24 ms·

Friday night’s near-disaster at JFK airport

393 points by bgc 4y ago

THnEi_ggSeKrY 4y ago
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dado3212 4y ago
Is there any aggregation of near misses? How often do things like this happen?
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  https://www.faa.gov/data_research/accident_incident https://www.faa.gov/data_research/accident_incident https://www.faa.gov/airports/runway_safety/statistics/ https://www.faa.gov/airports/runway_safety/statistics/ https://www.asias.faa.gov/apex/f?p=100:93:::NO https://www.asias.faa.gov/apex/f?p=100:93:::NO:::
- bgc 4y ago
  Sibling has the links to the authoritative data from the FAA, a search for “runway incursion” at AvHerald[0] will also yield some relevant info. [0] https://avherald.com/ https://avherald.com/ (may be hugged to death right now between this event and the turboprop crash in Nepal)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- asciimike 4y ago
  Not quite an answer to the exact question, but the FAA does publish hot spots (overview: https://www.faa.gov/airports/runway_safety/hotspots https://www.faa.gov/airports/runway_safety/hotspots, full list: https://aeronav.faa.gov/afd/29Dec2022/All_Hotspot.PDF https://aeronav.faa.gov/afd/29Dec2022/All_Hotspot.PDF).
- bombcar 4y ago
  https://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/ https://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/ And it’s related reports
- Slow_Hand 4y ago
  A near miss is a collision. This was a near collision ;)
  - SoftTalker 4y ago
    Classic George Carlin bit on this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDKdvTecYAM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDKdvTecYAM
  - quickthrower2 4y ago
    A near miss as opposed to a far miss, the type that happens when a plane in China misses one in the US
pedalpete 4y ago
Are 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 path. Then the pilot only needs to know that they are following blue, and when it's time for them to move, blue comes up. I understand this would be more work on the part of ATC, where right now they can verbally communicate, but a system such as this may also help ATC relieve some of the mental load. Is this already happening? I can't find any links to suggest it is.
- crooked-v 4y ago
  > 1) Google maps style directions input by air traffic control showing as well as telling the pilot what runway/path to runway to take. Now you've added one more thing for the pilot to look at instead of actually looking out the windows.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago
    Head-up display? Augmented reality?
- bgc 4y ago
  Related to (2) is an RWSL[0] system, which was supposedly in use at the time of this event and is designed to stop exactly this sort of thing… whether it was functioning, the pilots didn’t see it, etc, will surely come out in the ensuing investigations. ETA: another comment suggests that while JFK has RWSL, it was not installed at the intersection where this occurred. [0] https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/rwsl/ https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/rwsl/
- tobinfricke 4y ago
  Re #2: We already have something like this at some airports. I wonder whether it was available on the runway/taxiway in question? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runway_status_lights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runway_status_lights
moloch-hai 4y ago
[flagged]
- Nicksil 4y ago
  >I hate that they call this having a "near-collision" >They came close to having a collision What? >but there was nothing like any sort of collision Because "near"
  - moloch-hai 4y ago
    No bad thing happened, except Delta cancelling its flight. The bad thing was prevented by quick action.
    - Nicksil 4y ago
      >No bad thing happened Right, because "near." It's in the title.
    - jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
      "Near collision" in this case is perfectly ordinary english phrasing. It does not assert a collision happened.
      - blackshaw 4y ago
        Unless you ask George Carlin: https://youtu.be/zDKdvTecYAM https://youtu.be/zDKdvTecYAM
        saalweachter 4y ago
        Without re-watching the video in question, wasn't Carlin's complaint about a "near miss"? A "near collision" is everything he asked for.
        blackshaw 4y ago
m_a_g 4y ago
> strong kudos are due both to the air traffic controller who called off the Delta 737 and to the pilots of that plane who managed to abort their takeoff and stop the aircraft before it crossed runway 31L where the Boeing widebody passed in front of it Can't agree more
- plusminusplus 4y ago
  How difficult is it to stop an aircraft like that so quickly? More than yanking an emergency brake handle I'm assuming.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - thecosmicfrog 4y ago
    Before takeoff on all modern airliners, the autobrake system is set to a mode called "RTO" (Rejected Take Off). If at any stage during the takeoff roll the throttles are pulled back to their idle position (an instinctive move during an abort), maximum wheel braking is applied, along with extension of the ground spoilers on the wings (the panels which "stick up" on the wings when you land). Pilots will also usually apply maximum reverse thrust on the engines, adding in a third form of braking.
    - Aeolun 4y ago
      That’s pretty smart! Thanks for the explanation.
  - flyingfences 4y ago
    A 737-900, fully loaded and fueled for a transatlantic flight, weighs 70 - 80 tons and takes off at 150 - 180 mph. That's a lot of energy to dissipate in a hurry.
    - hnarn 4y ago
      Fun fact, during a high speed rejected takeoff certification the brakes routinely catch fire.
vcanhoto 4y ago
I'll be eagerly waiting for the Mentour Pilot[0] incident analysis. [0] https://youtube.com/@MentourPilot https://youtube.com/@MentourPilot
- geoffeg 4y ago
  Also check out https://www.youtube.com/@blancolirio/videos https://www.youtube.com/@blancolirio/videos He releases videos pretty quickly but generally tries to avoid speculation.
- benjaminwootton 4y ago
  He’s an outstanding YouTuber.
amelius 4y ago
So we don't have computers anticipating the movements of airplanes, and giving warning signals if necessary?
- sklargh 4y ago
  We do but not to the extent that laypeople would think rational. Taxi instructions are verbal affairs. Hugely problematic in very busy airports. I will say that I am not sure how much automation would have helped. It does appear that this pilot had really lost situational awareness.
  - asciimike 4y ago
    > It does appear that this pilot had really lost situational awareness. Totally. The instructions were "taxi Bravo hold short of Kilo" and "cross 31L at Kilo"; read back was correct but instead of turning right at Kilo and crossing 31L, the pilot turned left, then right, and crossed 4L at Juliet.
    - kevinventullo 4y ago
      Right, so going back to the question of automation, it seems like in principle a computer should be able to not only understand those instructions, but observe that the offending aircraft was deviating from those instructions and immediately alert.
      - sklargh 4y ago
