UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport • Hacker News Board

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#251

Post by potato3732842 » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 4:10 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #198

Arainach wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>None? Nobody puts airports inside city centers and metro areas don’t just have dense urban housing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midway_International_Airport It's hard to project growth. Things build right up to the limit of the airport for convenient access, then the area grows and the airport needs to grow - and what do you do? Seattle-Tacoma is critically undersized for the traffic it gets and has been strugglin…

Zoning is one option to direct growth, but you can move airports. Chicago is right next to a Great Lake and there’s relatively shallow areas ready to be reclaimed etc. Obviously you’re better off making such decisions early rather than building a huge airport only to abandon it. Thus it’s called urban planning not urban triage.

>Zoning is one option to direct growth

My magic crystal ball named "the past 50yr of history" says it is unlikely to be the success you envision.

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#252

Post by ferguess_k » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 4:10 PM UTC

usermac wrote: post #247

Relative of mine is a real estate agent in the Louisville area. This year she sold two homes to two UPS pilots. One of them, his first day was yesterday. The day of the crash. He was bumped from that very flight.

From my understanding "bumped" means removed? Jesus I wonder how he feels right now. It's like a lottery.

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#253

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 4:11 PM UTC

Modified3019 wrote: post #148

bombcar wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the biggest, the weight gone entirely unbalances the plane; if you knew exactly what happened you MIGHT be able to keep it level (and it seems they did for a bit) but eventually airspeed drops, it tips, and cartwheels (which is apparently what it did from the videos).

The aircraft hit the roof of a UPS warehouse, barely clearing it before coming down in the parking lot/junkyard nearby. So when we see it turning over in its last seconds (like the trucker dash cam video), it only had one wing at that point.

[deleted]

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#254

Post by rkomorn » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 4:11 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #216

rkomorn wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IMHO, this is a perfect example why the government needs to regulate prices in safety-critical industries. The "race to the bottom" must be prevented - sorry, flying NYC-SFO for 70$, that's not sustainable. Are you saying higher prices would lead to better safety? If so, I think it's optimistic to assume that would be the result, rather than just more profits. I'm all for tighter regulations and enforcement on safe…

> Are you saying higher prices would lead to better safety? Higher prices and regulations . With no floor on pricing, there will always be enough greedy executives who are willing to cut corners to make money in a ruthlessly competitive environment, fully knowing that it is very hard to prosecute a C-level executive personally. The other possible result will be that eventually the market "agrees upon" a minimum price…

I kiiinda see where you're coming from but I guess I just don't buy it, TBH.

I think greed is what's causing cut corners.

You mention Boeing, and they were quite healthily profitable during the entire time they were cutting corners on the 737 MAX. Airbus wasn't an existential threat. It still isn't, in fact, even after all the fallout.

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#255

Post by ChrisMarshallNY » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 4:13 PM UTC

chronciger wrote: post #164

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Zoning guidance generally prohibits land use near an airport that has a high density of people Queens, NY has entered the chat…

>Queens, NY has entered the chat… You’re correct, but at least LaGuardia airport generally has takeoffs over water. LaGuardia aircraft landings may happen over dense apartment buildings, but less likely for catastrophic damage (glide path, less fuel, engines are <10% throttle, etc)

It also has JFK, on the South side.

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#256

Post by panxyh » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 4:14 PM UTC

t0mas88 wrote: post #228

panxyh wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Nope, AI would probably have written it nicer, I just typed it on my phone :)

Oh, cheers then :)

But regarding flight ability, wouldn't that be V2? I thought there exist conditions where V1 is well below rotation speed.

Anyways,

> to make sure you can stop before the end of the runway

answers my main question, and makes sense from a procedural standpoint.

But still, hard to believe that there is no room for in-situ evaluation if runway overrun is worse than likely crash. Of course then again, those have to be split second decisions.

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#257

Post by jonas21 » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 4:15 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #212

nostrademons wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

San Jose does. You can, in theory, walk to downtown from the airport; it's about an hour and a half via pedestrian trail: https://maps.app.goo.gl/zhZdA5tWGAKunM2e8 (This is widely considered a misfeature of San Jose - it limits the height of buildings in downtown San Jose to 10 stories because the downtown is directly under the flight path of arriving flights, it limits runway length and airport expansion, and it mea…

There’s roughly a mile of roads, green spaces, and river between the airport and downtown San Jose which an absolutely identical accident would impact. It’s not very wide, but pilots aren’t going to aim for buildings if they can help it. So while downtown being in the flight path is a risk there was some method to the madness which caused that alignment.

San Diego's airport, on the other hand, has the a bustling restaurant district, an interstate with frequent bumper-to-bumper traffic, and a dense residential neighborhood all within a mile off one end of the runway -- and a popular shopping area, an elementary school, and a high school within just over a mile from the other end.

In addition, the terrain rises in both directions (so sharply on one side that planes can't use ILS when landing from that direction).

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#258

Post by inejge » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 4:16 PM UTC

decimalenough wrote: post #207

chaostheory wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is likely relevant https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/airplane-maintenance... TDLR 10-20 years ago, the US started allowing maintenance of domestic planes in foreign countries, outside the reach of the FAA’s inspections

The engine that fell off (!) had been worked on for two hours at Louisville, KY immediately before takeoff. Occam's Razor suggests that whatever they did right there is to blame.

> Occam's Razor suggests that whatever they did right there is to blame.

Ordinarily yes, but in this case there are reports that the plane underwent a "heavy maintenance check" from Sep 3 to Oct 18, which may have included engine removal and overhaul (source: pprune.org, from a poster who's not given to flights of fancy.)

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#259

Post by js2 » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 4:19 PM UTC

sys32768 wrote: post #208

In 1986, I lived a mile or so from where a mid-air collision sent a DC-9 crashing into a neighborhood, which killed 15 people on the ground: https://www.presstelegram.com/2016/08/30/cerritos-plane-cras... Every time I board a plane, I think what a crazy thing I am doing, but then I remember that I could be safe and snug in my house and still be in a plane crash.

> I could be safe and snug in my house and still be in a plane crash.

According to Garp, you just need to buy a pre-disastered home. You'll be safe there.[^1]

(Unfortunately his logic is flawed.[^2])

[^1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3TuoGVNbBs

[^2]: https://xkcd.com/795/

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#260

Post by ferguess_k » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 4:21 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #204

chaostheory wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is likely relevant https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/airplane-maintenance... TDLR 10-20 years ago, the US started allowing maintenance of domestic planes in foreign countries, outside the reach of the FAA’s inspections

> TDLR 10-20 years ago, the US started allowing maintenance of domestic planes in foreign countries, outside the reach of the FAA’s inspections Foreign Repair Stations date back to the 90s [1], the thing is they need to be supervised by an FAA Certified Mechanic. Inspection of these was already a hot issue in the early '00s... No one gave a fuck, it was all about saving costs for a very long time. The linked 2007 rep…

The government should just set a higher safety standard and let the companies figure out the costs. Setting a floor price without proper regulation == companies doing the same bagging more $$ -- To be very frank, I would do that if I were the chairman of such companies -- either I do that or I'm madmen getting voted out of my position next year.