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Near mid-air collision at LAX between American Airlines and ITA [video]

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Re: Near mid-air collision at LAX between American Airlines and ITA [video]

#21

Post by 12_throw_away »

IshKebab wrote: post #7

Kind of blows my mind how primitive this whole system still is. Audio quality is really bad. They're sending instructions by voice. The way they know who is speaking is by just saying their callsign with every message. There's got to be a better solution surely?

Right? Just in a car, we know that talking to someone in the car itself has adverse effects on situational awareness, and talking to someone on a phone is much worse than that. But even after all the research and training that goes into human factors in aviation ... we can't do better than confusing, poor quality, AM band party lines during critical phases of flight?

Re: Near mid-air collision at LAX between American Airlines and ITA [video]

#22

Post by jvanderbot »

goblin89 wrote: post #6
SilverElfin wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes exactly. They were within 1000 yards of each other and less than 5 seconds from colliding according to some videos analyzing the GPS data. If you listen to the ATC chat, the American Airlines pilot noticed the other plane going the wrong way himself and made a proactive change to avoid collision without waiting for ATC. Although the traffic controllers did notice and quickly gave out new directions, it may have b…

Edit: They were handed off to departures before tower’s traffic warning. The near-collision occurred in the middle of tower-departures handoff. Tower was warning them of traffic in hopes they were still on the frequency but they probably weren’t, and they noticed traffic just before they contacted departures. On ATC side, maybe departures could have been more proactive and warn AA of traffic together with tower. On A…

They said they had traffic in sight in response. As in "yes I see them". I believe their avoidance maneuver was a climb change.

Re: Near mid-air collision at LAX between American Airlines and ITA [video]

#23

Post by gosub100 »

goblin89 wrote: post #6
SilverElfin wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes exactly. They were within 1000 yards of each other and less than 5 seconds from colliding according to some videos analyzing the GPS data. If you listen to the ATC chat, the American Airlines pilot noticed the other plane going the wrong way himself and made a proactive change to avoid collision without waiting for ATC. Although the traffic controllers did notice and quickly gave out new directions, it may have b…

Edit: They were handed off to departures before tower’s traffic warning. The near-collision occurred in the middle of tower-departures handoff. Tower was warning them of traffic in hopes they were still on the frequency but they probably weren’t, and they noticed traffic just before they contacted departures. On ATC side, maybe departures could have been more proactive and warn AA of traffic together with tower. On A…

One theory in the comments was that ITA loaded the wrong departure in their computer and just flew it without noticing that they were on the wrong side of the airport and/or ATC's prior instructions contradicted the electronic plan.

Re: Near mid-air collision at LAX between American Airlines and ITA [video]

#24

Post by tekla »

lysace wrote: post #20
tekla wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean a situation where a pilot who is supposed to know English in the parlance of global aviation lingo seems to be playing dumb?

That is a unique thought.

I'm assuming you don't listen to ATC traffic much, and have general HN assumption you just know better than everyone else.

Re: Near mid-air collision at LAX between American Airlines and ITA [video]

#25

Post by jvanderbot »

IshKebab wrote: post #7

Kind of blows my mind how primitive this whole system still is. Audio quality is really bad. They're sending instructions by voice. The way they know who is speaking is by just saying their callsign with every message. There's got to be a better solution surely?

I want you to very carefully consider the better options.

Perhaps they type instructions? And hope someone reads them?

Perhaps they drag and drop vectors? Then what, a radial menu with emergency modal screens?

Or maybe they click some buttons, forcing the occasional look away from the screen?

Maybe AI could do it all?

For this, voice is perfect. We have been following instructions by voice since humans could grunt. We do not require anyone to look away from the screen (ATC) or look down from the window outside (pilot) for any reason.

We do not require rebroadcast because everyone can hear and take initiative if required.

By what interface, specifically, should someone required to fly an airplane interact with ATC while flying that airplane? By what interface should someone who needs to see where everyone is all the time be able to contact that pilot that cannot look away from the world outside ever and cannot use their hands for anything but flying at a critical time?

Chesterton's ATC.

