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LaGuardia pilots raised safety alarms months before deadly runway crash

theguardian.com

191–200 of 324 posts

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

#191
"... we have an odor on the plane as well here at this time. We are going to be going back to the gate, request fire as well." - United pilot

"2384, it is oder like a smoke odor ...like from fire?" - Control

"No, it was a weird odor. I don't know exactly how to describe it. But yeah... we can't get a hold of anyone at the ops for a gate assignment." - United pilot

"Ground, United 2384 is declaring an emergency. The flight attendants in the back are feeling ill because of the odor. We will need to go into an available gate at this time." - United pilot

"... the fire trucks are over there. They're going to bring a stair truck just in case you guys do want to evacuate. Let me know if you do." - Control

"Copy, yeah, we prefer to wait on a gate, but I mean, again, we only got so much time here because there's still a bit of odor in the back of the airplane." - United pilot

"646, number two, clear to land 4." - Control

"Truck one and company, cross four Delta." - Control

"Truck one and company, crossing four at Delta." - Truck 1

"Stop, stop, stop, stop, Truck 1. Stop,stop, stop. Stop, Truck 1, Stop." - Control

"That was - that wasn't good to watch." - Frontier pilot

"Yeah, I know. I was here. I tried to reach out to [inaudible]. We were dealing with an emergency earlier... um, I messed up." - Control

"No, man, you did the best you could." -Frontier pilot

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

#192
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Does someone say there is only one controller working? Just because that particular recording has only one controller doesn't mean nobody else is working.

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

#193
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

> That one controller was handling both ground and air ...

Why do you (or why does anyone) think that? My point in the GP was, I have yet to see evidence that there was only one controller, and I have seen evidence that there were two.

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

#194
post #177
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…

What structural change would permit a worker to take initiative and say "Hey, these working conditions are wrong/inadequate and I will not safely do my job today unless proper changes are made", without risk of getting fired by higher-ups? Empowering workers to make safety-critical meta-decisions does not seem to be a feature of actually-existing capitalism.

> What structural change would permit a worker to take initiative and say "Hey, these working conditions are wrong/inadequate and I will not safely do my job today unless proper changes are made", without risk of getting fired by higher-ups?

Well, what you are describing is a strike, and it is currently illegal for ATC to strike, so in theory one possible structural change would be to make it legal for the workers to do what you're describing.

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

#195
post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The current US President is the last person we should listen to when it comes to deciding anything important.

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

#196
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on what change you would like to occur? I have voted based on getting particular people nominated within a federal agency, requires the President to pick someone who will 100% be from their party, and a Senate committee that will confirm them people tend to think "I'm voting against my best interests" without knowing that the agency control was my best interest as it will most likely continue shapin…

Very doubtful whatever agency you can conjour up as an excuse will be more impactful than the country wide changed induced by the overall administration

cute that you think impact is the goal

vote in your local elections if the feds aren't involved the way you wish

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

#197
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I very much doubt that you know the exact timing of the event. My guess is that you might have seen a video where some industrious editor put the ATC recordings over the leaked surveilance footage, but there is no way that is correctly synced.

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

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The current US President is the last person we should listen to when it comes to deciding anything important.

By using the role name rather than proper name, I'd hoped to spare HN from a tangent like this. My point doesn't rest on the nature of single individual, but instead applies to a human tendency. Politicians and press both play to the base impulses of a mass audience, unlike the NTSB. This is not the first time that a politician has scapegoated individuals when systemic failure occurs.

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

#199
post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Does someone say there is only one controller working? Just because that particular recording has only one controller doesn't mean nobody else is working.

You can hear him directing ground and air traffic.
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