        KJFK has a system like this that uses a blend of radar and transponder multilateration to automatically signal to aircraft that they are about to enter an active runway. The pilot either did not see (for human or technical factors) or disregarded this system during the incursion. What is lacking (to your point) is the ability to automatically compare ATC’s verbal instruction to the aircraft to its actual position.
        asciimike 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
madrox 4y ago
This is an incredible write-up. Kudos to the journalist who wrote this piece. I wish more current events were chronicled this way.
- NnEiWgSger 4y ago
  [dead]
- cshimmin 4y ago
  @Dang / moderators: in case you are not already aware, in the sibling comment which is dead the username contains an inappropriate racial slur. Sorry I don't know how to better report this. Edit: I figured it out, sorry for the noise. For anyone confused as me, you have to click the timestamp to see the `flag` link on the comment.
  - dredmorbius 4y ago
    Email concerns to HN mods at hn@ycombinator.com. (I've done so here.)
perihelions 4y ago
Here's a diagram of the taxi paths: https://avherald.com/h?article=503c9620 https://avherald.com/h?article=503c9620 - "Excerpt of Aerodrome Chart, red: actual taxi path, green: cleared taxi path (Graphics: AVH/FAA):"
hn_user2 4y ago
For 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 cross it. These lights are installed at JFK, but apparently NOT at the intersection inquisition. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runway_status_lights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runway_status_lights). JFK also has Airport Surface Detection Equipment (ASDE). Which is essentially ground radar including transponder/ADS-B replies. Many have automated alerts when it detects a potential runway incursion. Not known if any such system alerted the controller. There is obviously room for more to be done in this space.
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  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.
  - sixQuarks 4y ago
    Each plane costs more than $150 million, plus at least 300 lives could have been lost. Damages probably close to a billion at least
    - echelon 4y ago
      Each human life is worth approximately $10 million [1], so you're in the right ballpark. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life
      - IncRnd 4y ago
        $10 million is not what is stated at your link. "In Western countries and other liberal democracies, estimates for the value of a statistical life typically range from US$1 million—US$10 million; for example, the United States FEMA estimated the value of a statistical life at US$7.5 million in 2020." [1] That's also not the meaning of Value of Life, which is a statistical evaluation. On a commercial plane there are almost certainly multiple people whose individual Value of Life projections exceed $10 million. In many other cases, the value of life calculation for the very pilots of a commercial flight is less than $10 million. This all goes to show that this calculation is not for what "each human life is worth". This is a statistical evaluation for determining what would need to be paid to an individual to engage in a dangerous activity or to be paid to a survivor after a person dies from an activity. When someone decides to work at a 7-11 in a crime-ridden area for a greater pay compared to a 7-11 in a safe family area, they perform a type of Value of Life calculation. [1] From the first section of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life
blackshaw 4y ago
What are the likely consequences of this near miss? Is someone gonna get fired?
- precommunicator 4y ago
  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.
  - azalemeth 4y ago
    Indeed. Punishing people for making human mistakes causes them to hide them, feel ashamed, and not highlight issues that may affect others. Aviation has fostered (very specifically) an open culture of inquisition to errors: it's assumed that if one qualified pilot made a mistake, any qualified pilot could make the same mistake under the same circumstances. If anything, you're actively encouraged to report things that are either confusing, or situations when you nearly made a mistake – the gliding club I spent a lot of time at in the past explicitly encouraged issues to be reported and put them in their monthly newsletter. Root cause analysis is a wonderful thing, and sometimes very convoluted and interesting. I'm sure the outcome of this event will probably be a technical mitigation of some variety to attempt to stop it happening again.
    - benjaminwootton 4y ago
      Interesting that programming went in the same direction. Blameless post-mortems etc.
      - sethammons 4y ago
        This move was championed in the industry by John Allspaw, then CTO of Etsy, around 2010. I am under the impression that he introduced the idea of blameless post mortems but I could be misremembering.
christophilus 4y ago
The animation in the tweet at the end of the article is something. Based on that, the deceleration looked remarkably fast. I imagine that was quite the ride for the folks in the Delta jet.
- Symbiote 4y ago
  I've experienced maximum breaking in an emergency landing. Many passengers (including me) instinctively put their hands on the seat in front to steady themselves. You could easily slide around if the seat belt were loose. It was it worst for children whose legs didn't reach the floor, but there were none seated near me.
  - lelandfe 4y ago
    I was on a plane that had engine issues during takeoff, front wheel off the ground. We slammed back down to earth and likewise they braked harder than I'd ever experienced. Lady's phone flew out of her hand. It was intense.
    - polishdude20 4y ago
      Hmm that's interesting since by the time the front wheel comes off the ground, an airplane would normally be past V1 speed and they'd have to commit to the takeoff.
      - CPLX 4y ago
        That’s generally true but the rule is that you never abort past V1 unless you have specific immediate reason to believe the aircraft cannot become and stay airborne. There aren’t a ton of reasons one might think that but a few come to mind like total engine failure or lack of elevator control or similar.
        techdragon 4y ago
        I can only imagine that the pilot had reason to believe something was wrong the moment the forces began to lift the front wheel and change the aircraft dynamics, which definitely is in the extremely fast changing grey zone for a lot of conditions highly dependent on the exact aircraft and it’s current conditions. Light payload and fuel loading pushing V1 very close to takeoff speed and lower than the maximum numbers, headwinds, engine conditions, etc… it’s definitely a case of “sometimes pilots do have to make quick decisions” and my money is on engines or the hydraulics when they first took load on the moving surfaces as the aerodynamics shifted passing V1 towards takeoff speed.
WniAggTCerH 4y ago
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precommunicator 4y ago
ATC recording: https://youtu.be/9N1gDSZJ5s0 https://youtu.be/9N1gDSZJ5s0
- sixQuarks 4y ago
