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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

#261

Post by tacoooooooo »

blobbers wrote: post #255

I hear a lot of folks ascribing safety to physical human shortages in staffing. Looking at airport security, it's impossible not to ascribe waste, fraud and abuse if indeed there is a lack of ATC hires causing this. We can go without a greeter at the beginning of the security line, or a pre-screener of boarding passes halfway through the security line and have an extra ATC on duty. If you can't find the extra $ for t…

> Yes I understand airports are complex. So you have a computer and a human, and they work together.

how do you think it works today? some guy with binoculars?

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

#262

Post by advisedwang »

Full narrative of the report in question:

> LGA Tower initiated a takeoff clearance for an aircraft waiting on 13 when we were only 300 feet high on final for 22. The voice accepting the takeoff clearance, most likely the First Officer, did not seem concerned, but the departing aircraft seemed to hesitate moving for a couple seconds. I believe this was because the Captain of that flight was likely the pilot flying, and was in a position to see how close we were to landing. I think he or she thought twice before starting their takeoff roll. Due to the thick smoky haze from the Canadian wildfires and a possible helicopter in the area, I judged it safer to continue the approach and land around 10 seconds after the departing aircraft crossed our path, instead of suddenly going around and trusting that the helicopter was not near the departure end of 22. The guidance in ATC’s 7110.65 does not seem to give guidance on exactly how close aircraft in this situation can get. Based on today’s and close calls I have seen over the years for Runway 27R/35 at PHL and 22L/29 at EWR, it seems to be a judgement call by the Local Controller. Another concern is that the portion of the runway status light system visible to aircraft departing 13 appears to have been disabled. In the past, this system provided an additional layer of safety to prevent runway incursions. Now, I never see it light up anymore when I am waiting in position on 13 while a plane lands on 22. The pace of operations is building in LGA. The controllers are pushing the line. On thunderstorm days, LGA is starting to feel like DCA did before the accident there. Please do something. At least turn the RWSL for 13 back on.

I think it's misleading to act like this was some kind of whistleblower.

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

#263

Post by ChoGGi »

pc86 wrote: post #251
VK-pro wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t have time to check flight logs but I personally landed at LGA coming from MDW on Sunday. And I also know people who got diverted within the hour coming back to LGA that night. 30-40 minutes doesn’t seem accurate. That aside, if you’ve ever done operational staffing, you’d know that you should probably have at least one redundancy. When there is any chance of emergency or two events happening simultaneously, y…

Almost every night there are 6-7 hours with zero or near-zero scheduled departures and very few scheduled arrivals. The controller shortage has nothing to do with pay, controllers make a lot of money.

Ten hours a day, six days a week, and forced resignation at fifty six. I doubt it pays good enough with the amount of burnout a job like that brings.

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

#264

Post by rationalist »

downrightmike wrote: post #249
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

> ATC are under contract to not be able to quit, basically high stress slavery...

Source? Because that isn't true; they can quit like any other civilian government job.

> ...and the gov't put the screws to them.

That part is true though.

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

#265

Post by function_seven »

MBCook wrote: post #239
0xffff2 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this specific incident, there was a system in place called Runway Entrance Lights [0] that does serve as an automated sanity check on controllers commands. The surveillance video that is circulating shows that the system was working and indicated that the runway was not safe to enter. It's not clear yet why the truck entered the runway anyway. 0: https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/rwsl

Why cross a runway at all? Can they not use taxiways and aprons to get there?

The fire station was located on the opposite side of runway 4 from the United plane. To avoid crossing the runway would mean having to travel a few extra miles around the thresholds (I assume).

I guess they could have found a route that wouldn't conflict with landing aircraft, but I doubt that's a practical option most of the time.

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

#266

Post by rationalist »

MisterTea wrote: post #139
m_fayer wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not minimizing, it's galvanizing. 100% A wake up call. I don't fly much but I was bothered by the earlier ATC stories and now I don't feel safe at all.

Flying is still safer than driving.

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

#267

Post by aaronmdjones »

xeonmc wrote: post #115
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…

> 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. I am reminded of the Uberlingen disaster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_%C3%9Cberlingen_mid-air_c...

I also drew parallels to the Uberlingen mid-aid collision, but for a different reason.

The mid-air collision occurred because the Russian air crew maneuvered contrary to their TCAS instruction (it commanded them to climb, the controller ordered them to descend). They were not trained that TCAS is the ultimate authority in this situation; it exists precisely because the controller has already failed in their separation duties, and if you have TCAS giving you a resolution advisory, your aircraft is no longer under ATC control and you must ignore any ATC instruction to the contrary. The other aircraft was correctly following its TCAS instruction (descending) because their crew was trained in this. Both planes descended and still hit each other.

In this case, KLGA has RWSLs (Runway Status Lights), including RELs (Runway Entrance Lights) on taxiways, that behave like traffic lights on roads. This too is completely automated and is the last-ditch resort for when a controller has already failed in their separation duties. This system processes transponder data of nearby aircraft and determines whether an aircraft is about to take off (is on the runway and accelerating) or land (is approaching the runway and descending). In either case the RELs go red automatically, and the controller cannot override this.

The driver of the ARFF probably [1] placed more emphasis on the controller's clearance to cross than the lights telling him to stay put, in exactly the same way that the Russian air crew placed more emphasis on the controller's instruction to descend than their TCAS instruction to climb, not realising that they were maneuvering contrary to the thing that exists specifically to prevent these accidents.

EDIT: I am not assigning blame to the controller here. They are human, and humans make mistakes. That's why these systems exist. Having one person handle an airport the size of KLGA is an accident waiting to happen.

[1] Obviously this is unknown at this point, and is something the NTSB will investigate. The system could have been down for maintenance for example.

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

#268

Post by tw04 »

rectang wrote: post #225
estearum wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually can't remember or imagine another POTUS even getting to a level of specificity required to scapegoat an individual for something like this. The usual (and correct) answer is to say: "We don't know yet what happened, but there will be a full investigation and we will make the changes necessary to prevent it from happening again." Pretty easy! It doesn't serve us well to act like this administration is anyth…

Look, if you were to review my comment history you would have no doubt about where I stand on the current administration. But scapegoating any single politician for the systemic problems of aviation is as unhelpful as scapegoating the controller for the crash at Laguardia.

I’ll scapegoat a single politician. Ronald Reagan - he owns 100% of the responsibility for the current state of things when he refused to negotiate better working conditions in 1981. The entire US is still feeling the aftermath.

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

#269

Post by Yizahi »

rglover wrote: post #117
inaros wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully some commercial professional pilots will comment on this thread, but if you go to sites where they normally hang out like: https://www.airlinepilotforums.com You will see many are terrified ( in commercial pilot terms...) of flying into La Guardia or JFK...

> https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/major/152572-aircraft-fir... Just a quick read/speculation based on the linked forum post... Short of insane visibility conditions that prevented them from seeing the plane coming, the firetruck operator seems to be the liable party (beyond the airport for understaffing controllers—this seems to be exacerbated by government cuts but that's still no excuse for having a solo control…

I've seen the NTSB footage of the plane and helicopter crash in Washington. It is practically impossible to discern a landing plane over the lights of a big city at night. Next, the truck had been angled away from the plane approach, so it was coming from the right side (passenger side) and at back. There was zero chance that firetruck could have seen the plane in the seconds it covered hundreds of meters, flying at 200+ km/h. And also in that NTSB investigation there was a case of missed comms, when ATC recording clearly showed controller saying an important word, but it jot "jammed" in the process and there was silence at the receiving end instead of that word (in the middle of the transmission). Not saying it was a case here, but it is possible too.

Just like in that collision, it is possible there is no one single person to blame (apparently helicopter pilot was not outside of the legal corridor, despite the speculations), but it was a compounding error issue.

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

#270

Post by TitaRusell »

soperj wrote: post #260
alistairSH wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

extremely aberrational Is it still an aberration the second time 'round?

He lost the vote the first time. He lost to a corpse the second time he ran, it was like Weekend at Bernie's.

A superpower run by geriatrics.

Future historians are going to laugh at us- provided there will be any.

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