Re: Near mid-air collision at LAX between American Airlines and ITA [video]

#26

Post by tekla »

12_throw_away wrote: post #21
IshKebab wrote: post #7

Kind of blows my mind how primitive this whole system still is. Audio quality is really bad. They're sending instructions by voice. The way they know who is speaking is by just saying their callsign with every message. There's got to be a better solution surely?

Right? Just in a car, we know that talking to someone in the car itself has adverse effects on situational awareness, and talking to someone on a phone is much worse than that. But even after all the research and training that goes into human factors in aviation ... we can't do better than confusing, poor quality, AM band party lines during critical phases of flight?

Would you rather them read text messages on their iPads?

Re: Near mid-air collision at LAX between American Airlines and ITA [video]

#27

Post by mmooss »

proteal wrote: post #14
IshKebab wrote: post #7

Kind of blows my mind how primitive this whole system still is. Audio quality is really bad. They're sending instructions by voice. The way they know who is speaking is by just saying their callsign with every message. There's got to be a better solution surely?

It has to do with how ATC needs to be able to communicate with all planes in the air, even ones built 100 years ago. They have to use radio so everyone can hear everyone else. There’s no other technology that is as ubiquitous as radio, so they have to work with what they’ve got. Upgrading to other stuff would be an absolute nightmare, though they are making progress on less critical fronts.

Couldn't comms broadcast in multiple parallel modes, like cell phone traffic?: More clear (probably digital) transmissions in on band, and for backward compatibility, old radio transmissions in another.

Re: Near mid-air collision at LAX between American Airlines and ITA [video]

#28

Post by gosub100 »

proteal wrote: post #14
IshKebab wrote: post #7

Kind of blows my mind how primitive this whole system still is. Audio quality is really bad. They're sending instructions by voice. The way they know who is speaking is by just saying their callsign with every message. There's got to be a better solution surely?

It has to do with how ATC needs to be able to communicate with all planes in the air, even ones built 100 years ago. They have to use radio so everyone can hear everyone else. There’s no other technology that is as ubiquitous as radio, so they have to work with what they’ve got. Upgrading to other stuff would be an absolute nightmare, though they are making progress on less critical fronts.

I think one of the best things they could add would be an electronic drawing tablet for ATC to draw a flight path on a map and pipe it directly into the pilots EFIS or HUD. It's not fool-proof, but in high density airspace, it seems more efficient to be able to draw a curve and press a button than try to verbally describe it. Of course one major pitfall is you cannot draw in 3D.

Re: Near mid-air collision at LAX between American Airlines and ITA [video]

#29

Post by db48x »

12_throw_away wrote: post #21
IshKebab wrote: post #7

Kind of blows my mind how primitive this whole system still is. Audio quality is really bad. They're sending instructions by voice. The way they know who is speaking is by just saying their callsign with every message. There's got to be a better solution surely?

Right? Just in a car, we know that talking to someone in the car itself has adverse effects on situational awareness, and talking to someone on a phone is much worse than that. But even after all the research and training that goes into human factors in aviation ... we can't do better than confusing, poor quality, AM band party lines during critical phases of flight?

Keep in mind that the person talking and listening to the radio is not the pilot flying the airplane. Pilot and Copilot alternate which job they are doing. It's not the same as the driver of a car talking on a phone.

Re: Near mid-air collision at LAX between American Airlines and ITA [video]

#30

Post by db48x »

gosub100 wrote: post #28
proteal wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has to do with how ATC needs to be able to communicate with all planes in the air, even ones built 100 years ago. They have to use radio so everyone can hear everyone else. There’s no other technology that is as ubiquitous as radio, so they have to work with what they’ve got. Upgrading to other stuff would be an absolute nightmare, though they are making progress on less critical fronts.

I think one of the best things they could add would be an electronic drawing tablet for ATC to draw a flight path on a map and pipe it directly into the pilots EFIS or HUD. It's not fool-proof, but in high density airspace, it seems more efficient to be able to draw a curve and press a button than try to verbally describe it. Of course one major pitfall is you cannot draw in 3D.

That would be slower and ironically less precise than what we already have, which is navigation by named waypoints.
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