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Flawed Computer Models Add To European Flight Delays
- rbranson 16y agoSounds like the EU needs to work something out with the Flightcaster guys.
- jrockway 16y agoBecause an iPhone app that tells you your flight is delayed can model the effects of ash ingestion by jet engines? I think the EU was just playing it safe. Two planes have flown into ash clouds before. Both were essentially destroyed. Do you want to be on the plane where you hear the engines go silent and the captain announce, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped."?
- gaius 16y agoYes the issue is tho', that the government relied only on the computer model, whereas the airlines compared the model's prediction with a) satellite data and b) their own observations by making test flights. Willie Walsh, CEO of BA, himself an experienced pilot, was onboard the 747 BA sent up to take a look. Lord Adonis the transport minister declared the skies safe again having never left the ground himself. Who do you trust?
- arethuza 16y agoNeither of them - I would trust the scientists and engineers at NATS and the Met Office as they don't have the same level of commercial and political pressure on them.
- gaius 16y agoThe people who were demonstrably wrong, you mean?
- arethuza 16y agohttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8637978.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8637978.stm
- yummyfajitas 16y agoFrom the article: An RAF spokesman said the Typhoons were "very high performance jets" so staff were "just being extra cautious". ...military jets...are "a whole different world". Note that no jets crashed.
- jrockway 16y agoI would trust neither, as both parties have other interests in mind. The government will suffer political fallout if a plane crashes, so they err on the side of caution. On the other side of the coin, BA loses money every second that a plane is not in the air, but their insurance company covers them if the plane crashes and kills everyone on board. So they err on the side of keeping the planes in the air. With neither group being interested in objective safety, it's hard to believe either of them.
- gaius 16y agoInsurance wouldn't cover them if they knew it wasn't safe and flew anyway.
- rbranson 16y agoMy comment was mostly in jest. Thanks everyone for the downvotes though. Next time I'll try to remember that everyone on Hacker News is a frozen vagina.
- jarek 16y agoOf course, if the airspace wasn't closed and a plane went down, the airlines would be blaming the authorities for allowing flights in unsafe conditions.
- nraynaud 16y agoReading a British newspaper on a European topic is a bit like reading a American newspaper about Russia: not really the best way to understand.