  That looked like they were barely accelerating
  - FearlessNebula 4y ago
    > animation to scale and aircraft positions approximate
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
andrepd 4y ago
ATC recordings, plus a diagram more or less to scale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N1gDSZJ5s0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N1gDSZJ5s0
- eterm 4y ago
  Interesting, because it's clear from the recording (but not the article) that the taxi instruction was read back correctly, just not followed correctly.
  - perihelions 4y ago
    (At 2:48 - 2:56 if anyone's searching).
rainbowzootsuit 4y ago
For anyone interested in the milieu of plane crashes, Admiral Cloudberg's writeups are amazing. https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/ https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/
- doctor_eval 4y ago
  Well, that just took me down the intertubes for an hour. Thanks!
redtriumph 4y ago
Anyone wondering about map of taxi runways at JFK https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/FAA_JFK_Airport_map_2016.pdf https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/FAA_JFK_...
LarryMullins 4y ago
> (“Shit! Delta 1943 cancel takeoff clearance!”) This isn't a real quote, is it? I was surprised to read ATC losing their composure like that, but in the linked video/audio there is no utterance of Shit! that I can hear.
- jaboutboul 4y ago
  It’s definitely on there
  - LarryMullins 4y ago
    Oh you're right. The tweet linked in the article doesn't have it but this version does: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N1gDSZJ5s0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N1gDSZJ5s0 vs https://twitter.com/RossFeinstein/status/1614613794470100995 https://twitter.com/RossFeinstein/status/1614613794470100995
    - eliseumds 4y ago
      The tweet has it as well, at 5s of the second attached video: https://twitter.com/xJonNYC/status/1614370783899303938/video/2 https://twitter.com/xJonNYC/status/1614370783899303938/video...
- Havoc 4y ago
  There is a very loud and clear “shit” in the actual atc stream It was very very close so monetary lapse in composure isn’t entirely unexpected
- reducesuffering 4y ago
  The ATC is dawning on the fact that if they don't call off the takeoff within 5 more seconds, V1 speed will be hit and there goes both planes... I'm surprised they weren't less composed...
- teaearlgraycold 4y ago
  Honestly the "Shit!" is good communication. Breaking composure and normalcy can ensure everyone hearing the message treats it as urgent. That might make the difference when seconds are on the line.
dylan604 4y ago
DELTA1943: "Alright, and uh, woof!" ATC: "Delta 1943, are you able to taxi or do you need a couple of minutes to run checks?" DELTA1943: "Yeah, we can get off the runway" but they're all going to need a change of underwear!! And I thought the Brits were known for understatement!
- ipnon 4y ago
  I believe this kind of situation is known in pilot parlance as a “code brown.”
- philjohn 4y ago
  I'm always reminded of the announcement the pilot of BA 009 made when all four engines had failed: "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress."
  - Shocka1 4y ago
    Thanks for this. I didn't know about the incident and it led me down the rabbit hole. The article shared on the pilot's personal page is wonderful - it took me on a rollercoaster ride of emotions. http://www.ericmoody.com/ http://www.ericmoody.com/
    - Breza 4y ago
      You might also be interested in the story of UA 232. They lost all controls and somehow used engine thrust to keep the plane airborne. They called the Maintenance department for advice and were basically asked where they were going to crash. My grandparents were standing on their porch waiting for the doomed airliner to fly over their house. Instead, the crew wrenched it around the city to save lives on the ground when they inevitably went down. ATC offered to let them crash land on the highway, but the flight crew insisted on crashing at SUX. By the time the plane came into view at the airport, ATC had already declared a crash. Just about every fire apparatus in Woodbury County was sitting on an abandoned runway, waiting for the inevitable. Then they realized that the plane was lined up on the same old runway, which resulted in a panicked move of a whole lot of trucks. Knowing he was about to crash somewhere (maybe near a runway, maybe not) Captain Haynes exemplified grace under fire, as shown in this exchange. ATC: United 232 Heavy, Roger, Sir. Wind 010 at 11. You are cleared to land on any runway. Al Haynes : [chuckles] You want to be particular in making a runway? [staff at the control tower laugh nervously]
kylehotchkiss 4y ago
I flew into JFK in December and was surprised the number of concurrent operations going on… landing queues of 5+ planes in the sky for the two runways, long takeoff queues, so many land operations… once you touch down it sure feels like the pilot knows they have to get that plane off the runway ASAP. Felt much more busy than I have previously going through LAX/SFO/London/Dubai. I wonder if the level of traffic at JFK is appropriate. Maybe Newark and LaGuardia need to take on more of the load. And maybe a city airport shouldn’t be the primary international entrance point for what feels like half the country
- cguess 4y ago
  Pretty much all three airports (EWR, LGA, JFK) are already at capacity, so there's no room for others to take any load.
  - ckdarby 4y ago
    A solution that'll anger people but resolve the capacity issus, all flights with not a final destination in USA can only connect through Stewart airport.
    - cguess 4y ago
      That airport has one cafe. It's a nice little regional airport (I know they serve international destinations I've flow out of it to KEF, but it's very small). I'm not even sure how many planes land without a final US destination in the US? The passengers may be going on, but are the planes?
    - qazxcvbnmlp 4y ago
      Airport is at full capacity -> route more pax through other airports. A lot of people benefit from keeping JFK full. Airlines, pax wanting direct flights to other destinations etc. Currently ~20% of New York passengers are connecting passengers, you could route them through other airports and free up capacity with much less disruption then making the New York local passengers have an extra connection on the way out.
    - 4y ago
jMyles 4y ago
