7 ms·

Where airliners with passengers land and take off? I doubt Europeans are that irresponsible.

• dghlsakjg 5y ago
  The island of St. Barths, an EU member in the Carribean, has a famously difficult airport that operates scheduled passenger flights with no tower. Technically part of Europe. There’s nothing inherently dangerous about an untowered airport, or anything inherently safer about towered ones. In the US and Canada, untowered airports account for a majority of takeoffs and landings. Also keep in mind that untowered doesn’t mean not talking to ATC. Someone here fucked up severely, but keep in mind that the deadliest aviation incident ever happened in Europe at a towered field (Tenerife).
  • fulafel 5y ago
    Using "technically" is a license to nitpick! So, Europe by default means the continent. It doesn't include territories elsewhere and includes eg most of Russia, but not Caribbean or African islands (St Barths / Tenerife).
    • seszett 5y ago
      That's like saying Hawaii isn't America though. It's technically true but when saying something doesn't exist in America, I think raising Hawaii as an exception is still valid or at least interesting. The reference to "Europe" was likely more about political Europe than geographical Europe.
      • js8 5y ago
        Wouldn't Puerto Rico be a better analogy than Hawaii? Hawaii is more like Malta in EU, a full member state.
        • seszett 5y ago
          Saint Barthélémy is closer to Hawaii in status. Puerto Rico doesn't have much representation at the federal level as far as I know, I'm not even sure if people there are full US citizens. People in Saint Barthélémy are just regular French and EU citizens who live far away from the mainland. The territory does have some degree of autonomy (more than other overseas départements) but still less so than a US state relative to the US federal government. In that, most French territories would have a status maybe more comparable to a county within a US state (afaiu the US system) than to a US state within the US. The whole comparison is a bit sketchy but France isn't a federal state and only New Caledonia and Polynesia have local legislation, all the rest of the country is very unitary in political and administrative aspects.
          • rosndo 5y ago
            Yep, I was in St Barth when Macron ordered countrywide lockdowns from his throne in Paris. I was really surprised to see all the local businesses immediately complying, they sure seem OK with being French.
          • cmurf 5y ago
            Puerto Ricans are full U.S. citizens. But it's complicated... https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2017-03-03/are-puerto-ricans-american-citizens https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2017-03-0...
          • nwallin 5y ago
            Puerto Ricans are natural born US citizens. They're eligible to be elected President, for instance, which is not a right granted to someone who petitions for and receives US citizenship, or a person born to a US citizen parent. Perhaps you're thinking of American Samoa, which does not automatically grant citizenship based upon being born there, but does grant US residency and a US passport. For instances, when there was all the talk about Barack Obama's birth certificate, it wouldn't have disqualified him as a candidate to claim his birthplace was in Puerto Rico. (See also John McCain, who was born in the Panama Canal Zone, which had a similar status to Puerty Rico, but distinct from American Samoa.) It would have disqualified his candidacy if they were able to prove he was born in Kenya or American Samoa, which would have made him not a natural born citizen, even though his mother is a US citizen, which would have Barack Obama a US citizen at birth, regardless of where he was born. St Bart's, like New Caledonia and Polynesia, is an EU Overseas Country/Territory, and a French Overseas Collectivity. St Bart's isn't as close politically to France as French Guiana or Martinique, which are both French Overseas Regions, and EU Outermost Regions. So I would compare places like French Guiana or Martinique to places like Puerto Rico, Guam, and the US Virgin Islands, and places like St Bart's, New Caledonia, and French Polynesia to places like American Samoa. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_member_state_territories_and_the_European_Union#Overseas_countries_and_territories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_member_state_territori...
      • fulafel 5y ago
        "America" is used by US people as a synonym for the country, not the continent. Europe, the EU, and names countries are used with distinction at least by Europeans.
        • seszett 5y ago
          Europe is used by most EU people as meaning the European Union. I lived in a few French overseas territories and in addition to being in France, I was definitely "in Europe" even if not in a geographical sense.
          • burmanm 5y ago
            EU is definitely not a synonym to Europe. That would exclude UK, Norway and other countries that are certainly in Europe. I've never heard anyone even thinking those two things are the same.
            • samatman 5y ago
              The claim was not about Europe, nor about the EU: it was about Europeans, namely that they wouldn't be so 'irresponsible' as to run a towerless airfield. The citizens of St. Barts are French. Are you claiming they aren't European? Tell me, do they become European when they visit the Metropole? Does this quality vanish when they return to the Caribbean? I'd love an explanation!
              • Dylan16807 5y ago
                Born and raised there? I would say that they are non-European French. And visiting France wouldn't change that classification.
                • rosndo 5y ago
                  Ethnically and culturally the residents of St Barth are definitely Europeans. French people who moved to another part of France. People born there? French kids of French parents. If St Barth had different demographics, there might be a more meaningful debate to be had about this. It’s not exactly the melting pot you might expect from an old colony.
      • Someone 5y ago
        No, it’s like saying Hawaii isn’t part of North America. I don’t think that’s controversial. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii: “It is the only state outside North America”
    • Bayart 5y ago
      > So, Europe by default means the continent. « Europe » by default means the EU where I'm from. There's no standard.
  • JCharante 5y ago
    > In the US and Canada, untowered airports account for a majority of takeoffs and landings. And the majority of those takeoffs and landings are probably tiny planes, which I presume is easier to do adhoc coordination for
    • kortilla 5y ago
      The size of the plane has nothing to do with the difficulty of ad hoc coordination. Ad hoc coordination does not mean “swerve out of the way if someone shows up on the runway”. It means announcing intent to land on the runway well in advance and coordinating with other planes using the airport over the radio.
