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‘Confirming we are cleared to land?’ Who said what at Austin

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Re: ‘Confirming we are cleared to land?’ Who said what at Austin

#271

Post by rationalist »

zackbloom wrote: post #123

Just to give a little context as a pilot: It is the job of the tower controller to decide who uses the runway when. There are often multiple planes waiting to take off, and multiple planes nearing the airport to land. It's not uncommon for a tower controller to allow a plane to takeoff while another is approaching the runway. The theory is, of course, that the flight will depart in plenty of time. In this case, the c…

> I feel for these tower controllers

I would feel for this tower controller if there wasn't a bunch of comments in r/ATC saying how this particular controller has transferred between facilities because he keeps messing up and makes workplace complaints instead of owning up to his mistakes.

Edit to add source:

> a controller who, according to everyone who has worked with him from the last facility where he washed out and now AUS, say has no business being a controller and they can't fire him because he files EEO complaints habitually.

https://old.reddit.com/r/ATC/comments/10uub5x/

More discussion:

https://old.reddit.com/r/ATC/comments/10u0zvl/disaster_avert...

Re: ‘Confirming we are cleared to land?’ Who said what at Austin

#272

Post by [deleted] »

zmgsabst wrote: post #263
barelyauser wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Risk will always exist. Our most precious resource is time. Every effort to save it is worth it. What if it causes one accident every 20 years? It saved thousands of years of human time in the meantime.

Based on Google numbers: There’s 16M flights per year, so saving 5 minutes each is 80M minutes, which corresponds to 160 years. A plane crash will kill about 160 people; so if one happens every twenty years, then we’ll have saved lives if the average age is over 50 (within 20 years of natural death) and lost lives otherwise. Personally, seems a bad gamble.

[deleted]

Re: ‘Confirming we are cleared to land?’ Who said what at Austin

#273

Post by insane_dreamer »

Question: are all approaching and departing planes on the same radio channel? Just wondering how the FedEx pilot communicated with Southwest plane. And if so, how does that work at very busy airports like Atlanta where there must be a couple dozen planes coming at going during peak times? Seems it would be confusing for everyone to be hearing everyone’s comms with ATC? (On the other hand it’s probably a good thing, and certainly was in this situation; just wondering how they handle that)

Re: ‘Confirming we are cleared to land?’ Who said what at Austin

#274

Post by astura »

catminou wrote: post #46

Reminds me of a time in 1999 when a US Air crew at Rhode Island refused to takeoff in the fog when the controller insisted it was okay. Another aircraft had landed and was lost in the fog about their location, even saying they were on on an active runway and even said an aircraft just took off (over them). Animation + text here if curious: https://youtu.be/qUDFY5qlTSA

And OF COURSE the first YouTube comment I read blames this on Affirmative Action... JEEZ

Re: ‘Confirming we are cleared to land?’ Who said what at Austin

#275

Post by gus_massa »

barelyauser wrote: post #245
mcv wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a money problem to me. Less time between planes means more planes means more money. It sounds to me like far too many critical safety decisions are being made with an eye on money rather than safety. There were reports warning that Fukushima wasn't safe in case of a tsunami, but the company in charge of the plant decided to ignore that. Deep Water was caused by cost cuts. The Boeing 737 Max was made for f…

Risk will always exist. Our most precious resource is time. Every effort to save it is worth it. What if it causes one accident every 20 years? It saved thousands of years of human time in the meantime.

If time is our most precious resource, then build more runways. The problem is that they cost more money to build and more money to operate. So we go back to

>> It sounds to me like far too many critical safety decisions are being made with an eye on money rather than safety.

Re: ‘Confirming we are cleared to land?’ Who said what at Austin

#276

Post by sebzim4500 »

xwolfi wrote: post #265
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sounds like a money problem to me. Less time between planes means more planes means more money. Everything is a money/greed problem if you look at it through the lens of motivated reasoning. The usage of infrastructure is mutually beneficial. The airport, the various businesses operating at it, the customers, everyone benefits per flight. Likewise you want to make that infrastructure get used as much as possible. W…

But why does it work fine everywhere else ? It's not like we all follow the US model, yet our airports are fine and our airplanes dont crash over silly cost cuts. There must be something the americans do wrong, somewhere, and optimisation cannot be an excuse for mediocrity. Do it fast and safe or do it slow and safe: the passengers can wait, or build their own planes and airports if they think they can do better.

