Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

‘Confirming we are cleared to land?’ Who said what at Austin

fallows.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 402 posts

Re: ‘Confirming we are cleared to land?’ Who said what at Austin

#171

Post by ekianjo »

Fatnino wrote: post #138
ekianjo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he write-up doesn’t answer the key ”why” question —- why are existing procedures and training not suitable? This will be the job of the investigators but it sounds like obvious tower control human operator error.

It could be the fault of the southwest crew for dallying on the runway when there was an incoming jet. Had they gone immediately they would have been long gone by the time FedEx tried to land.

The tower control is there to tell planes what to do, not to leave judgment to the pilots.

Re: ‘Confirming we are cleared to land?’ Who said what at Austin

#172

Post by hef19898 »

qikInNdOutReply wrote: post #166
hef19898 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are not involved directly with any of that professionally, it is better to treat it the way non-developer treat the OS. Assume it will work as intended because loads of highly trained professionals take care of it. Added benefit ehen it comes to aviation: strict and sensible regulation (the MAX disaster notwithstanding).

Is this sarcasm? In a thread were we discuss the breaking down of a systems run by professionals?

No, I'm dead serious. To usr another example: surgery. Just assume people cutting you up know what they are doing, even if you do not have the slightst clue.

Re: ‘Confirming we are cleared to land?’ Who said what at Austin

#173

Post by operatingthetan »

seanhunter wrote: post #80
habibur wrote: post #31

Clickbait title that doesn't answer the question in title in its body.

The question in the post title is the first sub-bullet in the article. It is itself a quote from the transcript and gets to the heart of the human error that almost caused a disaster here. The article does confirm who said what when by having the transcript in the article. Not at all clickbaity.

Dang changed the title after they commented.

Re: ‘Confirming we are cleared to land?’ Who said what at Austin

#174

Post by sfeng »

cm2187 wrote: post #159
zackbloom wrote: post #123

Just to give a little context as a pilot: It is the job of the tower controller to decide who uses the runway when. There are often multiple planes waiting to take off, and multiple planes nearing the airport to land. It's not uncommon for a tower controller to allow a plane to takeoff while another is approaching the runway. The theory is, of course, that the flight will depart in plenty of time. In this case, the c…

But what about the Southwest crew? The article says they waited a full minute between being cleared for take off and starting to roll. Surely they wouldn't assume the runway is the right place to hang around in a busy airport, planes typically take off straight away. If they do that it will eat into any safety margin.

It's very likely the Southwest pilots were completing a checklist, programming their flight computer, or some other minor pre-takeoff activity before being ready to takeoff. A minute just isn't all that much of a delay. If the controller needed it to happen immediately, they should have first asked if the plane was ready, and then should have issued a takeoff clearance with 'without delay' or 'immediate' in it. Only then would be the Southwest pilots job to refuse the clearance if they couldn't comply immediately.

I am unaware if there is a formal definition of how long a controller should expect a flight to take before following a non-urgent instruction, but 60 seconds doesn't seem wild to me.

Now you could say that the Southwest pilots should have heard 'traffic 3 miles out', and understood that things need to move quickly. But as a pilot, I can say we don't have the traffic picture controllers have, particularly in bad weather. The general understanding is if we can't see other aircraft, we manage our plane, and its ATC who can get a picture of how fast the other aircraft are moving and what is safe from a separation perspective.

Re: ‘Confirming we are cleared to land?’ Who said what at Austin

#175

Post by hef19898 »

nenad wrote: post #167
hef19898 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are not involved directly with any of that professionally, it is better to treat it the way non-developer treat the OS. Assume it will work as intended because loads of highly trained professionals take care of it. Added benefit ehen it comes to aviation: strict and sensible regulation (the MAX disaster notwithstanding).

> If you are not involved directly with any of that professionally, it is better to treat it the way non-developer treat the OS. Assume it will work as intended because loads of highly trained professionals take care of it. Added benefit ehen it comes to aviation: strict and sensible regulation (the MAX disaster notwithstanding). Allow me to chime in and respectfully disagree with this sentiment and the metaphor. As…

And what makes anybody think this incident will not be properly reviewed, analyzed and suitable mitigation actions identified? And why do people on HN always think they know it better than the actual experts in this field, while just expectung users of their products, I just asse in most cases that is some piece of software, to worry about the details at all?