      • GekkePrutser 5y ago
        Not sure about the US but in Europe it kinda does. If you have a bunch of GA active, odds are that 95% of the pilots are only SEP rated and PPLs. I think US pilots are generally a lot more experienced. GA is so expensive here and GA is often banned from busy areas so there's not many ways to get this experience. I saw some vids of people just flying up to LAX in their 172.. In Europe this would be unthinkable. They'll refuse and reroute you to a local small airport. In our area they were really strict on announcing all intent to traffic, but it was probably because we did have a tower at certain hours so that kept it on our minds.
  • rob74 5y ago
    About the Tenerife disaster: - it was over 40 years ago (1977). - it occured in exceptional circumstances (the Tenerife airport was overloaded because Gran Canaria airport was closed due to a terrorist incident). - having a tower didn't help a lot because of thick fog. They didn't have ground radar either, but that probably wasn't unusual for a "provincial" airport in 1977.
    • GekkePrutser 5y ago
      And Tenerife resulted in improved processes and regulations like verbal confirmation of takeoff approval (aircraft now state intent to 'departure' and the word takeoff is only used by the tower when giving the permission)
      • maxcan 5y ago
        Actually aircraft do use the term “cleared for takeoff” when reading back their takeoff clearance to ATC. Little bit of trivia, but on Sully’s famous flight he didn’t quite read back his takeoff correctly. You need to state your identifier AND runway and, IIRC, he only read back “cactus 1549 cleared for takeoff”, omitting the runway. Totally unrelated to the flight, just a little detail which the movie got right (I checked the liveATC audio).
        • GekkePrutser 5y ago
          Oh yes sorry, I just meant that aircraft don't use the term takeoff anymore until it's been granted by ATC. A major cause of Tenerife was that the KLM captain was under the impression that clearance had been granted and the Pan-Am had left the active runway. And that his fellow crew who had been listening were afraid to speak up. A lot of improvements have resulted from that terrible accident. We reviewed it in flight class, they were always using accidents to explain why rules are so important.
• kortilla 5y ago
  It has nothing to do with responsibility. A tower is not magic. There are well defined protocols for using an airport with a tower that are perfectly safe. A tower only allows more efficient usage of the runway without a bunch of distributed coordination over a general radio frequency.
• pigbearpig 5y ago
  Why would it be irresponsible? It's a matter the amount of traffic an airport gets. My guess is Europe's population density means less non towered aerodromes exist. There are many airports in the US, Canada, and elsewhere that receive a couple of commercial flights a week and it's not really feasible to have a control tower.
• supernova87a 5y ago
  You may have an inflated sense of what a tower is for, and whether Europeans are better at it than Americans or v.v. Air traffic control (at least in the US) has the purpose of ensuring separation of air traffic. That is, to help ensure that aircraft do not hit each other, by coordinating when there could be conflicts. They do not primarily exist for (or were not at least created for the purpose of) helping aircraft fundamentally navigate and or avoid non-aircraft obstacles. Or controlling an aircraft's every permissible action in the air. So, if an airfield has little traffic, in general or such as in off-hours, there may be no tower, or the tower may be unmanned. Aircraft then are responsible for coordinating themselves by announcing their activities, and taking the observation of the airport conditions into their own responsibility. It may be you believe that because European airspace is a bit denser, and in general the airports with scheduled commercial service are busier because of the density. But as others noted, there are uncontrolled/untowered airports just as in the US.
  • GekkePrutser 5y ago
    There are uncontrolled airports here yes but I haven't seen any with airline traffic that were uncontrolled during the time of airline operation. In fact even when a private jet would come in after hours the tower would be active. It was really for all kinds of commercial activity. I'm not saying that Europe is better at this than the US but I do think it makes sense to have someone watching especially to ensure separation of traffic as you say. Especially with something as big as an A320. In this case especially a tower assigning an active runway would have prevented the Beechcraft approaching from the opposite direction. I have to say also that GA is not as big as in the US and that makes GA pilots in general less vigilant and experienced with proximity to airline traffic so that's another factor.
• FabHK 5y ago
  FWIW, if I'm not mistaken, the accident rate for general aviation (=not military, not commercial/scheduled airlines) is higher in EASA land than FAA land, one reason being that FAA regulation is fairly pragmatic and goal oriented. If you read German, you can check out the magazine Pilot und Flugzeug, it reports frequently about rather insane regulation in Europe (for general aviation). https://www.pilotundflugzeug.de https://www.pilotundflugzeug.de
  • GekkePrutser 5y ago
    I think this is partly because flying is so expensive in Europe and as a results pilot tend to have a lot less experience. It's really a hobby thing only. Not a "Hey I have a business meeting in Hamburg, let's take my Cessna" thing. The EASA/JAR tends to be very strict on the commercial thing so even taking a colleague on board a private plane to a business meeting would count as commercial use and thus require a CPL (in fact I wouldn't be surprised if flying yourself to a business meeting would count as commercial!) Part of this is because of the strict regulation. Most pilots only do VFR because getting IFR rated is so expensive and not really interesting from a hobby perspective (no nice views, you can get the same experience in a simulator). Some would do special VFR but it's generally frowned upon. Also, GA aircraft are generally not welcome at major airports unlike in the US where airport access seems to be viewed more as a right than a favour. So the processes around them tend to not be understood very well. This is another reason nobody opts for IFR ratings, there's not much you can actually do with it anyway, they're not going to let you land at Amsterdam with a Cessna 172 :P They definitely wouldn't carry avgas either. So, basically we have a whole continent full of "sunday pilots" in terms of GA. And I think the strong legislation and thus costs are part of the cause for that. PS I've never flown in or even visited the US so perhaps my understanding of the GA landscape there is wrong. But AFAIK it's really used for personal transportation there, which is kinda cool IMO.