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UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

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Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#311

Post by potato3732842 »

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…

>this is a perfect example why the government needs to regulate prices in safety-critical industries.

Aviation is one of the most regulated industries to the point where I've heard multiple aircraft maintenance people who don't know each other make quips to the tune of "we only cut the stupid corners because cutting the smart ones is illegal".

I'm not saying it should be less regulated but considering that the aircraft was maintained recently I wouldn't be surprised if some dumb "well you didn't say we couldn't do it" thing that isn't technically disallowed but should be covered under some broader "don't be stupid" rule was ultimately a causative factor.

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#312

Post by kccqzy »

rogerrogerr wrote: post #225
watwut wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that actual statistic?

Airliners are hilariously safe. One of my favorite stats is that it’s the second safest form of transportation per passenger mile (elevators win).

Per passenger mile is arguably not the best denominator. People choose planes because they are going long distances. Consider whether a better denominator would be per passenger trips. A 10,000 mi trip halfway across the world could have the same weight as a 2 mi trip to the grocery store. Or per hour travelled.

By these metrics commercial flying isn't as safe as you think.

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#313

Post by bdamm »

nostrademons wrote: post #202
Retric wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None? Nobody puts airports inside city centers and metro areas don’t just have dense urban housing. The common solution in many land strapped cities is for airports to rout aircraft over water often by building airports on reclaimed land. What generally gets areas in trouble is locations that used to be a good get worse as aircraft get larger and the surroundings get built up. The solution is to send larger airplanes…

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…

San Jose Airport's walkability and bikability is actually wonderful and I always take the opportunity to walk or bike there when flying into SJC.

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#314

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

panxyh wrote: post #162
hugh-avherald wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

V1 is the decision speed with respect to a single engine failure in a multi-engine aircraft. It's the speed below rotation speed at which the decision to abort safely can no longer be made. Captains can make the decision to abort the takeoff in the case of absolute power loss or for 'failure to fly' (where the aircraft is clearly not going to fly, e.g. the elevator/pitch controls aren't responding). But the training…

> abort safely That's what I'm getting at. I want to abort unsafely. Imagine 400 meters of grass field after the end of the runway, and a water body. I'm asking wether such factors are accounted for, or if plane on ground beyond runway does-not-compute.

You should never plan to use your safety margin!

That "extra" 400m of grass? That's for all the other things that can still go wrong even when you follow procedure. e.g., you're below V1 so you abort takeoff, close throttles and hit the brakes. You should be able to safely stop on the runway.

But now your brakes fail because maybe the reason you had to abort was a fire that also managed to burn through your brake lines, or it started to rain just as you were taking off, or...

Now that's where the 400m of safety margin comes in to save your ass (hopefully). It's "extra", you don't plan on using it.

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#315

Post by mschuster91 »

ferguess_k wrote: post #260
mschuster91 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> The government should just set a higher safety standard and let the companies figure out the costs.

The problem is, it doesn't work out that way. We lost enough people to that madness - as soon as hundreds, if not thousands (see 9/11) of lives are at stake, IMHO the effort to ensure compliance with standards is so massive, the government could (and should...) do the damn job itself.

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#316

Post by Retric »

WorldMaker wrote: post #279
Retric wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

Tradeoffs. Physical land under the airport is lost either way, but land near the old airport becomes more useful where the river itself couldn’t have buildings in either situation. Thus moving it near a river or other large body of water is a long term net gain.

As to a crash, ditching into an industrial area isn’t significantly worse for the passengers than ditching into a set of rapids, but the rapids are far better for the general public.

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#317

Post by tclancy »

ferguess_k wrote: post #252
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.

"You take a chance getting up in the morning, crossing the street, or sticking your face in a fan."

- Shirley Jackson

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#318

Post by rogerrogerr »

kccqzy wrote: post #312
rogerrogerr wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airliners are hilariously safe. One of my favorite stats is that it’s the second safest form of transportation per passenger mile (elevators win).

Per passenger mile is arguably not the best denominator. People choose planes because they are going long distances. Consider whether a better denominator would be per passenger trips. A 10,000 mi trip halfway across the world could have the same weight as a 2 mi trip to the grocery store. Or per hour travelled. By these metrics commercial flying isn't as safe as you think.

If I’m going somewhere in the continental US, my choices are to fly or drive. I’ll be traveling the same number of miles either way, so the relevant comparison is indeed per mile.

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#319

Post by JCharante »

rogerrogerr wrote: post #283
tshaddox wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

“Occasional” implies a rate at least several orders of magnitude higher than actual.

if it happens once a decade occasional sounds right

Re: UPS plane crashes near Louisville airport

#320

Post by HaZeust »

yalestar wrote: post #303

This really reminded me of a colleague who had a part-time night job flying cancelled checks from Centennial Airport (KAPA, south of Denver) to SLC. A bunch of us went out to lunch on a Friday in December 2005. That night, on his return to KAPA, he crashed his Mitsubishi MU-2 about a mile short of the runway. He and his co-pilot were gone, just like that. On Monday you could see the wreckage and cleanup from our offi…

KAPA is a beautiful airport too, and its restaurant "Perfect Landing" on the second floor is S-tier. I've never heard about this case there, though. Do you have a flight number?
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