Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

avherald.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 469 posts

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#271

Post by renewiltord »

chaostheory wrote: post #166
cjrp wrote: post #106

The AVHerald is usually the best source for these things, rather than MSM: https://avherald.com/h?article=52f5748f&opt=0 > Ground observers reported the aircraft had been delayed for about two hours for work on the left hand engine (engine #1), the engine #1 separated during the takeoff run, the center engine emitted streaks of flames, the aircraft impacted a UPS warehouse and ploughed through other facilities before…

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

I wonder what the FAA does organizationally that lets it function properly to find cause. It must be highly tempting to blame things on the foreigners and stuff like that. The Air India crash had a lot of that going on.

The 737 Max crashes were also so frequently explained by online commenters as because of “outsourced software engineers” and so on.

But the FAA/NTSB always comes through with fact finding despite the immense political pressure to find these facile explanations. Organizationally, someone once designed these things well, and subsequently it has been preserved so well.

When I see so many American institutions turned to partisan causes through an escalation of “well, they’re doing it” it’s pretty wild that this org remains trustworthy. Wild.

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#272

Post by SilasX »

Thorrez wrote: post #152
JCM9 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zoning guidance generally prohibits land use near an airport that has a high density of people, precisely to limit casualties during an event like this. Industrial would be permitted while residential and commercial use is not. Scarily there are communities that have ignored such logic and permitted dense residential development right next to an airport.

Probably also due to noise.

Yeah I was going to say, that sounds like a much more salient reason not to live near an airport than the possibility of that rare crash.

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#273

Post by jacquesm »

pixl97 wrote: post #206
jacquesm wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may well be right. Or... maybe there was a non-stress related manufacturing issue with a turbine blade. Maybe it ingested a bird, maybe it sucked in some crap lying on the runway. Maybe there as an issue with a part that was replaced during the 2 hour service just prior to the flight. Maybe there was an error during that service, or a defect that was overlooked. And a million other possibilities.

I mean, I don't think I've heard of a bird strike knocking the engine off a plane.

Oh, interesting. They even made a movie.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways_Flight_1549

Once an engine breaks the question is whether or not it becomes unbalanced, that is one reason why they can become detached from the plane.

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#274

Post by krisoft »

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #240
krisoft wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay. So you mean in general it would help in some cases. Not that in this case it would have helped. > see UA1175 I'm familiar with the case you are mentioning. I'm also aware that they sent a jump seater to look at the engine. But did seeing the engine provide them with any actionable information? Did they fly the airplane differently than if they would have just seen the indications available in the cockpit?

Yes, the cameras would not have helped here, but it dorsn’t mean they are useless in general. Stupid car analogy: airbags help in most cases, but not all. Are they useless? Regarding UA1175, they had someone extra, but not all flights happen to have someone extra in the cockpit.

> airbags help in most cases, but not all.

Excellent. So in what cases does seeing the engine visually do help? So far we discussed UPS2976 and UA1175 where the presence or absence of the camera didn't change the outcome.

> Regarding UA1175, they had someone extra, but not all flights happen to have someone extra in the cockpit.

You are dancing around my question. What does the pilot do differently based on what they see? If you can't articulate a clear "pilot sees X they do Y, pilot sees Z they do Q" flow then what is the video good for?

in a sibling thread you say "There are countless situations where it can be helpful." But you haven't named even one of those countless situations yet.

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#275

Post by tshaddox »

dmd wrote: post #219
coddingtonbear wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forgive me, but by what possible metric: miles traveled in it?

Given an hour spent flying in a commercial US-flagged airliner or an hour spent in your living room, and you're (far) more likely to get hurt or die in your living room.

My guess would be that a lot of living room deaths are due to illness which would make the person unlikely to board a commercial flight, or other categories which certain individuals could reasonably exclude themselves from (drug overdose, suicide, amateur electrician work, etc.).

I doubt there's a good source of data, but I'd be very curious what the odds of dying in your living room per hour are if you exclude those categories and look at things like house fires, natural disasters, homicide, freak accidents (like planes falling on your house), etc.

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#276

Post by lostlogin »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #249
FabHK wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do runways have some sort of barrier between them and the next "important" thing. It seems like that would be prudent both for cases like this Ha, Jeju Air Flight 2216 smashed into a barrier on the second landing attempt in Muan last year [0], and people commented "How could there be a barrier at the end of the runway, so obviously stupid, irresponsible", etc. Now a plane does not smash into a barrier at the end of…

After 9/11, unlock the pilot doors. The passengers will revolt against any attempted aircraft hijackings. We need members of the public ready to help in a situation where a pilot goes crazy, and they can’t help with a locked door making it impossible for them to enter.

Do we need that? MH370 may have benefitted, but it’s hardly a common problem.

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#277

Post by tshaddox »

rogerrogerr wrote: post #234
flobosg wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> by what possible metric Micromorts, maybe? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort

The relevant bits here - deaths from all causes in the US are 22 micromorts per day. Lower in the article, airline travel is listed as 1 micromort per 1000 miles travelled. Background risk of death from non-natural causes are listed as 1.6 per day; many of those non-natural causes do not exist in an airplane cabin (e.g. you probably aren't going to be murdered because no one has anything more effective than a plastic…

> e.g. you probably aren't going to be murdered because no one has anything more effective than a plastic spork

Except for the occasional murder who has access to the flight controls.

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#278

Post by loeg »

mannykannot wrote: post #77
gizmo686 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they tried to take off instead of accelerate past the runway at ground level Do runways have some sort of barrier between them and the next "important" thing. It seems like that would be prudent both for cases like this, and breaking failures following landings.

Some runways have been extended with ‘engineered materials’ surfaces, often a form of porous concrete into which an airliner’s wheels will sink, absorbing a lot of energy and arresting the airplane without causing it to break up. It is very effective for landing overruns, but I don’t know about last-seconds aborted takeoffs.

It's designed for the much lower speeds of landing overruns (70 knots and below), whereas takeoff speeds are higher (in this case, like 185 knots).

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#279

Post by WorldMaker »

Retric wrote: post #194
gwbas1c wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The common solution in many land strapped cities is for airports to rout aircraft over water. That works in costal areas, but not inland. There's no large body of water near the Louisville airport.

The Ohio River is a large body of water fairly close if someone was going to relocate Louisville airport.

The Ohio River is a mile wide at Louisville, but that still doesn't wide enough to classify it "large body of water", especially because it is a river that moves relatively quick for its width and then hits falls/rapids just downstream of Louisville.

But also there's a lot of urban and suburban development you'd have to displace to even consider moving the airport near the Ohio River for most miles both up and down stream of Louisville.

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#280

Post by loeg »

bathtub365 wrote: post #88
appreciatorBus wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on whether or not, at the point in which you realize you have an engine on fire, you have room on the runway left to stop. As I understand it, there is a low speed regime, under 80 knots, where are you stop for basically anything. Then there is a high speed regime, where you only stop for serious issues, because you now have so much kinetic energy that stopping the plane, while still possible, will involve…

Being untrained but spending a little bit of time in a full motion 737 simulator that’s used to train and certify commercial pilots, I was amazed at how quickly things happen even in a scenario with no faults. This situation (single engine failure at V1) is something that commercial pilots are certified in at every recurrent certification since it’s one of the most difficult you can be in. The crew now need to climb…

> I don’t know if a double engine failure at V1 on a fully loaded 3 engine aircraft is technically survivable

Not on the MD-11, anyway.

Post reply on HN