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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

#291

Post by dghlsakjg »

doubleg72 wrote: post #289
dghlsakjg wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah. I missed hearing that “and company” in the recording. In any case, if they were cleared across the runway, and they were, it isn’t really on them. It doesn’t change the gist of the argument. The broader point is that it wasn’t that one truck was barreling around being reckless as implied by gp, it’s just that one truck made it out and the rest of the company had yet to start moving (whether because they saw the p…

“I take it you haven’t ever worked with radio.. “. Seems like you haven’t a clue how any of this works. Doesn’t matter if they had radio clearance, the fire truck is responsible for ensuring runways is clear and not driving in front of plane.

I’m a certificated pilot in two countries, trained in this region, and own an airplane. I have a pretty good grasp how this works, but am willing to learn if you have citations besides the CFR pull quotes elsewhere in this thread.

All people (pilots included) are responsible for only following ATC instructions if it is safe/possible to do so. You aren’t supposed to land on a runway with other traffic on it, even if cleared. You aren’t supposed to cross a runway if there is a plane taking off or landing, even if cleared. You aren’t supposed to clear a vehicle onto a runway at the same time you cleared a plane to land (this one’s an assumption, I’m not a trained controller).

You are making the assumption that the truck did not check the runway, but keep in mind that it is a 30ish ton vehicle, and the plane was moving at 150 mph at touchdown, 100 mph at the time of impact. There very well may not have been a plane visible when the truck started moving. The truck might not have received the non-standard clearance revocation, or received it and tried to get off the runway by accelerating across, or received it and begun slowing in the path of the plane.

The truck driver could have prevented this, but they certainly aren’t the primary cause.

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

#292

Post by wat10000 »

longislandguido wrote: post #280
wat10000 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a member of this administration said he wasn’t working alone, that’s solid evidence he was. The evidence that he was overworked seems pretty damned obvious. He forgot about an entire airplane and put a fire truck in its path. The evidence of overwork is strewn all around LGA.

> If a member of this administration said he wasn’t working alone, that’s solid evidence he was. This is deranged. Seek help.

What's deranged about treating information from notorious liars as evidence against whatever they say?

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

#293

Post by dghlsakjg »

caminante wrote: post #274
dghlsakjg wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was stopped until he received instructions to cross the runway from the person whose job it is to sit in a position with good visibility and tell people when they can cross runways. He wasn’t driving fast at all. The whole system is set up so that vehicles with blind spots (every large passenger jet) can safely move. We can’t say that emergency vehicles should just stay in on dark and stormy nights.

>from the driver's seat the jet would be quite hard to see in this case. ..is what I was responding to. >We can’t say that emergency vehicles should just stay in on dark and stormy nights. This conclusion is flawed and doesn't apply to what I said. If a truck can't see (conditions or not), then they shouldn't be on the same runway as takeoff/landing because...the consequences were severe despite the safeguards you me…

“Vehicles with large blind spots don’t belong on the runway” is a completely untenable proposal.

Almost every airplane is bigger, blinder and slower than that truck. If it had been a plane cleared across the runway, this would have been so much worse.

Even if you want to exempt airplanes, it would require a complete rebuild of most major airports or using completely different emergency equipment. Every airport you have ever flown to commercially has ground vehicles crossing or operating on runways every day. It is simply not possible to operate a commercial airport without ground vehicles in aircraft movement areas, including runways.

The solution is not to spend billions on new trucks or access roads because of a single incident. It is to ensure that controllers, the people directly in charge of coordinating safe ground movement, have the mental bandwidth and tools to do their jobs. The fact that this was a truck and not an airplane is luck, making any discussions about truck cab visibility very much secondary. You have to go upstream of “trucks have blind spots” to truly prevent another of these incidents.

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

#294

Post by SR2Z »

tw04 wrote: post #268
rectang wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is not true. Aviation in the US has problems because of the tendency for safety regulators to do CYA when making decisions instead of adopting new technology.

Leaded gasoline? Illegal to use in the US - unless you're putting it into an old plane, where it's not likely legal to put unleaded in.

ATC? Done with old radar screens and physical cards.

Ground Control? Someone has to be standing in the tower with a pair of binoculars.

The US has an extremely safe aviation system, but the price for that safety has been technological stagnation. If I spend $70k on a small airplane, the best that'll get me is a 1975 Piper with a lawnmower engine and analog gauges. Replacing those with digital instruments will run ~$20k - the instruments themselves are only $7k, but the regulatory burden is quite pricey.

Reagan didn't do the US any favors when he treated ATC as disposable, but the truth is that the volume of flights has increased enormously and the job of ATC has gotten much harder while at the same time controller staffing has been screwed by budget fights in Congress and a couple years of one very misguided DEI policy.

The US needs to automate more of ATC. Human beings should be dedicated to emergencies, not issuing the exact same clearance 300 times a day.

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

#295

Post by ryanmcbride »

metalliqaz wrote: post #24
ryanmcbride wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe there should be more than one

Maybe. Lets see what the NTSB recommendations say. However despite the downvotes I still haven't seen evidence that they were running understaffed at that moment. What I do know is that the developing emergency on the tarmac due to an apparently hazardous smell in another plane is likely the cause of the confusion that led to this incident. That's a trigger that could have been exacerbated by fatigue but we don't hav…

At your job how many people are working at any given time and how many lives are you responsible for at any given moment?

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

#297

Post by Maxious »

tacoooooooo wrote: post #261
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?

One of the issues being explored is that although US radar is aged, surface vehicles can be equipped with ASDE-X transponders to be more visible to ATC systems. https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/asde-x

The vehicle that crashed into the plane did not have one and thus no automated alert was triggered.

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

#298

Post by 7952 »

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?

You sometimes have end around taxiways that are at one end of the runway and can be used when active. But that could be a massive diversion.

I know that Heathrow have multiple fire stations and rendezvous points for emergency services so that fire service can attend even when one runaway is closed to crossing. This could be needed to allow continued operations following a crash. It allows them to accept emergency landings more easily whilst maintaining emergency service to another active runway.

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

#299

Post by tw04 »

SR2Z wrote: post #294
tw04 wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is not true. Aviation in the US has problems because of the tendency for safety regulators to do CYA when making decisions instead of adopting new technology. Leaded gasoline? Illegal to use in the US - unless you're putting it into an old plane, where it's not likely legal to put unleaded in. ATC? Done with old radar screens and physical cards. Ground Control? Someone has to be standing in the tower with a pair…

It is absolutely true. I stated that Reagan is the reason that ATC are overworked and underpaid.

You proceeded to list a bunch of things that have absolutely nothing to do with ATC being overworked and underpaid.

"Automating more of ATC" would change absolutely nothing about the fact they're overworked and underpaid, there would just be fewer controllers with the same workload because they lost all ability to collectively bargain with Reagan.

Name an industry that has automated, and the end result was they kept the same number of employees, but paid them more and reduced their hours. Oh, and it can't be a unionized industry. I'll wait patiently wait for that list.

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

#300

Post by stinkbeetle »

tw04 wrote: post #268
rectang wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Your belief is that no other politician in the next half century has had any responsibility for the state of ATC today? No politicians in that time could have increased their pay or increased recruiting and staffing numbers?
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