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How difficult is it to see what's happening on the ground at night from a plane? I've never been in a cockpit at night. I'd have to hope that taxiways are marke

How difficult is it to see what's happening on the ground at night from a plane? I've never been in a cockpit at night. I'd have to hope that taxiways are marked in some explicit way to make it clear that they're not runways, like with an X or some pattern of lights that's not on runways; or have all runways marked with an obvious pattern that indicates "land here" (so if you don't see that, you know you're not landing on a runway). Don't the runways have their names labeled in lights near the entrances? (Or is that only paint?) I guess I'm surprised that it took so long for the pilots to see that there were other planes where they were landing. Is it routine to keep binoculars in a cockpit? Could they have seen what was on the ground sooner if they'd looked through binoculars briefly (after noticing unexpected lights?)

aeternus 8y ago
The numbers are not labeled in lights. Although this pic is blurry, this is SFO with both runways open: https://i.redd.it/hguxuyztxzdz.jpg https://i.redd.it/hguxuyztxzdz.jpg The night of the accident, the left runway was closed and lights were turned off.. and they were expecting two runways and to land on the one on the right. There's still no excuse for this happening with two ATP-rated pilots that have done this type of landing thousands of times, but you can kinda see how it is possible at least. This also isn't unheard-of. For example, Harrison Ford had a similar issue where he landed his private plane on a taxiway at an airport with parallel runways.
- tajen 8y ago
  But Harrison Ford’s senility (absent gaze, low liveliness) couldn’t even be hidden in his last Indiana Jones even though the camera crew can retake as many times necessary, I just wonder how he was still allowed to pilot.
captain_perl 8y ago
Large airports have fancy lighting schemes and are pretty obvious in good weather. Small airports or bad weather at night are a different story - I would not fly into a new airport the first time in those conditions. Think 10x - 100x the risk. Binoculars might be ok for the non-flying pilot to use, as long as he doesn't drop them on the floor and bind any rudder pedals.

aeternus 8y ago

The numbers are not labeled in lights. Although this pic is blurry, this is SFO with both runways open: https://i.redd.it/hguxuyztxzdz.jpg https://i.redd.it/hguxuyztxzdz.jpg The night of the accident, the left runway was closed and lights were turned off.. and they were expecting two runways and to land on the one on the right. There's still no excuse for this happening with two ATP-rated pilots that have done this type of landing thousands of times, but you can kinda see how it is possible at least. This also isn't unheard-of. For example, Harrison Ford had a similar issue where he landed his private plane on a taxiway at an airport with parallel runways.

tajen 8y ago
But Harrison Ford’s senility (absent gaze, low liveliness) couldn’t even be hidden in his last Indiana Jones even though the camera crew can retake as many times necessary, I just wonder how he was still allowed to pilot.

captain_perl 8y ago

Large airports have fancy lighting schemes and are pretty obvious in good weather. Small airports or bad weather at night are a different story - I would not fly into a new airport the first time in those conditions. Think 10x - 100x the risk. Binoculars might be ok for the non-flying pilot to use, as long as he doesn't drop them on the floor and bind any rudder pedals.