Friday night’s near-disaster at JFK airport • Hacker News Board

Re: Friday night’s near-disaster at JFK airport

#321

Post by selimthegrim » Mon, Jan 16, 2023, 3:40 PM UTC

coldcode wrote: post #125

christophilus wrote: post #48

The animation in the tweet at the end of the article is something. Based on that, the deceleration looked remarkably fast. I imagine that was quite the ride for the folks in the Delta jet.

I experienced a takeoff abort in New Orleans in a 737 when some birds (I think that's what the pilot said afterwards) clogged up the pitot tubes (in the 1980s) and either the plane aborted the takeoff or the pilot did. It was a max effort whatever it was, scared the shit out of everyone.

That was not a good decade for MSY aviation.

Re: Friday night’s near-disaster at JFK airport

#322

Post by d1sxeyes » Mon, Jan 16, 2023, 3:44 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #127

hn_user2 wrote: post #43

For those thinking about preventative solutions, there are some existing, all very expensive of course. The simplest is placing a row of red lights in the ground at all intersections to runways. When an airplane is cleared for takeoff and until it is airborne the controller presses a button and turns all these lights red. Pilots are instructed that regardless of clearance, a red light over-rides that, and to never cr…

These sound more like detecting something. How about preventing miscommunication? They weren't even on the correct runway.

It wasn't a miscommunication. The pilot understood and was attempting to correctly follow the instructions of ATC. The error (as far as we can tell) was that the pilot wrongly believed that they were following those instructions, but the pilot did not know where they were.

So the next logical question is 'why didn't the pilot know where they were?', and there are a lot of possible answers to that question, which could conceivably be linked to communication (e.g.: not enough signage, they were told incorrectly, their maps were written in Klingon), but the primary problem was that the pilot believed they were crossing a different runway to the one they were actually crossing.

Re: Friday night’s near-disaster at JFK airport

#323

Post by NoahKAndrews » Mon, Jan 16, 2023, 3:46 PM UTC

addandsubtract wrote: post #304

sandos wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could also be that they were not correctly set, the pilots thinking "hey, no red lights, we can go! Its 100% safe".

Who are "they" in your sentence? I assume the lights and not the plane? Wouldn't lights like this be placed the same way on every airport implementing them?

I think they meant that the lights may not have been set to the correct state.

Re: Friday night’s near-disaster at JFK airport

#324

Post by d1sxeyes » Mon, Jan 16, 2023, 3:46 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #315

boredhedgehog wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the case when the readback is incorrect or missing, i.e. the pilot heard something that wasn't said. In this case, the instruction was communicated correctly on both ends. But it wasn't followed correctly.

If they have the correctly communicated instructions as you imply, then why weren't they followed? Is it not also possible they don't follow the red light if they think ATC instructed them to use that runway?

Hard to say at this stage, but initial impressions seem to be that the pilot was following the instructions but were mistaken about what was in front of them.

Re: Friday night’s near-disaster at JFK airport

#325

Post by hnarn » Mon, Jan 16, 2023, 3:49 PM UTC

flyingfences wrote: post #312

plusminusplus wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How difficult is it to stop an aircraft like that so quickly? More than yanking an emergency brake handle I'm assuming.

A 737-900, fully loaded and fueled for a transatlantic flight, weighs 70 - 80 tons and takes off at 150 - 180 mph. That's a lot of energy to dissipate in a hurry.

Fun fact, during a high speed rejected takeoff certification the brakes routinely catch fire.

Re: Friday night’s near-disaster at JFK airport

#326

Post by d1sxeyes » Mon, Jan 16, 2023, 4:00 PM UTC

areyousure wrote: post #302

MandieD wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the top (but not only) reason keeping your baby/toddler in your lap instead of in their own seat, buckled into a carseat, is a terrible way to fly. Lap infants are far more likely to be injured in-flight than other children: https://journals.lww.com/pec-online/fulltext/2019/10000/in_f... The carriers don't make this easy: they have conflicting rules on carseats for in-cabin use, especially if you're flying be…

> Lap infants are far more likely to be injured in-flight than other children: https://journals.lww.com/pec-online/fulltext/2019/10000/in_f... In case anyone is curious, this source does claim that "lap infants" are more likely to be injured than other passengers. But the article defines "lap infant" as anyone under 2 years old, regardless of whether they were in fact in someone's lap. (In particular, some of these "…

Am I reading this correctly that not only is the definition of 'lap infant' not dependent on whether a child was in someone's lap or not, it also would include a child younger than 24 months who was restrained in a car seat at the time of the in-flight injury?

