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Friday night’s near-disaster at JFK airport

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

#181

Post by luisapic »

zmgsabst wrote: post #137
cguess wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it comes to airplanes 99% is never enough. It's why after every accident (or this near accident) there are months if not years of inquiries and analysis of every second leading up the incident going back days or weeks or even months. It's why flying is the safest way to travel by a huge margin. If even one indecent like this happens hundreds of people die in a horrible all consuming fire, travel for the entire s…

Right. So it’s very strange you’re passionately arguing to keep the riskier current setup that almost had a massive accident — rather than improve it. Perfect is the enemy of better.

[dead]

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

#182

Post by mypalmike »

Spooky23 wrote: post #101
ars wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The extra cost for safety is reducing safety because it's causing this not to get installed. Maybe it's worth having a worse system that actually is there.

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…

There are already crews at every major airport that inspect and replace runway lights every day. Maintaining more lights doesn't seem like a massive new undertaking in the way you are describing.

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

#183

Post by jonnybgood »

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…

Does this same subculture apply to LGA?

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

#184

Post by interestica »

teaearlgraycold wrote: post #170
LarryMullins wrote: post #86

> (“Shit! Delta 1943 cancel takeoff clearance!”) This isn't a real quote, is it? I was surprised to read ATC losing their composure like that, but in the linked video/audio there is no utterance of Shit! that I can hear.

Honestly the "Shit!" is good communication. Breaking composure and normalcy can ensure everyone hearing the message treats it as urgent. That might make the difference when seconds are on the line.

That's hilarious but you're right. It's absurd enough that it could be included in training.

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

#185

Post by astrange »

cguess wrote: post #142
exmadscientist wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 99% is never enough 99% is absolutely reasonable for one layer of defense among many ! That is one of the best methods to achieve truly high reliability, as is needed in this case: stack many reliable systems in such a way that they all must fail to get an overall failure. It is not perfect, of course, and things can always cascade, but it is a powerful technique.

I'm guessing you've never worked in system-critical infrastructure? Airplanes are another level up from that. I'm not the one saying this, the FAA and NTSB are. Nothing is allowed to go wrong, ever.

I've been stuck at SFO for hours at least once a year because our flight had some mechanical issue. (Always on a Delta flight to ATL or MSP, don't know why.)

They did fix it and then eventually we took off. In a way that's "not going wrong". On the other hand, they didn't cancel it and send the plane to be disassembled for failure analysis. That'd certainly be safer.

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

#186

Post by Aeolun »

thecosmicfrog wrote: post #113
plusminusplus wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How difficult is it to stop an aircraft like that so quickly? More than yanking an emergency brake handle I'm assuming.

Before takeoff on all modern airliners, the autobrake system is set to a mode called "RTO" (Rejected Take Off). If at any stage during the takeoff roll the throttles are pulled back to their idle position (an instinctive move during an abort), maximum wheel braking is applied, along with extension of the ground spoilers on the wings (the panels which "stick up" on the wings when you land). Pilots will also usually ap…

That’s pretty smart! Thanks for the explanation.

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

#188

Post by chrischattin »

michaericalribo wrote: post #120
mgsouth wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. That's almost unheard of. There's a speed called "V1"; this is the last possible moment for a pilot to start aborting the takeoff. There's another speed called "Vr", which is when the pilot starts the rotation (lifting the nose off the ground) [1]. Vr is higher than V1. Past V1 its unsafe to abort, even if a tire blows or an engine fails. The only time it would be aborted would be if the pilot thinks the plane i…

Whoa fascinating. What makes it necessary to commit after V1?

It’s typically because there is not enough runway remaining to stop the plane if you abort past V1.

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

#189

Post by astrange »

jamiek88 wrote: post #103
ajross wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. That's... a street light.[1] When street lights become "very expensive of course" it's time to revisit our priors about how we regulate. And I say this as someone not normally inclined to libertarian rhetoric. [1] To be cle…

It’s not a street light. You aren’t going to have poles or hanging lights on a runway. It is embedded lights. That have to work without fail in extreme temps, all weathers, with planes rolling over them all day. They have to have certain visibility at different angles, they have to fail gracefully. These things are rarely ‘that’s just…’

Are there actually different more expensive lighting technologies for this? Or do you just get more lights so there's more redundancy?

Seems like most of those problems would be more caused by the power cables than the light itself.

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

#190

Post by dev_tty01 »

christophilus wrote: post #48

The animation in the tweet at the end of the article is something. Based on that, the deceleration looked remarkably fast. I imagine that was quite the ride for the folks in the Delta jet.

I was in a jet taxiing and headed for a runway crossing. I could see out the window a plane on coming in to land on the runway we were about to taxi across. It was clear from our speed that the pilots had no intention of stopping before crossing the runway. I could see it all unfolding and was actually considering taking off my seat belt and running to the cockpit. At that moment the pilot suddenly applied massive braking and we came to a stop just before crossing the runway as the landing plane sped down the runway right in front of us. Frightening.
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