I want to offer a bit of a different perspective than the one I'm seeing in other comments which (totally reasonably) wonder if a) JFK is too busy or needs some safety upgrades and b) whether voice contact with ATC is the best way to reduce risk during unusual events like incursions. I'm just an amateur enthusiast who listens to a lot of ATC, so take this assessment with that grain of salt: JFK has long had a unique subculture with respect to ATC (embodied most famously by the flourish and wit of Kennedy Steve, but often apparent from the entire ATC corps on both ground and tower during busy times), and strange as it sounds, it might be a part of what averted this disaster. At other airports, it seems to me that it's totally possible that this goes far worse. The controller did a few things that are unusual in ATC, but not totally unheard of at JFK in particular: * Completely changed tone of voice. He yelled into the mic. That doesn't happen often in ATC. * Yelled "SHIT!" to open his transmission. * Spoke in a way that emphasized speed and urgency even if it cost a little clarity (eg, some news outlets have transcribed "cancel takeoff clearance" as "cancel takeoff plans" because of how intense and fast the controller is yelling) Assuming the aircraft were on a collision course (something we'll probably know for sure only when the FAA report comes out), this was less than 1.5 seconds (perhaps less than 1 second) from an impact. A different transmission, like you might hear at say LHR or LAX, where the controller keeps a monotone and simply says, "Delta 1943 cancel takeoff clearance" might not have gotten the attention so quickly and helped the Delta pilot initiate the reject so rapidly. I think that this incident is an example of a) how JFK's unique ATC swagger may not be just for show, but may actually be a part of the safety culture of that airport, and b) how effective voice contact with ATC is at achieving rapid response from pilots. Ideally, this investigation prompts some study into what might seem like a silly topic: whether the "New York attitude" of JFK controllers has a positive safety impact that isn't felt elsewhere.
- throwayyy479087 4y ago
  Fantastic comment. Also on the language front, New York English is spoken faster and with more emphasis - likely to be helpful here compared to say, Texan.
- jonnybgood 4y ago
  Does this same subculture apply to LGA?
foobarbecue 4y ago
Just like in the movie 2:22... which oddly enough I was watching on Friday night.
Jose1997 4y ago
[flagged]
fexecve 4y ago
Murphy's Law in action. With this many flights per day, you need tons of safety measures to ensure that mistakes like this are extremely unlikely. Like "defense in depth", you can't rely on just a few layers of countermeasures, the more the better. So yes, red lights at every intersection are good, but retrofitting planes with a gps-style map that shows exactly where to go and when to turn is even better (and of course probably insanely expensive).
user3939382 4y ago
I had a sort-of hobby of learning and listening to ATC at one point. Some of these guys were scary-unintelligible . I remember this Chinese ATC at some major airport saying as fast as he possibly could “clah de leh” which was supposed to be “Clear to land”. It’s amazing the system works as well as it does.
- thaw239847 4y ago
  Having accent is not the same as being "unintelligible". Do you know how to say "Clear to land" in Chinese?
  - Spooky23 4y ago
    The universal language of aviation isn’t Chinese.
  - tourist2d 4y ago
    Unintelligible: impossible to understand. Maybe you should brush up on your own English skills?
- rmccue 4y ago
  Worth keeping in mind that recordings of ATC are taken from people running ground stations, which may not have perfect line-of-sight to the transmitter at the airport, so recordings can be lower quality and more garbled than what the pilots are actually hearing.
  - user3939382 4y ago
    Totally true, although the examples I was contemplating are like in a sibling comment to yours, where even the pilots are confused. I think a lot of pilots would agree that there’s room for improvement in diction with ATC. And of course not for the sake of aesthetics or something but for safety.
- martopix 4y ago
  I cannot find the video right now, but there was a widely watched one exactly as you describe, where the controller issued a 'cletala' several times, and it was a very American controller, I believe in California. EDIT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=picf7sPEhi8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=picf7sPEhi8
farseer 4y ago
Ah the old KLM, Pan Am repetition was avoided. For those who don't remember: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  That was very peculiar circumstances. IIRC Tiny airport with single small runway without lights that had 2 controllers staff in total landing dozens of jumbo jets diverted from an airport that had a bomb go off. And very thick fog. They had to use the same runway to taxi planes for takeoff while taxi other planes to queue up. The pilot took off without clearance while another confused pilot that was allowed on the runway was trying to find the correct exit.
mkl95 4y ago
Layman question here, why can't airplane collisions be predicted automatically? Something like an axis aligned bounding box around each airplane and some basic velocity equations. You don't want airplanes to be too close so an approximation should suffice.
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  I was thinking why not at least have level crossing type warnings to stop anyone coming on to the runway when a plane has been cleared.
- boredhedgehog 4y ago
  Like TCAS? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_collision_avoidance_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_collision_avoidance_sy...) Doesn't help on the ground though.
- t0mas88 4y ago
  A system for this exists, but it's new and not on many airports yet: https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/rwsl/pet/ https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/rwsl/pet/ It basically uses radar data to figure out whether it's safe to enter and safe to take-off on a runway. If it's not it will show red lights at the take-off position and entry points, pilots are trained not to cross those lights when red even if ATC says to do so.
- hugh-avherald 4y ago
  By the time you've predicted a collision it's too late to react. There's no advantage having a predictive tool over a binary "runway clear/not clear"
c2xlZXB5 4y ago
The article mentions runway 4L was being used for takeoffs. In the ATC communications, you can hear them say "American 185, runway 31L at KE, line up and wait" before telling Delta 1943 to cancel their takeoff clearance. And after the near collision, ATC tells American 106 Heavy "we're departing runway 4L." Wouldn't the line up and wait call for American 185 mean that they were departing from both 4L and 31L?
- innocenat 4y ago
  Departing 4L mean that there are no 31L full length take-off (except very very heavy aircraft). 31L at KE does not conflict with 4L, nor does it require crossing 4L.
- ralph84 4y ago
  The ATIS recording is here: https://archive.liveatc.net/kjfk/KJFK-D-ATIS-Jan-14-2023-0130Z.mp3 https://archive.liveatc.net/kjfk/KJFK-D-ATIS-Jan-14-2023-013... They were landing 4R and 4L, departing 4L and 31L at KE. American 106 ended up departing 31L full length since that's where they had decided to taxi to and it was probably easier to just get rid of them that way rather than have them cross 4L again to depart where everyone else was departing from.
WalterBright 4y ago