Re: ‘Confirming we are cleared to land?’ Who said what at Austin

#176

Post by pacificmint »

vlovich123 wrote: post #66
bobterryo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The conversation that we hear off the tape is only when the mic is keyed. There was probably a lot of discussion going on in the cockpit when the microphone was not live.

Are such conversations typically made available to the public, perhaps when the report comes out?

I believe it’s standard practice to publish tapes of the radio transmissions, but not from the cockpit voice recorders. They do publish a transcript though, if it is relevant.

Re: ‘Confirming we are cleared to land?’ Who said what at Austin

#177

Post by blitzar »

sfeng wrote: post #174
cm2187 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what about the Southwest crew? The article says they waited a full minute between being cleared for take off and starting to roll. Surely they wouldn't assume the runway is the right place to hang around in a busy airport, planes typically take off straight away. If they do that it will eat into any safety margin.

It's very likely the Southwest pilots were completing a checklist, programming their flight computer, or some other minor pre-takeoff activity before being ready to takeoff. A minute just isn't all that much of a delay. If the controller needed it to happen immediately, they should have first asked if the plane was ready, and then should have issued a takeoff clearance with 'without delay' or 'immediate' in it. Only…

As a passenger that flys almost exclusively long haul from very busy airports, it is rare that my plane will come to rest on the runway, generally accelerating in the turn onto the runway and taking off.

Re: ‘Confirming we are cleared to land?’ Who said what at Austin

#178

Post by Aeolun »

imoverclocked wrote: post #111
kqr wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another common thing I hear is about having the courage not to land. It's almost as if the dangerous part is low-altitude maneuvering!

Yup, an approach is a go-around with the option of landing. (Thanks Juan Brown) However, landing is eventually assured.

Well, reaching the ground is. Whether or not you can call it landing is a different question.

Re: ‘Confirming we are cleared to land?’ Who said what at Austin

#179

Post by _cenw »

camgunz wrote: post #164
srge wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Air trafic controller strikes have plagued our country (France) for many years and I see no indication that it makes our flight safety better

Not to be snarky, but these last couple close calls in the US feel like indication to me.

In 2020, ATC directed an incoming United 787 on the wrong runway at Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport. The only reason nothing terrible happened is that the Easyjet pilot on the wrong runway called for go-around after looking out the window, moments before the would-be collision.

Didn't make it beyond aviation news, probably because recording ATC is not allowed in France.

Human error will creep up everywhere, all you can control is the frequency.

Re: ‘Confirming we are cleared to land?’ Who said what at Austin

#180

Post by ericbarrett »

1letterunixname wrote: post #105
vlovich123 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also once you fix a software bug, it’s fixed forever (generally). Humans introduce all sorts of fun variability every time the program is run.

Expecting mechanical accuracy from humans is a fool's errand. ATC should be wearing VR goggles, visualizing approach and takeoff routing as it maps to flown with machines spotting the dangers similarly but differently from TCAS.

I interned at a VR lab at NASA Ames in the late 1990s. This very idea (ATC operations in low-vis conditions using VR or AR) was what fed their grant proposals. It has always been 20 years away; some of the things I learned:

1) VR itself can lead to spatial disorientation and will introduce its own control issues.

2) A significant percentage of people (~1 in 4) cannot use VR without motion sickness. This is independent of #1. Modern VR (Oculus etc.) at first claimed to be better, but guess what, plenty of people still get sick. Sinus congestion can cause this even in the tolerant.

3) Position reporting of planes today is nowhere near accurate, reliable, or real-time enough to present a whole picture of runway ops. This is fixable with enough $$$...but who pays?

4) I suspect "VR ops" procedures from the FAA would take years to be developed and approved, without some kind of urgent mandate.

My gut feeling is that we'll have automatic ground traffic control at major airports by the time the necessary systems are in place, and skip the goggled humans entirely.

Post reply on HN