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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

#151

Post by bko »

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…

> this seems to be exacerbated by government cuts

What government cuts? 2025 FAA air traffic budget was up around 7% from 2025

https://enotrans.org/article/senate-bill-oks-27-billion-faa-...

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

#152

Post by [deleted] »

rekrsiv wrote: post #109

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?

[deleted]

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

#153

Post by vkou »

joncrane wrote: post #126
rglover wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Every other truck in the column immediately stopped when the call was made. Truck 1 was the only one that didn't.

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

#154

Post by journal »

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.

Why drain resources training more controllers when we're having energy collapse? Even if they start pumping oil, it will only delay the inevitable. What would we do with all the extra controllers if we have to fire them in ten years anyway?

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

#155

Post by sentientslug »

0xffff2 wrote: post #87
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

While it's not as sophisticated, there is a technology called Runway Entrance Lights [0] that does somewhat the same thing in the specific context of this incident. LGA is one of 20 airports around the country where this system is installed, and you can clearly see that the system was functioning if you know where to look in the surveillance video that is circulating online. For whatever reason, the truck did not res…

A runway light does not physically prevent a vehicle from entering a restricted area in the same way that an interlock would. Not saying it’s practical but an interlock would have indeed prevented an accident of this type.

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

#156

Post by amiga386 »

m_fayer wrote: post #22
MisterTea wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I heard about the crash I immediately recalled the recent articles about ATC shortages and overworked ATC's. And here we are. ONE dude running ATC for LaGuardia. Mind boggling. I place no blame on the ATC as they were doing everything they could given the shit sandwich they were handed. I see this happening all over with staffs getting pared down to minimums, more (sometimes unpaid) over time, prices going up, a…

I’m not trying to minimize a tragedy, but maybe this is almost the perfect wake up call? Not many fatalities but nevertheless a spectacular collision. At a major hub airport in a major city. It’s hard to look away from, the cause is obvious, and all that without hundreds of deaths.

The perfect wake up call before this perfect wake up call was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Potomac_River_mid-air_col...

Imagine how good the next wake up call will be!

See also Preemptive Memorial Honors Future Victims Of Imminent Dam Disaster: https://theonion.com/preemptive-memorial-honors-future-victi...

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

#157

Post by zardo »

FL410 wrote: post #14
metalliqaz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know it was due to staffing shortages? It is common at LGA for one controller to be handling Tower and Ground late at night.

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

It seems like a critical enough role that you probably want two people there in case one has a medical emergency anyway. Even if it's not that busy.

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

#158

Post by 0xffff2 »

sentientslug wrote: post #155
0xffff2 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it's not as sophisticated, there is a technology called Runway Entrance Lights [0] that does somewhat the same thing in the specific context of this incident. LGA is one of 20 airports around the country where this system is installed, and you can clearly see that the system was functioning if you know where to look in the surveillance video that is circulating online. For whatever reason, the truck did not res…

A runway light does not physically prevent a vehicle from entering a restricted area in the same way that an interlock would. Not saying it’s practical but an interlock would have indeed prevented an accident of this type.

Yes, I get that. But an airport is not a rail network. The question is how you would actually implement physical interlocks on an airport in a way that works and is safe while controlling movement of everything from a pickup truck to an A380? It's an incredibly hard problem to solve. And keeping in mind too that the Runway Status/Entrance Lights first started development over 30 years ago and are still only deployed at 20 airports, despite being a vastly simpler system than one controlling physical barriers.

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

#159

Post by dmitrygr »

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…

NTSB's M.O. has always been that there is never just one cause. A human mistake that costs lives is never that simple. There is a system that trained the person, a set of incentives that put the person into that place, a set of safeguards that should have existed to prevent the mistake from causing life loss, and a regulatory framework to occasionally verify all of the above. I would expect that "the controller made a mistake" would be ~one paragraph in a 100-page report.

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

#160

Post by onefiftymike »

garaetjjte wrote: post #133
xeonmc wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I am reminded of the Uberlingen disaster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_%C3%9Cberlingen_mid-air_c...

I think https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Los_Angeles_runway_collis... is more applicable.

Admiral Cloudberg has a great writeup about this. I instantly thought of LA when I saw the headlines about the LaGuardia collision.

https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/cleared-to-collide-the-c...

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