5 ms·

Previous discussion on this topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14741605 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14741605 This literally could have been o

by Flammy 9y ago

Previous discussion on this topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14741605 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14741605 This literally could have been one of the worst accidents in American aviation history had the pilots of the landing airplane failed to react in time. There were 4 fully loaded and fueled passenger jets directly ahead of them.

rrmm 9y ago
Ugly stuff. I'm glad it ended up as a miss. This incident as well as the previous ones shows that pilots need better support in these conditions. Lots of airports are set up with multiple parallel runway configs. It wouldn't be all that difficult to add computer driven confirmations of the runway an aircraft is approaching on. Given the frequency of these incidents as well as the cost of the consequences it seems like a reasonable addition. Such an addition won't end the problem, but will add another safety catch.
- mathgenius 9y ago
  > but will add another safety catch. The problem with these things is how do they interact: what do you do in the cockpit when several alarms are going off at the same time? Just adding "one more alert" seems easy but... This is actually a deep problem with automation, how do the parts interact. When writing software this is a constant battle, between modularity and connection.
  - slavak 9y ago
    It's actually even worse than that: In more than one aviation accident multiple alarms and alerts actually served to confuse the pilots as to what's going on, causing them to not perform the action that would have saved the flight. Information overload in the cockpit is a very real thing, particularly in an already task-saturated time like the landing approach. It's entirely unclear that adding yet another alert chime requiring the pilot's attention would help anything.
    - rrmm 9y ago
      Yeah I definitely agree with this concern. Rather than an alarm it could be part of the landing checklist. The person not flying would say, "Check approach on <whatever runway cleared>", the person flying would check the display and respond "Confirm approach on <whatever>".
- abaillargeon 9y ago
  Me too. This is something that already exists today [0]. It can detect when the aircraft is not lined up with a runway and issues a "Taxiway Landing" aural and visual alert. [0] https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/545578 https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/545578 , see SurfaceWatch at the bottom.
phire 9y ago
And they cut it extremely fine. The final NTSB report will probably calculate this, but I'm guessing if they had waited another second or two before shoving those throttles forwards they would have hit a plane (or three). Whats even more scary, is I get the impression that the pilots only shoved the throttles forwards because the tower told them to abort.
- ssambros 9y ago
  If you listen to the recording the pilot suspected something was not right, that's why he asked for confirmation that the runway is clear. Most likely he already anticipated a high probability of a go-around.
  - princekolt 9y ago
    They teach you in driving school to never overtake in a two-way road unless you are 100% sure you can make it. I'd assume pilots would he held to at least equal standards...
    - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
      Driving school does everything it can to dissuade you from ever overtaking on a 2-lane because driving in a big, slow line is what's acceptable for the lowest common denominator. Driving school treats people like idiots by default. Professional training assumes people have the capacity to evaluate situations and make their own decisions on the appropriate course of action. Comparing training intended for the general public and training for professionals is very much a stretch IMO.
- drfuchs 9y ago
  No, they started pulling up just before hearing from the tower; click on the link at the bottom of the referenced page: "The full investigative update and other information about the incident are available online at: https://go.usa.gov/xRPFk https://go.usa.gov/xRPFk " for more detail, including: o At 2356:04 PDT, ACA759 reappeared on the local controller’s ASDE-X/ASSC display as it passed over the first airplane positioned on taxiway C. o About 2.5 seconds after advancing the thrust levers, the minimum altitude recorded on the FDR was 59 ft agl. o At 2356:10 PDT, the local controller directed ACA759 to go around. The airplane had already begun to climb at this point (see figure 4). This means that if they hadn't acted until they heard from the tower, it would have almost certainly been a disaster.

by Flammy 9y ago

rrmm 9y ago

Ugly stuff. I'm glad it ended up as a miss. This incident as well as the previous ones shows that pilots need better support in these conditions. Lots of airports are set up with multiple parallel runway configs. It wouldn't be all that difficult to add computer driven confirmations of the runway an aircraft is approaching on. Given the frequency of these incidents as well as the cost of the consequences it seems like a reasonable addition. Such an addition won't end the problem, but will add another safety catch.

mathgenius 9y ago
> but will add another safety catch. The problem with these things is how do they interact: what do you do in the cockpit when several alarms are going off at the same time? Just adding "one more alert" seems easy but... This is actually a deep problem with automation, how do the parts interact. When writing software this is a constant battle, between modularity and connection.
- slavak 9y ago
  It's actually even worse than that: In more than one aviation accident multiple alarms and alerts actually served to confuse the pilots as to what's going on, causing them to not perform the action that would have saved the flight. Information overload in the cockpit is a very real thing, particularly in an already task-saturated time like the landing approach. It's entirely unclear that adding yet another alert chime requiring the pilot's attention would help anything.
  - rrmm 9y ago
    Yeah I definitely agree with this concern. Rather than an alarm it could be part of the landing checklist. The person not flying would say, "Check approach on <whatever runway cleared>", the person flying would check the display and respond "Confirm approach on <whatever>".
abaillargeon 9y ago
Me too. This is something that already exists today [0]. It can detect when the aircraft is not lined up with a runway and issues a "Taxiway Landing" aural and visual alert. [0] https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/545578 https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/545578 , see SurfaceWatch at the bottom.

phire 9y ago

And they cut it extremely fine. The final NTSB report will probably calculate this, but I'm guessing if they had waited another second or two before shoving those throttles forwards they would have hit a plane (or three). Whats even more scary, is I get the impression that the pilots only shoved the throttles forwards because the tower told them to abort.

ssambros 9y ago
If you listen to the recording the pilot suspected something was not right, that's why he asked for confirmation that the runway is clear. Most likely he already anticipated a high probability of a go-around.
- princekolt 9y ago
  They teach you in driving school to never overtake in a two-way road unless you are 100% sure you can make it. I'd assume pilots would he held to at least equal standards...
  - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
    Driving school does everything it can to dissuade you from ever overtaking on a 2-lane because driving in a big, slow line is what's acceptable for the lowest common denominator. Driving school treats people like idiots by default. Professional training assumes people have the capacity to evaluate situations and make their own decisions on the appropriate course of action. Comparing training intended for the general public and training for professionals is very much a stretch IMO.
drfuchs 9y ago
No, they started pulling up just before hearing from the tower; click on the link at the bottom of the referenced page: "The full investigative update and other information about the incident are available online at: https://go.usa.gov/xRPFk https://go.usa.gov/xRPFk " for more detail, including: o At 2356:04 PDT, ACA759 reappeared on the local controller’s ASDE-X/ASSC display as it passed over the first airplane positioned on taxiway C. o About 2.5 seconds after advancing the thrust levers, the minimum altitude recorded on the FDR was 59 ft agl. o At 2356:10 PDT, the local controller directed ACA759 to go around. The airplane had already begun to climb at this point (see figure 4). This means that if they hadn't acted until they heard from the tower, it would have almost certainly been a disaster.