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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

#161

Post by dmitrygr »

jliptzin wrote: post #144
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…

Is it possible to automate the job of an ATC controller? At least partially? Or at least just as a sanity check on every human decision? Not saying I want human ATC controllers replaced, but if there’s a severe staff shortage, I feel like a computerized version is better than nothing at all.

No, a lot of it is human - asking for things, getting things.

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

#162

Post by 0xffff2 »

jliptzin wrote: post #144
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…

Is it possible to automate the job of an ATC controller? At least partially? Or at least just as a sanity check on every human decision? Not saying I want human ATC controllers replaced, but if there’s a severe staff shortage, I feel like a computerized version is better than nothing at all.

In this specific incident, there was a system in place called Runway Entrance Lights [0] that does serve as an automated sanity check on controllers commands. The surveillance video that is circulating shows that the system was working and indicated that the runway was not safe to enter. It's not clear yet why the truck entered the runway anyway.

0: https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/rwsl

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

#163

Post by RankingMember »

mmooss wrote: post #106
RankingMember wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 -…

That one controller was handling both ground and air is still a bit of a tell that there was some short-handedness afoot, though, by my eye.

> The best thing is to patiently find reliable info and stick to it.

No disagreement here

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

#164

Post by mannykannot »

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.

The controller was not guilty of malfeasance, but clearing the trucks onto the runway with an airliner on short final was a mistake, no matter whatever else one could say about it.

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

#165

Post by 0xffff2 »

fn-mote wrote: post #148
duped wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The carriers need to eat the costs of forcing too much demand on ATCs. Running ATC (and limiting flights if necessary) seems like the job of the government to me. Why put this on the carriers?

Put the costs on the carriers, not hand the job over to them.

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

#166

Post by cyberax »

mmooss wrote: post #106
RankingMember wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 -…

You can listen to the ATC recordings before and after the accident.

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

#167

Post by BobaFloutist »

0xffff2 wrote: post #158
sentientslug wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm curious how much of a buffer there is between the time the sensors detect the airplane and it being safe to enter the runway.

Is it definitely safe to cross the runway in a vehicle moving a normal speed up to the moment before the lights turn red? Is it safe for a little bit afterward? Or is it unsafe even a little before the lights turn red?

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

#168

Post by fred_is_fred »

avemg wrote: post #91
fred_is_fred wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was the 2nd plane on a runway still also?

it was on a taxiway. The fire truck had to cross the runway to get to it.

Thanks for the info, I wasnt sure if the fire truck crossing the runway was normal operation.

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

#169

Post by rectang »

wk_end wrote: post #143
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…

The NTSB - and aviation in general - as much as possible tries to avoid "pinning" issues on individuals. The purpose of an investigation isn't to ascribe blame, it's to try to understand what happened and how to prevent it from happening again, and prescribing "don't make mistakes" is not a realistic or useful method for preventing accidents from recurring.

Yes! But every news organization is leading with "I messed up." And the US President commented "They messed up", though it's unclear who that was in reference to.

Humans have a powerful need to affix blame and punish individuals. On the internet, you are forever the worst moment of your life.

We set air traffic controllers up to fail, and then when something goes wrong we torture them until they die, and then torture their memory after they die.

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

#170

Post by throwaway5752 »

Everybody is, not just the pilots. The US ATC system has been in a state of induced crisis since Reagan broke the union's back in the 1980s. Then Trump took office, laid off a bunch of people, cancelled a bunch of hires, and immediately that led to the conditions for the Potomac / DCA collision.

The US is just in an active state of collapse in many areas, including air travel.

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