Near mid-air collision at LAX between American Airlines and ITA [video] • Hacker News Board

Re: Near mid-air collision at LAX between American Airlines and ITA [video]

#101

Post by dang » Mon, Nov 10, 2025, 3:12 AM UTC

7thaccount wrote: post #98

dang wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry for the offtopicness but would you mind emailing us at hn@ycombinator.com? I want to arrange for a repost of something you submitted.

Me? For this comment or another? I can't imagine anything I've posted is that interesting lol.

Not for a comment - a submission you posted some time ago.

Re: Near mid-air collision at LAX between American Airlines and ITA [video]

#102

Post by goblin89 » Mon, Nov 10, 2025, 3:35 AM UTC

sdh9 wrote: post #39

gosub100 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One theory in the comments was that ITA loaded the wrong departure in their computer and just flew it without noticing that they were on the wrong side of the airport and/or ATC's prior instructions contradicted the electronic plan.

They had the correct SID, but the wrong runway.

They were taking off facing such direction that made runway 24 right be visually on the left, which may or may not have been a factor in them apparently loading and flying the left one even as they confirmed on the radio that they are flying the right one. Possibly tired or distracted pilot.

Re: Near mid-air collision at LAX between American Airlines and ITA [video]

#103

Post by bigbuppo » Mon, Nov 10, 2025, 7:49 AM UTC

gosub100 wrote: post #92

bigbuppo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They already have something better than that. It's called a published departure procedure that pilots are supposed to follow. In this case, one of the pilots failed to follow the published departure procedure and came close to being on the next season of Mayday: Air Disaster.

you haven't shown why thats any better.

The paths would be repetitive. Wouldn't it be great if, instead of drawing a new path in 3D space every single time someone files a flight plan, someone studied the area surrounding the airport, taking into account obstacles, traffic, the fact that there's a residential neighborhood on one end of the airport that shouldn't be bothered at night, and prevailing wind patterns, and drew all those 3D paths through the sky and published them for everyone to use, so that traffic follows known predictable paths?

And in the case of a deviation, would it be faster to pick up a stylus, draw a new path in 3D space, click send, and wait for a message acknowledging that... or someone yelling "27 alpha turn right heading 270 immediately"?

Re: Near mid-air collision at LAX between American Airlines and ITA [video]

#104

Post by aprentic » Thu, Nov 13, 2025, 1:10 AM UTC

comeonbro wrote: post #57

aprentic wrote: post #46

I was watching KBOS https://www.flightaware.com/live/airport/KBOS on Thursday morning and saw a couple of Cape Air flights that looked like they were within 500 feet of each other. I suspect we'll be hearing more of these stories soon.

If you are casually listening to ATC for fun then you should be able to recognize that the event in this story is not ATC error...

I'm listening to ATC for education. I'm not confident in my ability to understand it correctly. That's why I qualified my level of certainty.

FWIW, the KBOS incident I saw didn't seem to be ATC either, if it was actually what I thought it was. It does seem like either of them may have been caught earlier if there had been more ATCs on staff or if they weren't as stressed or sleep deprived.