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LaGuardia pilots raised safety alarms months before deadly runway crash

theguardian.com

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

#241

Post by jmtulloss »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #230
vkou wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every other truck in the column immediately stopped when the call was made. Truck 1 was the only one that didn't.

They were all, including truck 1, queued up at the stop line waiting for clearance to cross. Truck 1 received clearance to cross, he began crossing, then received instructions to stop after it was too late. The rest of the emergency vehicles were stopped because they hadn’t been authorized. Truck 1 started moving because he had received specific instructions to do exactly what he was doing. I take it you’re not a pil…

FWIW the whole group received permission to cross. The instructions were to "Truck 1 and company", not just Truck 1

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

#242

Post by HoldOnAMinute »

m_fayer wrote: post #22
MisterTea wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I heard about the crash I immediately recalled the recent articles about ATC shortages and overworked ATC's. And here we are. ONE dude running ATC for LaGuardia. Mind boggling. I place no blame on the ATC as they were doing everything they could given the shit sandwich they were handed. I see this happening all over with staffs getting pared down to minimums, more (sometimes unpaid) over time, prices going up, a…

I’m not trying to minimize a tragedy, but maybe this is almost the perfect wake up call? Not many fatalities but nevertheless a spectacular collision. At a major hub airport in a major city. It’s hard to look away from, the cause is obvious, and all that without hundreds of deaths.

There are no "wake up calls" in America. If nothing changed after Sandy Hook, then nothing was ever going to change.

In the future, you'll wear your cow collar, own nothing, and like it.

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

#243

Post by _moof »

inaros wrote: post #60
pc86 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the controller in question was working both ground and air control simultaneously due to staffing shortages How many planes land at LGA in the middle the night? One controller overnight is completely reasonable.

>> One controller overnight is completely reasonable So if said controller has a medical episode?

That risk is managed through medical certification. The real problem with understaffing is that one person can't handle all that work.

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

#244

Post by hatthew »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #230
vkou wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every other truck in the column immediately stopped when the call was made. Truck 1 was the only one that didn't.

They were all, including truck 1, queued up at the stop line waiting for clearance to cross. Truck 1 received clearance to cross, he began crossing, then received instructions to stop after it was too late. The rest of the emergency vehicles were stopped because they hadn’t been authorized. Truck 1 started moving because he had received specific instructions to do exactly what he was doing. I take it you’re not a pil…

"Truck 1 and company" were cleared to cross. A few seconds later, "truck 1" was instructed to stop.

Edit: Confirmed truck 1 was the one involved in the collision. Previous text: It is unclear which truck specifically was involved in the crash. In photos, the truck has the number 35 on it, not sure if that would preclude it from being identified as "truck 1" verbally.

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

#245

Post by pbhjpbhj »

pc86 wrote: post #83
jakelazaroff wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are describing a staffing shortage.

"Staffing shortage" doesn't mean "you can fit more people in the tower." You can't think of any scenario having one controller makes sense?

When the airport is closed, in case there was an emergency that needed to reroute. One person on then makes sense?

La Guardia appears to handle 400 flights a day, 22 an hour. I see 6 moving planes right now (https://www.flightradar24.com/airport/lga); hopefully they have more than one person on?

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

#246

Post by _moof »

eviks wrote: post #69

With all the advances in technology, can there be no navigation app that can just tell you you're on a collision course instead of relying exclusivly on playing broken phone between flying and driving meatbags via a sitting one?

There is one. It's called ASDE-X. The truck wasn't participating.

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

#247

Post by _moof »

rekrsiv wrote: post #109

I am alarmed at the high number of supposed engineers on this thread that are seemingly unaware of how safety-critical systems work. Literally every other piece of this system has redundancy built into it. Robustness is never optional in a scenario involving human safety. When did this lunacy become an arguable position?

This is my field and the amount of extremely confident nonsense I've read on here in the last 24 hours is going to put me in the cardiac ICU.

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

#248

Post by _moof »

ivanjermakov wrote: post #146
rekrsiv wrote: post #109

I am alarmed at the high number of supposed engineers on this thread that are seemingly unaware of how safety-critical systems work. Literally every other piece of this system has redundancy built into it. Robustness is never optional in a scenario involving human safety. When did this lunacy become an arguable position?

I'm not in aerospce field, but surprised how low-tech and critical to human error takeoff/landing/taxi process is. We have TCAS/ACAS in air, but no similar automatic safety guards near/on the field?

We do have that on the ground. The truck wasn't participating.

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

#249

Post by downrightmike »

ndiddy wrote: 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…

ATC are under contract to not be able to quit, basically high stress slavery and the gov't put the screws to them. The only thing that will fix this is the rich can't fly their private jets

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

#250

Post by pc86 »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #245
pc86 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Staffing shortage" doesn't mean "you can fit more people in the tower." You can't think of any scenario having one controller makes sense?

When the airport is closed, in case there was an emergency that needed to reroute. One person on then makes sense? La Guardia appears to handle 400 flights a day, 22 an hour. I see 6 moving planes right now ( https://www.flightradar24.com/airport/lga ); hopefully they have more than one person on?

400 flights a day is 16-17 per hour and those are going to be mostly during the day. As someone else points out there is a ~6 hour stretch overnight with no scheduled departures. That's somewhat common even at large hubs.

I don't want to blow your mind but if the airport closes there aren't going to be any controllers in the tower.

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