Maybe 25 years ago, I'm not sure, there was some collision at an airport and the investigators were all wondering what happened, and were trying to reconstruct which airplane was where. It turns out that there were no video cameras monitoring the taxiways and runways. I asked why not? "Too expensive" WAAT? Even a 7-11 had an always on camera. "Too expensive. How would you get it to withstand the weather? How would you run power to it?" Me: install it in the control tower, point it at the taxiways, and plug it in. "That will never work" Me: Sigh. I still don't know if they have cameras monitoring the ground ops.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  These days you could point a handful of cameras at the taxiways, hook it to a computer, and have a realtime display of everything on the taxiways and runways. Then, the computer could detect potential collisions and alert.
  - speedgoose 4y ago
    They already have a real-time display. I can’t say for American airports but I have been involved in European air traffic control research and I can say that using algorithms isn’t very very well received by air traffic controllers. Computers tend to do better than humans in optimal situations, but can also completely fail in other situations. One example is the sun magnetic waves disturbing the radars. For cameras I can think of many things that can fail, rabbits eating the cables, snow of the lense, or the local cloud provider having a downtime. So because computers can fail and humans are the backup, humans must be always present and have the best situation awareness. And to have the best situation awareness, you can’t let algorithms do the work.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      > For cameras I can think of many things that can fail, wabbits eating the cables, snow of the lense, or the local cloud provider having a downtime If the people in the tower can see the operations, then a camera in the tower can see them, too. Don't need a local cloud provider. > So because computers can fail and humans are the backup, humans must be always present and have the best situation awareness Think of the video system as the backup. It's like the system in the car that will hit the breaks automatically if you're about to hit a wall. BTW, I infer from your post that there STILL are no cameras pointed at the taxiways. Heck, a good chunk of homes have an always-on camera in their doorbell. This is not rocket science, and is not expensive. Remember when that SST caught fire taking off? No video of it. The accident investigation had to do a lot of investigation to figure out when it caught fire. Because of the lack of a simple, cheap camera like you'd find in convenience store. P.S. There are plenty of wabbits in my yard. So far, none of them have eaten through the power or phone cables. I must be just lucky :-/
rnk 4y ago
As we know from experience trying to use computers, humans struggle to remember a series of words, letters and numbers - like these runway instructions. When we are tired or stressed we'll make mistakes. This is true even for highly trained pilots. We need some additional safety methods like the lights. I imagine the pilot writes it down and tries to follow it. But it's a dynamic env, it might be raining, bright, or dark, planes comes and going. You might not remember the details of this runway. That's my naive view as an outsider. Eventually this system will fail (remembering and following) and lead to crash. I never thought about it but it seems inherently risky to have people "remember directions".
shepherdjerred 4y ago
This video does a great job illustrating the situation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N1gDSZJ5s0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N1gDSZJ5s0
ho_schi 4y ago
Question Did the B777-200 Pilots assumed the should takeoff from 4R with 2.560m length? Should be enough for a B777-200? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_777#Specifications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_777#Specifications
N19PEDL2 4y ago
It reminds me of an air disaster that happened about 20 years ago for the same reason. [0] In that case, the pilot of a plane misread the taxiway number (he confused R5 with R6 [1]) and entered the runway while another plane was taking off. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linate_Airport_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linate_Airport_disaster [1] This is what the junction between R5 and R6 looked like that day: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Disastro_Linate-02.png https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Disastro_Linate-02.png
tompccs 4y ago
It's surprising that ATC works in such a human-driven manual way. Compare to train signalling, where tracks are divided into signalled sections, and a train cannot enter the next section until the section ahead is clear, with automated braking if a red signal is run. This system was developed over many tragic accidents. Even the Victorians came up with ways to minimise human error (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Token_(railway_signalling) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Token_(railway_signalling) )
- KptMarchewa 4y ago
  One reason is air corridors aren't so well defined as railways.
thret 4y ago
Given that you absolutely never swear (or even waste words) on the radio, I wonder if beginning the transmission with an expletive is actually optimal: it is short, sharp, and immediately conveys the urgency of the command.
- addandsubtract 4y ago
  Reading the transcript, I thought it might've been a waste of time to start with "Shit...", but listing to the audio does make the following command a lot more urgent and severe. Either way, with all the things going on (and through a pilot's head) at take-off, I'm glad they were able to respond to the message and stop the plane in time.
  - bscphil 4y ago
    I don't know how accurate the various videos are, but if they are, the Delta pilot was probably able to visually see the plane on the runway ahead, perhaps even before the tower noticed it. The plane seems to begin decelerating very early, before I'd expect the "cancel takeoff clearance" message to have been fully understood by the pilot.
O__________O 4y ago
Once flying into NYC after passing over the end of the runway to land the plane pulled up super hard back into cursing altitude for landing. Once we leveled off, pilot came on to say, “Sorry about that folks, there was a plane taking off.” - Guess I always assumed this was a common issue.
- ec109685 4y ago
  Cursing altitude is a good description.
martopix 4y ago
Recording of the ATC conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N1gDSZJ5s0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N1gDSZJ5s0
zestyping 4y ago
Watching the animation at https://twitter.com/CaseWade/status/1614342894248394752 https://twitter.com/CaseWade/status/1614342894248394752, I am astonished that ground paths are routinely planned with so many conflicts, all crisscrossing frequently with so little clearance between airplanes. I counted six other path conflicts in the space of 25 seconds, in this tiny section of the airport. With conflicts happening every few seconds, it's incredible to me that crashes don't happen more often. Why are paths planned this way? Is capacity pressure so extreme that airplanes have to be crammed together this tightly? Is it not possible for airplanes to travel along taxi-only paths that minimize runway crossings, or wait in orderly queues and achieve nearly the same rate of takeoffs?

393 points by bgc 4y ago

THnEi_ggSeKrY 4y ago

[dead]

dado3212 4y ago

Is there any aggregation of near misses? How often do things like this happen?

toomuchtodo 4y ago
https://www.faa.gov/data_research/accident_incident https://www.faa.gov/data_research/accident_incident https://www.faa.gov/airports/runway_safety/statistics/ https://www.faa.gov/airports/runway_safety/statistics/ https://www.asias.faa.gov/apex/f?p=100:93:::NO https://www.asias.faa.gov/apex/f?p=100:93:::NO:::
bgc 4y ago
Sibling has the links to the authoritative data from the FAA, a search for “runway incursion” at AvHerald[0] will also yield some relevant info. [0] https://avherald.com/ https://avherald.com/ (may be hugged to death right now between this event and the turboprop crash in Nepal)
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
asciimike 4y ago
Not quite an answer to the exact question, but the FAA does publish hot spots (overview: https://www.faa.gov/airports/runway_safety/hotspots https://www.faa.gov/airports/runway_safety/hotspots, full list: https://aeronav.faa.gov/afd/29Dec2022/All_Hotspot.PDF https://aeronav.faa.gov/afd/29Dec2022/All_Hotspot.PDF).
bombcar 4y ago
https://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/ https://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/ And it’s related reports
Slow_Hand 4y ago
A near miss is a collision. This was a near collision ;)
- SoftTalker 4y ago
  Classic George Carlin bit on this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDKdvTecYAM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDKdvTecYAM
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  A near miss as opposed to a far miss, the type that happens when a plane in China misses one in the US

pedalpete 4y ago

Are 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 path. Then the pilot only needs to know that they are following blue, and when it's time for them to move, blue comes up. I understand this would be more work on the part of ATC, where right now they can verbally communicate, but a system such as this may also help ATC relieve some of the mental load. Is this already happening? I can't find any links to suggest it is.

crooked-v 4y ago
> 1) Google maps style directions input by air traffic control showing as well as telling the pilot what runway/path to runway to take. Now you've added one more thing for the pilot to look at instead of actually looking out the windows.
- LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago
  Head-up display? Augmented reality?
bgc 4y ago
Related to (2) is an RWSL[0] system, which was supposedly in use at the time of this event and is designed to stop exactly this sort of thing… whether it was functioning, the pilots didn’t see it, etc, will surely come out in the ensuing investigations. ETA: another comment suggests that while JFK has RWSL, it was not installed at the intersection where this occurred. [0] https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/rwsl/ https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/rwsl/
tobinfricke 4y ago
Re #2: We already have something like this at some airports. I wonder whether it was available on the runway/taxiway in question? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runway_status_lights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runway_status_lights

moloch-hai 4y ago

[flagged]

Nicksil 4y ago
>I hate that they call this having a "near-collision" >They came close to having a collision What? >but there was nothing like any sort of collision Because "near"
- moloch-hai 4y ago
  No bad thing happened, except Delta cancelling its flight. The bad thing was prevented by quick action.
  - Nicksil 4y ago
    >No bad thing happened Right, because "near." It's in the title.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
    "Near collision" in this case is perfectly ordinary english phrasing. It does not assert a collision happened.
    - blackshaw 4y ago
      Unless you ask George Carlin: https://youtu.be/zDKdvTecYAM https://youtu.be/zDKdvTecYAM
      - saalweachter 4y ago
        Without re-watching the video in question, wasn't Carlin's complaint about a "near miss"? A "near collision" is everything he asked for.
        blackshaw 4y ago

m_a_g 4y ago

> strong kudos are due both to the air traffic controller who called off the Delta 737 and to the pilots of that plane who managed to abort their takeoff and stop the aircraft before it crossed runway 31L where the Boeing widebody passed in front of it Can't agree more

plusminusplus 4y ago
How difficult is it to stop an aircraft like that so quickly? More than yanking an emergency brake handle I'm assuming.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- thecosmicfrog 4y ago
  Before takeoff on all modern airliners, the autobrake system is set to a mode called "RTO" (Rejected Take Off). If at any stage during the takeoff roll the throttles are pulled back to their idle position (an instinctive move during an abort), maximum wheel braking is applied, along with extension of the ground spoilers on the wings (the panels which "stick up" on the wings when you land). Pilots will also usually apply maximum reverse thrust on the engines, adding in a third form of braking.
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    That’s pretty smart! Thanks for the explanation.
- flyingfences 4y ago
  A 737-900, fully loaded and fueled for a transatlantic flight, weighs 70 - 80 tons and takes off at 150 - 180 mph. That's a lot of energy to dissipate in a hurry.
  - hnarn 4y ago
    Fun fact, during a high speed rejected takeoff certification the brakes routinely catch fire.

vcanhoto 4y ago

I'll be eagerly waiting for the Mentour Pilot[0] incident analysis. [0] https://youtube.com/@MentourPilot https://youtube.com/@MentourPilot

geoffeg 4y ago
Also check out https://www.youtube.com/@blancolirio/videos https://www.youtube.com/@blancolirio/videos He releases videos pretty quickly but generally tries to avoid speculation.
benjaminwootton 4y ago
He’s an outstanding YouTuber.

amelius 4y ago

So we don't have computers anticipating the movements of airplanes, and giving warning signals if necessary?

sklargh 4y ago
We do but not to the extent that laypeople would think rational. Taxi instructions are verbal affairs. Hugely problematic in very busy airports. I will say that I am not sure how much automation would have helped. It does appear that this pilot had really lost situational awareness.
- asciimike 4y ago
  > It does appear that this pilot had really lost situational awareness. Totally. The instructions were "taxi Bravo hold short of Kilo" and "cross 31L at Kilo"; read back was correct but instead of turning right at Kilo and crossing 31L, the pilot turned left, then right, and crossed 4L at Juliet.
  - kevinventullo 4y ago
    Right, so going back to the question of automation, it seems like in principle a computer should be able to not only understand those instructions, but observe that the offending aircraft was deviating from those instructions and immediately alert.
    - sklargh 4y ago
      KJFK has a system like this that uses a blend of radar and transponder multilateration to automatically signal to aircraft that they are about to enter an active runway. The pilot either did not see (for human or technical factors) or disregarded this system during the incursion. What is lacking (to your point) is the ability to automatically compare ATC’s verbal instruction to the aircraft to its actual position.
      - asciimike 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

madrox 4y ago

This is an incredible write-up. Kudos to the journalist who wrote this piece. I wish more current events were chronicled this way.

