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‘Confirming we are cleared to land?’ Who said what at Austin

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Re: ‘Confirming we are cleared to land?’ Who said what at Austin

#41

Post by Ancapistani »

mynegation wrote: post #32

So I am neither a pilot nor an aviation geek, but to me it looks like, besides heavy fog, two things happened. (1) control misjudged the approach time for FedEx. 3 miles out is - what? - a minute and a half, at best at approach speed? (2) control did not expedite a takeoff for southwest so they took their sweet time rolling onto the runway and accelerating. At this day and age it is bewildering to see all of this run…

One issue with that is that "aviation" includes a lot more than commercial airliners - it also includes inexpensive, Spartan general aviation aircraft. The cost of such a system would be prohibitive.

Just look at the rollout for ADS-B In/Out if you're curious how difficult that might be to implement.

Re: ‘Confirming we are cleared to land?’ Who said what at Austin

#42

Post by Jtsummers »

cratermoon wrote: post #39
King-Aaron wrote: post #3

Wow, reading that audio transmission log was pretty intense. Someone's losing their job for sure

What if there's pressure from airlines to reduce late flights and increase the amount of traffic airports can handle resulting in ATC cutting margins on separation? Would it really be the controller's fault if their job performance is dependent on getting planes into the air as quickly as possible?

> Would it really be the controller's fault if their job performance is dependent on getting planes into the air as quickly as possible?

Yes. Their primary job is safety, speedy traffic flow is secondary to that objective. Cutting corners would mean abandoning pretty much the entire purpose of bothering with ATC versus letting pilots figure it out themselves.

Re: ‘Confirming we are cleared to land?’ Who said what at Austin

#43

Post by kochie »

mynegation wrote: post #32

So I am neither a pilot nor an aviation geek, but to me it looks like, besides heavy fog, two things happened. (1) control misjudged the approach time for FedEx. 3 miles out is - what? - a minute and a half, at best at approach speed? (2) control did not expedite a takeoff for southwest so they took their sweet time rolling onto the runway and accelerating. At this day and age it is bewildering to see all of this run…

Because adding more technology doesn’t always makes things work better. I like this idea but the problem is you’ve just added another point of failure.

Sure it may avoid this situation, but how many aircraft lifted off and landed at airports in the same day? In America I’d hazard a guess at aground the tens of thousands. Any new system has to reduce the complexity or risks of flying and that’s very hard to do.

I’m not an aviation expert either but it’s assume that some form of system exists for this also in a more manual form.

Re: ‘Confirming we are cleared to land?’ Who said what at Austin

#44

Post by knodi123 »

Ancapistani wrote: post #41
mynegation wrote: post #32

So I am neither a pilot nor an aviation geek, but to me it looks like, besides heavy fog, two things happened. (1) control misjudged the approach time for FedEx. 3 miles out is - what? - a minute and a half, at best at approach speed? (2) control did not expedite a takeoff for southwest so they took their sweet time rolling onto the runway and accelerating. At this day and age it is bewildering to see all of this run…

One issue with that is that "aviation" includes a lot more than commercial airliners - it also includes inexpensive, Spartan general aviation aircraft. The cost of such a system would be prohibitive. Just look at the rollout for ADS-B In/Out if you're curious how difficult that might be to implement.

Yeah, but at least at this airport, they almost always use separate runways. They COULD share, but that sounds like making perfection the enemy of improvement.

Re: ‘Confirming we are cleared to land?’ Who said what at Austin

#45

Post by jonathanyc »

MPSimmons wrote: post #26

Please consider reading Sidney Dekker's books, The Field Guide to Understanding Human Error[1] and Drift Into Failure[2] [1] - https://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-Understanding-Human-Error... [2] - https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=3123581163...

For those of us who aren’t familiar, can you link something in the book to the OP?