Are American airports statistically less safe than other ones? Seems like you are assuming this is the case in your comment, but have you actually checked?

Re: ‘Confirming we are cleared to land?’ Who said what at Austin

#277

Post by kqr »

moring wrote: post #267
kqr wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that in stressful and risky situations people stop trusting the data in front of them. They want to believe things are alright and will keep looking for new pieces of information to confirm that, while downplaying the importance of contradictory information.

Do you know how true this is for (relatively) reliable systems such as those found in aviation? I know that in everyday life, what you say is absolutely true -- I definitely stop trusting electronic systems in stressful situations -- but then I also know how they feed me misleading as well as blatantly false data all the time, so I'd argue that not trusting them is not irrational per se.

The way I understand it, it's not so much about the reliability of the electronics, but rather of human cognition. A lot of people have trouble believing that they (or other people in their custody) are on a trajectory to a fatal accident, so they instinctively reject evidence of this (not using their full brain due to stress response) and continue to search for evidence confirming that everything is alright.

Re: ‘Confirming we are cleared to land?’ Who said what at Austin

#278

Post by blantonl »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #273

Question: are all approaching and departing planes on the same radio channel? Just wondering how the FedEx pilot communicated with Southwest plane. And if so, how does that work at very busy airports like Atlanta where there must be a couple dozen planes coming at going during peak times? Seems it would be confusing for everyone to be hearing everyone’s comms with ATC? (On the other hand it’s probably a good thing, a…

For operations on a specific runway, yes. Departing and arriving traffic on the same runway use the same frequency (called "Tower").

Some airports will have a single "Tower" frequency that controls all arriving and department traffic on all runways.

Some larger airports will have multiple "Tower" frequencies that cover certain runway(s).

But a single runway will always have departing and arriving traffic working on the same frequency.

Re: ‘Confirming we are cleared to land?’ Who said what at Austin

#279

Post by [deleted] »

rationalist wrote: post #271
zackbloom wrote: post #123

Just to give a little context as a pilot: It is the job of the tower controller to decide who uses the runway when. There are often multiple planes waiting to take off, and multiple planes nearing the airport to land. It's not uncommon for a tower controller to allow a plane to takeoff while another is approaching the runway. The theory is, of course, that the flight will depart in plenty of time. In this case, the c…

> I feel for these tower controllers I would feel for this tower controller if there wasn't a bunch of comments in r/ATC saying how this particular controller has transferred between facilities because he keeps messing up and makes workplace complaints instead of owning up to his mistakes. Edit to add source: > a controller who, according to everyone who has worked with him from the last facility where he washed out…

[deleted]

Re: ‘Confirming we are cleared to land?’ Who said what at Austin

#280

Post by dghlsakjg »

cm2187 wrote: post #159
zackbloom wrote: post #123

Just to give a little context as a pilot: It is the job of the tower controller to decide who uses the runway when. There are often multiple planes waiting to take off, and multiple planes nearing the airport to land. It's not uncommon for a tower controller to allow a plane to takeoff while another is approaching the runway. The theory is, of course, that the flight will depart in plenty of time. In this case, the c…

But what about the Southwest crew? The article says they waited a full minute between being cleared for take off and starting to roll. Surely they wouldn't assume the runway is the right place to hang around in a busy airport, planes typically take off straight away. If they do that it will eat into any safety margin.

The training I got as a lowly ppl, was that a takeoff clearance meant that the runway was yours to do with as you pleased within reason. If the southwest crew needed to sit on the runway for a few moments getting setup they had permission to do it. Their job is to follow atc directions, which they absolutely did.

If the controller wanted you to do an immediate takeoff they normally make damn sure that you are able and you know the context. At least in my experience mixing it up with jet traffic at Boeing field.

Something like: “Southwest xxx cleared for immediate takeoff, you have a FedEx heavy on 3 mile final”

To the pilot that is saying: you can go, but you only have 90 seconds or so.

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