NnEiWgSger 4y ago
[dead]
cshimmin 4y ago
@Dang / moderators: in case you are not already aware, in the sibling comment which is dead the username contains an inappropriate racial slur. Sorry I don't know how to better report this. Edit: I figured it out, sorry for the noise. For anyone confused as me, you have to click the timestamp to see the `flag` link on the comment.
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  Email concerns to HN mods at hn@ycombinator.com. (I've done so here.)

perihelions 4y ago

Here's a diagram of the taxi paths: https://avherald.com/h?article=503c9620 https://avherald.com/h?article=503c9620 - "Excerpt of Aerodrome Chart, red: actual taxi path, green: cleared taxi path (Graphics: AVH/FAA):"

hn_user2 4y ago

For 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 cross it. These lights are installed at JFK, but apparently NOT at the intersection inquisition. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runway_status_lights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runway_status_lights). JFK also has Airport Surface Detection Equipment (ASDE). Which is essentially ground radar including transponder/ADS-B replies. Many have automated alerts when it detects a potential runway incursion. Not known if any such system alerted the controller. There is obviously room for more to be done in this space.

toomuchtodo 4y ago
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.
- sixQuarks 4y ago
  Each plane costs more than $150 million, plus at least 300 lives could have been lost. Damages probably close to a billion at least
  - echelon 4y ago
    Each human life is worth approximately $10 million [1], so you're in the right ballpark. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life
    - IncRnd 4y ago
      $10 million is not what is stated at your link. "In Western countries and other liberal democracies, estimates for the value of a statistical life typically range from US$1 million—US$10 million; for example, the United States FEMA estimated the value of a statistical life at US$7.5 million in 2020." [1] That's also not the meaning of Value of Life, which is a statistical evaluation. On a commercial plane there are almost certainly multiple people whose individual Value of Life projections exceed $10 million. In many other cases, the value of life calculation for the very pilots of a commercial flight is less than $10 million. This all goes to show that this calculation is not for what "each human life is worth". This is a statistical evaluation for determining what would need to be paid to an individual to engage in a dangerous activity or to be paid to a survivor after a person dies from an activity. When someone decides to work at a 7-11 in a crime-ridden area for a greater pay compared to a 7-11 in a safe family area, they perform a type of Value of Life calculation. [1] From the first section of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life

blackshaw 4y ago

What are the likely consequences of this near miss? Is someone gonna get fired?

precommunicator 4y ago
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.
- azalemeth 4y ago
  Indeed. Punishing people for making human mistakes causes them to hide them, feel ashamed, and not highlight issues that may affect others. Aviation has fostered (very specifically) an open culture of inquisition to errors: it's assumed that if one qualified pilot made a mistake, any qualified pilot could make the same mistake under the same circumstances. If anything, you're actively encouraged to report things that are either confusing, or situations when you nearly made a mistake – the gliding club I spent a lot of time at in the past explicitly encouraged issues to be reported and put them in their monthly newsletter. Root cause analysis is a wonderful thing, and sometimes very convoluted and interesting. I'm sure the outcome of this event will probably be a technical mitigation of some variety to attempt to stop it happening again.
  - benjaminwootton 4y ago
    Interesting that programming went in the same direction. Blameless post-mortems etc.
    - sethammons 4y ago
      This move was championed in the industry by John Allspaw, then CTO of Etsy, around 2010. I am under the impression that he introduced the idea of blameless post mortems but I could be misremembering.

christophilus 4y ago

The animation in the tweet at the end of the article is something. Based on that, the deceleration looked remarkably fast. I imagine that was quite the ride for the folks in the Delta jet.

Symbiote 4y ago
I've experienced maximum breaking in an emergency landing. Many passengers (including me) instinctively put their hands on the seat in front to steady themselves. You could easily slide around if the seat belt were loose. It was it worst for children whose legs didn't reach the floor, but there were none seated near me.
- lelandfe 4y ago
  I was on a plane that had engine issues during takeoff, front wheel off the ground. We slammed back down to earth and likewise they braked harder than I'd ever experienced. Lady's phone flew out of her hand. It was intense.
  - polishdude20 4y ago
    Hmm that's interesting since by the time the front wheel comes off the ground, an airplane would normally be past V1 speed and they'd have to commit to the takeoff.
    - CPLX 4y ago
      That’s generally true but the rule is that you never abort past V1 unless you have specific immediate reason to believe the aircraft cannot become and stay airborne. There aren’t a ton of reasons one might think that but a few come to mind like total engine failure or lack of elevator control or similar.
      - techdragon 4y ago
        I can only imagine that the pilot had reason to believe something was wrong the moment the forces began to lift the front wheel and change the aircraft dynamics, which definitely is in the extremely fast changing grey zone for a lot of conditions highly dependent on the exact aircraft and it’s current conditions. Light payload and fuel loading pushing V1 very close to takeoff speed and lower than the maximum numbers, headwinds, engine conditions, etc… it’s definitely a case of “sometimes pilots do have to make quick decisions” and my money is on engines or the hydraulics when they first took load on the moving surfaces as the aerodynamics shifted passing V1 towards takeoff speed.

WniAggTCerH 4y ago

[dead]

precommunicator 4y ago

ATC recording: https://youtu.be/9N1gDSZJ5s0 https://youtu.be/9N1gDSZJ5s0

sixQuarks 4y ago
That looked like they were barely accelerating
- FearlessNebula 4y ago
  > animation to scale and aircraft positions approximate
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

andrepd 4y ago

ATC recordings, plus a diagram more or less to scale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N1gDSZJ5s0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N1gDSZJ5s0

eterm 4y ago
Interesting, because it's clear from the recording (but not the article) that the taxi instruction was read back correctly, just not followed correctly.
- perihelions 4y ago
  (At 2:48 - 2:56 if anyone's searching).

rainbowzootsuit 4y ago

For anyone interested in the milieu of plane crashes, Admiral Cloudberg's writeups are amazing. https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/ https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/

doctor_eval 4y ago
Well, that just took me down the intertubes for an hour. Thanks!

redtriumph 4y ago

Anyone wondering about map of taxi runways at JFK https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/FAA_JFK_Airport_map_2016.pdf https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/FAA_JFK_...

