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Friday night’s near-disaster at JFK airport

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Re: Friday night’s near-disaster at JFK airport

#101
post #79
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manufacturing certifications, installation and maintenance inspections and certifications, auditing, etc. To put it into some relatable context, a simple electrical switch that you might grab for a few bucks at your local Home Depot would cost at least several hundreds of dollars because of all the red tape that must be satisfied for safety reasons. Safety isn't cheap.

The extra cost for safety is reducing safety because it's causing this not to get installed. Maybe it's worth having a worse system that actually is there.

Easy to preach, harder to practice.

When I was an intern I got to help change the blinking red light on top of a 50 story building. It’s a big deal that was scheduled weeks in advance and probably involved two dozen people, a special lightbulb and a bunch of coordination.

Even among the team working it plenty of “how many X does it take to change a light bulb” jokes were told.

But consider than a pilot depends on certain things being there when things go wrong. If the weather is bad and there’s issues with instruments, seeing that red light is the difference between life and death. There are potentially dozens or hundreds of people on a plane and if I recall correctly up to 4,000 people in the building.

When life is at risk, the standard for engineering must be higher.

Re: Friday night’s near-disaster at JFK airport

#102
post #13

> strong kudos are due both to the air traffic controller who called off the Delta 737 and to the pilots of that plane who managed to abort their takeoff and stop the aircraft before it crossed runway 31L where the Boeing widebody passed in front of it Can't agree more

How difficult is it to stop an aircraft like that so quickly? More than yanking an emergency brake handle I'm assuming.

[deleted]

Re: Friday night’s near-disaster at JFK airport

#103
post #91

For those thinking about preventative solutions, there are some existing, all very expensive of course. The simplest is placing a row of red lights in the ground at all intersections to runways. When an airplane is cleared for takeoff and until it is airborne the controller presses a button and turns all these lights red. Pilots are instructed that regardless of clearance, a red light over-rides that, and to never cr…

> For those thinking about preventative solutions, there are some existing, all very expensive of course. The simplest is placing a row of red lights in the ground at all intersections to runways. That's... a street light.[1] When street lights become "very expensive of course" it's time to revisit our priors about how we regulate. And I say this as someone not normally inclined to libertarian rhetoric. [1] To be cle…

It’s not a street light.

You aren’t going to have poles or hanging lights on a runway.

It is embedded lights.

That have to work without fail in extreme temps, all weathers, with planes rolling over them all day.

They have to have certain visibility at different angles, they have to fail gracefully.

These things are rarely ‘that’s just…’

Re: Friday night’s near-disaster at JFK airport

#104
DELTA1943: "Alright, and uh, woof!"

ATC: "Delta 1943, are you able to taxi or do you need a couple of minutes to run checks?"

DELTA1943: "Yeah, we can get off the runway" but they're all going to need a change of underwear!!

And I thought the Brits were known for understatement!

Re: Friday night’s near-disaster at JFK airport

#105

The animation in the tweet at the end of the article is something. Based on that, the deceleration looked remarkably fast. I imagine that was quite the ride for the folks in the Delta jet.

I've experienced maximum breaking in an emergency landing. Many passengers (including me) instinctively put their hands on the seat in front to steady themselves. You could easily slide around if the seat belt were loose. It was it worst for children whose legs didn't reach the floor, but there were none seated near me.

Rejected takeoffs and clear air turbulence are why I never do infant-in-arms.

Re: Friday night’s near-disaster at JFK airport

#107

> (“Shit! Delta 1943 cancel takeoff clearance!”) This isn't a real quote, is it? I was surprised to read ATC losing their composure like that, but in the linked video/audio there is no utterance of Shit! that I can hear.

The ATC is dawning on the fact that if they don't call off the takeoff within 5 more seconds, V1 speed will be hit and there goes both planes... I'm surprised they weren't less composed...

Re: Friday night’s near-disaster at JFK airport

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These lights would not be the only thing keeping hundreds from being killed. ATC clearances over the radio are the primary thing; this is a secondary system.

That's an example of why they're expensive: they need to be engineered as if one day they might be. And no one chooses when or where that is

That doesn't seem logical if the alternative is not having the lights at all.

Re: Friday night’s near-disaster at JFK airport

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you ask George Carlin: https://youtu.be/zDKdvTecYAM

Without re-watching the video in question, wasn't Carlin's complaint about a "near miss"? A "near collision" is everything he asked for.

.... damn, you're right.
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