[dead]
Friday night’s near-disaster at JFK airport
51–60 of 372 posts
Re: Friday night’s near-disaster at JFK airport
#52For 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…
Why are the lights expensive?
Re: Friday night’s near-disaster at JFK airport
#53For 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…
If this doesn’t provide evidence for funding the install of RWSL at that intersection, I don’t know what does. What would’ve been the cost of loss of life and both airframes? Tens of millions at a minimum.
Edit: thank you for correcting my damages estimate, I was off by at least an order of magnitude.
Re: Friday night’s near-disaster at JFK airport
#54What are the likely consequences of this near miss? Is someone gonna get fired?
In aviation post-event reports penalizing humans has usually the least priority, unless they intentionally violated the rules. If they did so unintentionally, or because they made a mistake, usually the entire industry gets better trainings, and/or system to prevent such. I'm generalizing here a lot.
Re: Friday night’s near-disaster at JFK airport
#55[flagged]
For two passenger cars this sort of distance isn’t a near collision but I’d say it is for an airliner taking off.
Re: Friday night’s near-disaster at JFK airport
#56What are the likely consequences of this near miss? Is someone gonna get fired?
Someone just received some very costly and professionally embarrassing training. I like to assume they'll become a better pilot for it.
Re: Friday night’s near-disaster at JFK airport
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Space flight is the one industry with a better track record I’d say.
I wonder by what metric this is true. For instance, I’m sure the fatality per flight of manned space flight is an order of magnitude worse than commercial air flight in the US.
Speculating - what if we only consider craft piloting errors? That would rule out many fatalities - Apollo 1, Challenger, Columbia.
Re: Friday night’s near-disaster at JFK airport
#58ATC recording: https://youtu.be/9N1gDSZJ5s0
Re: Friday night’s near-disaster at JFK airport
#59Are we're relying on pilots who are holding many many things in their heads to follow only the verbal directions of air traffic control? Two alternatives that I would think would be fairly easy to implement. 1) Google maps style directions input by air traffic control showing as well as telling the pilot what runway/path to runway to take. 2) Coloured lighting directing the pilot to the right runway via the correct p…
My understanding is that there is a shit ton that is and always has been happening in this area. Air safety is the leading sector in standards for safety training. We are relying on checklists, procedures, surveillance tech, simulation training, certification, re-certification etc. etc. No other industry has put in as much thought into these problems. Except for maybe the military. Source: I had the opportunity to me…
The reason surgery is so far behind aeronautics is likely entirely due to the fact that when a surgery goes wrong, it usually doesn't kill hundreds of people at once in a massive fireball. Everything else being equal, rare but spectacular failures tend to garner more attention than more frequent but less dramatic ones.
Re: Friday night’s near-disaster at JFK airport
#60For 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…
Why are the lights expensive?
Manufacturing certifications, installation and maintenance inspections and certifications, auditing, etc.
To put it into some relatable context, a simple electrical switch that you might grab for a few bucks at your local Home Depot would cost at least several hundreds of dollars because of all the red tape that must be satisfied for safety reasons.
Safety isn't cheap.