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

Friday night’s near-disaster at JFK airport

viewfromthewing.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 372 posts

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

#331

Post by bronco21016 »

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…

RWSL take it a step further and are actually automatic based on ASDE. No controller input necessary.

I'm not aware of the costs to install it but I really wish it was everywhere. It's an incredibly handy confirmation for clearances given by ATC.

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

#332

Post by ancientworldnow »

refurb wrote: post #281
kylehotchkiss wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least they have the space to try to improve it, new terminal actually looks world class https://thepointsguy.com/news/newark-airport-terminal-a/

That’ll be a nice upgrade. Newark and La Guardia look so old. Same with Terminal 1 in Boston. The Detroit airport looks amazing next to them.

You haven't been to La Guardia recently. It's by far the nicest airport in the tristate and one of the better ones in the country after the remodel. JFK is the one new yorkers avoid now (or EWR if you don't live in Manhattan).

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

#333

Post by qazxcvbnmlp »

ckdarby wrote: post #306
cguess wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much all three airports (EWR, LGA, JFK) are already at capacity, so there's no room for others to take any load.

A solution that'll anger people but resolve the capacity issus, all flights with not a final destination in USA can only connect through Stewart airport.

Airport is at full capacity -> route more pax through other airports.

A lot of people benefit from keeping JFK full. Airlines, pax wanting direct flights to other destinations etc.

Currently ~20% of New York passengers are connecting passengers, you could route them through other airports and free up capacity with much less disruption then making the New York local passengers have an extra connection on the way out.

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

#334

Post by giantg2 »

d1sxeyes wrote: post #322
giantg2 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 coul…

Would be cool if they had HUDs with a "driving line" and other pertinent info on the taxiway and runway.

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

#335

Post by zmgsabst »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #160
zmgsabst wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither are nonexistent systems.

Imagine you are doing barrel roll and struggling to control a plane, and you have a parachute. So you decide, scre the airplane, a will save my life, and jump out. Only it fails to open, it was an unreliable parachite, bought by someone like you. They thought,'better a 50/50 parachite then no parachute? So now you are plummeting to you death, thinking, that if you did not have the confidence of 'I have a parachute' y…

Why would you do a barrel roll in a plane full of passengers, when you’re being paid to operate it safely?

Your entire hypothetical is unlike the actual scenario, where this is being recommended.

Of course you have different solutions to a completely different problem — but what you haven’t addressed is why this is a bad solution to this particular problem.

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

#336

Post by zestyping »

Watching the animation at https://twitter.com/CaseWade/status/1614342894248394752, I am astonished that ground paths are routinely planned with so many conflicts, all crisscrossing frequently with so little clearance between airplanes.

I counted six other path conflicts in the space of 25 seconds, in this tiny section of the airport. With conflicts happening every few seconds, it's incredible to me that crashes don't happen more often.

Why are paths planned this way? Is capacity pressure so extreme that airplanes have to be crammed together this tightly? Is it not possible for airplanes to travel along taxi-only paths that minimize runway crossings, or wait in orderly queues and achieve nearly the same rate of takeoffs?

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

#337

Post by Cpoll »

jonahx wrote: post #222
CoastalCoder wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That doesn't seem logical if the alternative is not having the lights at all. If the norm becomes (radio clearance and no red lights), I suspect pilots will become conditioned to equate no-red-lights with landing clearance. Not 100%, but maybe at least 1% of the time. So if that happens and the red lights stopped working, you have a problem that wouldn't have existed if the red lights were never introduced. Perhaps…

Exactly. The lights create a kind of moral hazard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard

I think https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation might be a better fit.

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

#338

Post by ClumsyPilot »

zmgsabst wrote: post #335
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine you are doing barrel roll and struggling to control a plane, and you have a parachute. So you decide, scre the airplane, a will save my life, and jump out. Only it fails to open, it was an unreliable parachite, bought by someone like you. They thought,'better a 50/50 parachite then no parachute? So now you are plummeting to you death, thinking, that if you did not have the confidence of 'I have a parachute' y…

Why would you do a barrel roll in a plane full of passengers, when you’re being paid to operate it safely? Your entire hypothetical is unlike the actual scenario, where this is being recommended. Of course you have different solutions to a completely different problem — but what you haven’t addressed is why this is a bad solution to this particular problem.

nono, imagine you have a personal 1 seater plane

The presence of a backup option affects your decision making. Human brain assumes the backup is reliable. If you install some 50/50 backup, you put more people at risk

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

#339

Post by ec109685 »

O__________O wrote: post #299

Once flying into NYC after passing over the end of the runway to land the plane pulled up super hard back into cursing altitude for landing. Once we leveled off, pilot came on to say, “Sorry about that folks, there was a plane taking off.” - Guess I always assumed this was a common issue.

Cursing altitude is a good description.

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

#340

Post by [deleted] »

sonofhans wrote: post #74
KRAKRISMOTT wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are the lights expensive?

I don't think the other answers are getting at the meat of it. Consider that those red lights functioning is the only thing keeping hundreds or thousands of people from getting killed. What sorts of safety and durability requirements would you impose on them? What sorts of maintenance and training requirements? If nothing else they need to hold up in every weather and temperature big airports exist (-80ºF to +150ºF)…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN