alone under any circumstances, ever? Ever?

There are millions of people who are self employed in an industry where they could be maimed or killed if they screw up who manage to make it to retirement. I think the better question is how you get a system in which people are only responsible for any one facet to get the same performance out of people that a painter can get out of himself when he's setting up his own ladder that he personally has to climb on.

The goal should always be to reduce the human dependency - where reasonable which is where all the argument is, because of the cost/benefit analysis.

Mandatory scaffolding for roofing contractors would save some amount of deaths/injuries (and the related expenses) but add expenses to each job.

Some roofing firms refuse to operate without scaffolding; you pay for it or you find someone else.

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

#123

Post by bombcar »

pc86 wrote: post #78
gortok wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case there were two arrivals within 4 minutes of each other and two departures, in addition to the emergency plane that had just aborted takeoff.

Which is a completely reasonable amount of traffic for one controller to handle. This wasn't the controller's fault. The firetruck received a clearance, had that clearance revoked, and either didn't hear the revocation or ignored it.

If you have ever spent time listening to LiveATC you will realize that like everyone, "tunnel ear" is a real thing - if United 1002 has received the clearance/instructions they expect, read them back, and are proceeding it can be moderately difficult to get their attention again, even with perfect verbiage.

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

#124

Post by Esophagus4 »

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.

The only thing we know so far is from two minutes of ATC audio.

That’s literally it. Anything else is speculation and extrapolation.

But don’t let that stop you if you already know what caused the tragedy.

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

#125

Post by Leherenn »

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?

GA has FLARM.

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

#126

Post by joncrane »

rglover wrote: post #117
inaros wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully some commercial professional pilots will comment on this thread, but if you go to sites where they normally hang out like: https://www.airlinepilotforums.com You will see many are terrified ( in commercial pilot terms...) of flying into La Guardia or JFK...

> https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/major/152572-aircraft-fir... Just a quick read/speculation based on the linked forum post... Short of insane visibility conditions that prevented them from seeing the plane coming, the firetruck operator seems to be the liable party (beyond the airport for understaffing controllers—this seems to be exacerbated by government cuts but that's still no excuse for having a solo control…

The controller was talking to Frontier plane when he first said stop, then said stopstopTruck1stopstopstop and it would be easy for there to be a gap in processing for the driver of truck 1 because the verbiage all flowed in the same stanza that was started when addressing the Frontier flight.

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

#127

Post by frenchtoast8 »

notRobot wrote: post #2

There was a single traffic controller handling the entire airport. This was bound to happen and will keep happening unless things change. It's absurd that the US hasn't been able to fix its ATC shortage in decades. Currently over 41% of facilities are reliant on mandatory overtime, with controllers frequently working 60-hour weeks with only four days off per month.

From the article:

> But he [Sean Duffy] denied rumors that the tower had only one controller on duty.

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

#128

Post by onetokeoverthe »

duped wrote: post #108
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 constraint…

[dead]

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

#129

Post by dgoldstein0 »

lvspiff wrote: post #98
adolph wrote: post #62

It is surprising to me that airports do not use an interlock system for deconflicting the various paths segments that may be occupied by a vehicle. Trains have used mechanical ones since the 1800s [0]. The story and comments seem to indicate the only thing preventing collisions is the mind of one person--that sounds insane. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlocking

If school busses can look both ways before crossing train tracks you'd think a firetruck would look both ways for airplanes coming down a runway. Don't want to blame the firemen though - this was a series of extrmeemly unfortuante scenarios and people trying to keep the airport running safely. For years people have been on soap boxes saying the FAA/NTSB needs to do better, and yet year after year they are poorly run…

A quick Google gives me that a 737 typically lands between 144 and 180 mph. I think that's quite a lot faster than most people are watching out for. Good news is they are bigger than cars and so easier to spot at a distance but I'm still skeptical that "look before you cross the runway" is sufficiently safe. Keep in mind that the planes may not even be on the ground yet - at the top end in 30s they could go from a 1.5 miles away in the sky (and up to 300-400ft in the air) to plowing through your position (iirc runways are about 2 miles long for jets).

I wonder if it'd even be reliable to see such a plane coming fast enough.

Now multiply that by the dozens of planes in your vicinity, and by the 100ish big US airports.

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

#130

Post by sssilver »

rglover wrote: post #117
inaros wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully some commercial professional pilots will comment on this thread, but if you go to sites where they normally hang out like: https://www.airlinepilotforums.com You will see many are terrified ( in commercial pilot terms...) of flying into La Guardia or JFK...

> https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/major/152572-aircraft-fir... Just a quick read/speculation based on the linked forum post... Short of insane visibility conditions that prevented them from seeing the plane coming, the firetruck operator seems to be the liable party (beyond the airport for understaffing controllers—this seems to be exacerbated by government cuts but that's still no excuse for having a solo control…

> Is it common now to have solo operators running control towers?

At Class D airports it’s always been the norm. But KLGA is Class B.

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