> For the purpose of this study, the term in-flight injury was used to denote medical events caused by injuries (ie, trauma or burns) that occurred or manifested themselves during flight. Lap infants were defined as passengers younger than 24 months, the age until which a child is allowed to travel while sharing a seat with an adult passenger.

Re: Friday night’s near-disaster at JFK airport

#327

Post by Spooky23 » Mon, Jan 16, 2023, 4:06 PM UTC

CamperBob2 wrote: post #128

Spooky23 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy to preach, harder to practice. When I was an intern I got to help change the blinking red light on top of a 50 story building. It’s a big deal that was scheduled weeks in advance and probably involved two dozen people, a special lightbulb and a bunch of coordination. Even among the team working it plenty of “how many X does it take to change a light bulb” jokes were told. But consider than a pilot depends on cer…

What would be better for safety? One $10000 light bulb, or ten $10 light bulbs?

What’s better for safety? Predicable reliability or whatever the subcontractor is putting out in a particular day

Re: Friday night’s near-disaster at JFK airport

#328

Post by d1sxeyes » Mon, Jan 16, 2023, 4:08 PM UTC

quickthrower2 wrote: post #226

sklargh wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rejected takeoffs and clear air turbulence are why I never do infant-in-arms.

What is the alternative? Is there an equivalent of a infant car seat for the plane?

You can use a car seat on a plane. It's an absolute pain in the arse and almost entirely unregulated, I've seen various 'rules' like 'must be forward-facing', 'must be rear-facing', 'must be 5-point harness', 'must be 3-point harness', 'must be no more than 41.5cm at its widest point', 'must have "certified for aircraft use" printed on it', and so on.

But it is technically possible to take a child on a plane in a car seat, if you can find a suitable plane, suitable car seat, and suitable child.

Re: Friday night’s near-disaster at JFK airport

#329

Post by dredmorbius » Mon, Jan 16, 2023, 4:21 PM UTC

defrost wrote: post #223

curun1r wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other major concern is running reliable power to the lights. That isn’t something that can happen above ground when crossing runways, so there’s going to be at least some digging up the runway and repaving. Repaving runways isn’t cheap. It has to be done in an expedited manner since airports need all runways available during peak hours, so there’s usually a six-ish hour overnight window for work to get done and t…

> so there’s going to be at least some digging up the runway and repaving. The US doesn't have horizontal directional drilling rigs that go under a runway and pull cable?

Oil and gas rigs typically don't have to worry about intersecting other infrastructure.

Even then, things occasionally go awry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Peigneur#Drilling_disaste...>

For an airport, the precision required both to not hit extant underground infrastructure and to know precisely where your newly deployed infrastructure is (for the next guy/gal to worry about) is probably a salient concern.

I'm not sure that horizontal drilling offers that degree of precision and assurance as opposed to rip-and-dig methods.

Re: Friday night’s near-disaster at JFK airport

#330

Post by dredmorbius » Mon, Jan 16, 2023, 4:23 PM UTC

cshimmin wrote: post #202

madrox wrote: post #29

This is an incredible write-up. Kudos to the journalist who wrote this piece. I wish more current events were chronicled this way.

@Dang / moderators: in case you are not already aware, in the sibling comment which is dead the username contains an inappropriate racial slur. Sorry I don't know how to better report this. Edit: I figured it out, sorry for the noise. For anyone confused as me, you have to click the timestamp to see the `flag` link on the comment.

Email concerns to HN mods at hn@ycombinator.com.

(I've done so here.)