Friday night’s near-disaster at JFK airport • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by ip26 » Mon, Jan 16, 2023, 3:52 AM UTC

techdragon wrote: post #129

seo-speedwagon wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A long time ago I was on a FAA certification test flight where we tested maximum braking. I wasn’t in the flight deck, so I don’t know if it was literally true, but it was described as “pilot standing on the brakes” and it sure felt that way. All our equipment was strapped down and when the pilot hit the brakes for our first test my glasses flew off my face. Those brakes are no joke

Maximum breaking, is powerful stuff… Real red hot metal and tolerances engineering stuff. You have to be able to stop the airplane at it’s maximum take off weight at the maximum takeoff ground speed (got to account for tail winds) within the acceptable safety stopping distance on the runway, and they have to sit there after this without any help for several minutes to represent the time it can take to scramble ground…

The classic:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qew09gao3S8

In short, the whole brake assembly catches fire- and continues to operate.

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

#172

Post by labster » Mon, Jan 16, 2023, 3:53 AM UTC

CamperBob2 wrote: post #128

Spooky23 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cer…

What would be better for safety? One $10000 light bulb, or ten $10 light bulbs?

Compared to the cost of an air incident, $9900 is a rounding error. You’d need an actuary to know for sure, but even small differences in safety margin can be worth the cost in aviation.

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

#173

Post by perihelions » Mon, Jan 16, 2023, 3:53 AM UTC

eterm wrote: post #81

andrepd wrote: post #70

ATC recordings, plus a diagram more or less to scale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N1gDSZJ5s0

Interesting, because it's clear from the recording (but not the article) that the taxi instruction was read back correctly, just not followed correctly.

(At 2:48 - 2:56 if anyone's searching).

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

#174

Post by throwayyy479087 » Mon, Jan 16, 2023, 3:55 AM UTC

jMyles wrote: post #126

I want to offer a bit of a different perspective than the one I'm seeing in other comments which (totally reasonably) wonder if a) JFK is too busy or needs some safety upgrades and b) whether voice contact with ATC is the best way to reduce risk during unusual events like incursions. I'm just an amateur enthusiast who listens to a lot of ATC, so take this assessment with that grain of salt: JFK has long had a unique…

Fantastic comment. Also on the language front, New York English is spoken faster and with more emphasis - likely to be helpful here compared to say, Texan.

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

#175

Post by dehrmann » Mon, Jan 16, 2023, 3:56 AM UTC

KRAKRISMOTT wrote: post #52

hn_user2 wrote: post #43

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…

Why are the lights expensive?

I can't imagine they're more expensive than a collision.

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

#176

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jan 16, 2023, 4:02 AM UTC

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #143

fragmede wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Red tape isn't the phrase I'd use in this context since your point is that the switch will work 100% of the time even after being thru a literal hurricane, so the difference isn't merely the tape, but that there's been proper testing and engineering all the way down, which drives the cost way up.

Every strip of BS red adhesive has some flimsy pretext to justify it. Nobody is saying you can't pour theoretically meaningful pork into a traffic light in the form of QA and whatnot and get an indestructible traffic light that operates for a century without being touched in return. People are questioning whether that's actually necessary for a system that's already the Nth layer of redundancy.

[deleted]

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

#177

Post by dev_tty01 » Mon, Jan 16, 2023, 4:03 AM UTC

jcgoette wrote: post #141

hn_user2 wrote: post #43

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…

WSJ article made it seem as if these lights were already in place: "Airport officials also inspected lights meant to indicate when it isn’t safe for planes to venture across runways and verified they were working at that particular runway, according to the summary."

So, the American flight didn't follow directions or the lights. If that turns out to be the case, wow.

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

#178

Post by HeyLaughingBoy » Mon, Jan 16, 2023, 4:10 AM UTC

techdragon wrote: post #129

seo-speedwagon wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A long time ago I was on a FAA certification test flight where we tested maximum braking. I wasn’t in the flight deck, so I don’t know if it was literally true, but it was described as “pilot standing on the brakes” and it sure felt that way. All our equipment was strapped down and when the pilot hit the brakes for our first test my glasses flew off my face. Those brakes are no joke

Maximum breaking, is powerful stuff… Real red hot metal and tolerances engineering stuff. You have to be able to stop the airplane at it’s maximum take off weight at the maximum takeoff ground speed (got to account for tail winds) within the acceptable safety stopping distance on the runway, and they have to sit there after this without any help for several minutes to represent the time it can take to scramble ground…

s/breaks/brakes

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

#179

Post by xwdv » Mon, Jan 16, 2023, 4:12 AM UTC

KRAKRISMOTT wrote: post #52

hn_user2 wrote: post #43

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…

Why are the lights expensive?

The lights are a critical system that must operate without failure or errors.

You could do it a lot cheaper if you could accept them not working correctly sometimes. Like occasionally all the lights at an intersection would be green or something.

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

#180

Post by dehrmann » Mon, Jan 16, 2023, 4:13 AM UTC

pedalpete wrote: post #6

Are we're relying on pilots who are holding many many things in their heads to follow only the verbal directions of air traffic control? Two alternatives that I would think would be fairly easy to implement. 1) Google maps style directions input by air traffic control showing as well as telling the pilot what runway/path to runway to take. 2) Coloured lighting directing the pilot to the right runway via the correct p…

> Are we're relying on pilots who are holding many many things in their heads to follow only the verbal directions of air traffic control?

With how much can be going on at major airports, probably. If ATC routed you on one taxiway the last 10 flights, then switched it up, you could easy repeat back what they told you while still thinking of the old route. Commercial aviation's safety record disagrees with me, though.