Re: ‘Confirming we are cleared to land?’ Who said what at Austin

#46

Post by catminou »

Reminds me of a time in 1999 when a US Air crew at Rhode Island refused to takeoff in the fog when the controller insisted it was okay. Another aircraft had landed and was lost in the fog about their location, even saying they were on on an active runway and even said an aircraft just took off (over them). Animation + text here if curious: https://youtu.be/qUDFY5qlTSA

Re: ‘Confirming we are cleared to land?’ Who said what at Austin

#47

Post by michaelmrose »

valine wrote: post #10
King-Aaron wrote: post #3

Wow, reading that audio transmission log was pretty intense. Someone's losing their job for sure

If the goal is to improve safety firing people is almost always the wrong response. That juvenile preoccupation with punishment only serves to create a culture where mistakes are hidden rather than understood.

That is mature, rational, considered, and completely wrong. What's exposed here is not a failure of process or education, its the fact that controller is an incompetent idiot who never should have been acting in a life critical capacity.

In the linked communication you can see that he knew both planes were incoming on the same runway and confirmed his brain dead plan repeatedly to both crews. Even telling SW that they could take off because Fedex was 3 miles out. At any reasonable speed this is virtually no time. At 165 it would be a little over 1 minute. Since the critical moment came around the 2 minute mark it seems likely that in addition to any other faults he also can't estimate distance.

Even after it went south or shall we say southwest he was never capable of recovering in any timely fashion as evidenced by the Fedex crew taking over his job. As a result of his incompetence everyone would have died. The only meaningful fact he could have ascertained in order to correct his plan would have been to understand that planes go fast. At this juncture retraining him seems like a poor decision. He's a hazard.

Re: ‘Confirming we are cleared to land?’ Who said what at Austin

#48

Post by plaguepilled »

kochie wrote: post #43
mynegation wrote: post #32

So I am neither a pilot nor an aviation geek, but to me it looks like, besides heavy fog, two things happened. (1) control misjudged the approach time for FedEx. 3 miles out is - what? - a minute and a half, at best at approach speed? (2) control did not expedite a takeoff for southwest so they took their sweet time rolling onto the runway and accelerating. At this day and age it is bewildering to see all of this run…

Because adding more technology doesn’t always makes things work better. I like this idea but the problem is you’ve just added another point of failure. Sure it may avoid this situation, but how many aircraft lifted off and landed at airports in the same day? In America I’d hazard a guess at aground the tens of thousands. Any new system has to reduce the complexity or risks of flying and that’s very hard to do. I’m no…

Hard disagree with the notion this adds a degree of failure.

From a layman's perspective, it replaces one primary degree (pilot-control coordination) with another (a technological solution) and delegates the staffers to supervisory roles. That is a risk reduction due to the increase of confirmations and the independence between the staff decision and the software's decision.

Re: ‘Confirming we are cleared to land?’ Who said what at Austin

#49

Post by michaelmrose »

pooloo wrote: post #15
valine wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the goal is to improve safety firing people is almost always the wrong response. That juvenile preoccupation with punishment only serves to create a culture where mistakes are hidden rather than understood.

It's also an extremely niche field, with a very high attrition rate in terms of training, and few people are truly capable of working in that industry. There will be retraining for certain, and a reduction in pay/rank. They certainly do not need to lose their job over a mishap, while an egregious one, it is still a trainable moment.

How do you retrain someone not to tell 2 planes they can use the same runway with repeated confirmations based on the fact that he thinks 3 miles is far enough away? At that point are we certain its not Alzheimer's?

Re: ‘Confirming we are cleared to land?’ Who said what at Austin

#50

Post by quest88 »

Ancapistani wrote: post #41
mynegation wrote: post #32

So I am neither a pilot nor an aviation geek, but to me it looks like, besides heavy fog, two things happened. (1) control misjudged the approach time for FedEx. 3 miles out is - what? - a minute and a half, at best at approach speed? (2) control did not expedite a takeoff for southwest so they took their sweet time rolling onto the runway and accelerating. At this day and age it is bewildering to see all of this run…

One issue with that is that "aviation" includes a lot more than commercial airliners - it also includes inexpensive, Spartan general aviation aircraft. The cost of such a system would be prohibitive. Just look at the rollout for ADS-B In/Out if you're curious how difficult that might be to implement.

Are there aircraft with cat3 approaches that aren’t commercial? I don’t know any any GA that do that.
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