LarryMullins 4y ago

> (“Shit! Delta 1943 cancel takeoff clearance!”) This isn't a real quote, is it? I was surprised to read ATC losing their composure like that, but in the linked video/audio there is no utterance of Shit! that I can hear.

jaboutboul 4y ago
It’s definitely on there
- LarryMullins 4y ago
  Oh you're right. The tweet linked in the article doesn't have it but this version does: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N1gDSZJ5s0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N1gDSZJ5s0 vs https://twitter.com/RossFeinstein/status/1614613794470100995 https://twitter.com/RossFeinstein/status/1614613794470100995
  - eliseumds 4y ago
    The tweet has it as well, at 5s of the second attached video: https://twitter.com/xJonNYC/status/1614370783899303938/video/2 https://twitter.com/xJonNYC/status/1614370783899303938/video...
Havoc 4y ago
There is a very loud and clear “shit” in the actual atc stream It was very very close so monetary lapse in composure isn’t entirely unexpected
reducesuffering 4y ago
The ATC is dawning on the fact that if they don't call off the takeoff within 5 more seconds, V1 speed will be hit and there goes both planes... I'm surprised they weren't less composed...
teaearlgraycold 4y ago
Honestly the "Shit!" is good communication. Breaking composure and normalcy can ensure everyone hearing the message treats it as urgent. That might make the difference when seconds are on the line.

dylan604 4y ago

DELTA1943: "Alright, and uh, woof!" ATC: "Delta 1943, are you able to taxi or do you need a couple of minutes to run checks?" DELTA1943: "Yeah, we can get off the runway" but they're all going to need a change of underwear!! And I thought the Brits were known for understatement!

ipnon 4y ago
I believe this kind of situation is known in pilot parlance as a “code brown.”
philjohn 4y ago
I'm always reminded of the announcement the pilot of BA 009 made when all four engines had failed: "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress."
- Shocka1 4y ago
  Thanks for this. I didn't know about the incident and it led me down the rabbit hole. The article shared on the pilot's personal page is wonderful - it took me on a rollercoaster ride of emotions. http://www.ericmoody.com/ http://www.ericmoody.com/
  - Breza 4y ago
    You might also be interested in the story of UA 232. They lost all controls and somehow used engine thrust to keep the plane airborne. They called the Maintenance department for advice and were basically asked where they were going to crash. My grandparents were standing on their porch waiting for the doomed airliner to fly over their house. Instead, the crew wrenched it around the city to save lives on the ground when they inevitably went down. ATC offered to let them crash land on the highway, but the flight crew insisted on crashing at SUX. By the time the plane came into view at the airport, ATC had already declared a crash. Just about every fire apparatus in Woodbury County was sitting on an abandoned runway, waiting for the inevitable. Then they realized that the plane was lined up on the same old runway, which resulted in a panicked move of a whole lot of trucks. Knowing he was about to crash somewhere (maybe near a runway, maybe not) Captain Haynes exemplified grace under fire, as shown in this exchange. ATC: United 232 Heavy, Roger, Sir. Wind 010 at 11. You are cleared to land on any runway. Al Haynes : [chuckles] You want to be particular in making a runway? [staff at the control tower laugh nervously]

kylehotchkiss 4y ago

I flew into JFK in December and was surprised the number of concurrent operations going on… landing queues of 5+ planes in the sky for the two runways, long takeoff queues, so many land operations… once you touch down it sure feels like the pilot knows they have to get that plane off the runway ASAP. Felt much more busy than I have previously going through LAX/SFO/London/Dubai. I wonder if the level of traffic at JFK is appropriate. Maybe Newark and LaGuardia need to take on more of the load. And maybe a city airport shouldn’t be the primary international entrance point for what feels like half the country

cguess 4y ago
Pretty much all three airports (EWR, LGA, JFK) are already at capacity, so there's no room for others to take any load.
- ckdarby 4y ago
  A solution that'll anger people but resolve the capacity issus, all flights with not a final destination in USA can only connect through Stewart airport.
  - cguess 4y ago
    That airport has one cafe. It's a nice little regional airport (I know they serve international destinations I've flow out of it to KEF, but it's very small). I'm not even sure how many planes land without a final US destination in the US? The passengers may be going on, but are the planes?
  - qazxcvbnmlp 4y ago
    Airport is at full capacity -> route more pax through other airports. A lot of people benefit from keeping JFK full. Airlines, pax wanting direct flights to other destinations etc. Currently ~20% of New York passengers are connecting passengers, you could route them through other airports and free up capacity with much less disruption then making the New York local passengers have an extra connection on the way out.
  - 4y ago

jMyles 4y ago

I want to offer a bit of a different perspective than the one I'm seeing in other comments which (totally reasonably) wonder if a) JFK is too busy or needs some safety upgrades and b) whether voice contact with ATC is the best way to reduce risk during unusual events like incursions. I'm just an amateur enthusiast who listens to a lot of ATC, so take this assessment with that grain of salt: JFK has long had a unique subculture with respect to ATC (embodied most famously by the flourish and wit of Kennedy Steve, but often apparent from the entire ATC corps on both ground and tower during busy times), and strange as it sounds, it might be a part of what averted this disaster. At other airports, it seems to me that it's totally possible that this goes far worse. The controller did a few things that are unusual in ATC, but not totally unheard of at JFK in particular: * Completely changed tone of voice. He yelled into the mic. That doesn't happen often in ATC. * Yelled "SHIT!" to open his transmission. * Spoke in a way that emphasized speed and urgency even if it cost a little clarity (eg, some news outlets have transcribed "cancel takeoff clearance" as "cancel takeoff plans" because of how intense and fast the controller is yelling) Assuming the aircraft were on a collision course (something we'll probably know for sure only when the FAA report comes out), this was less than 1.5 seconds (perhaps less than 1 second) from an impact. A different transmission, like you might hear at say LHR or LAX, where the controller keeps a monotone and simply says, "Delta 1943 cancel takeoff clearance" might not have gotten the attention so quickly and helped the Delta pilot initiate the reject so rapidly. I think that this incident is an example of a) how JFK's unique ATC swagger may not be just for show, but may actually be a part of the safety culture of that airport, and b) how effective voice contact with ATC is at achieving rapid response from pilots. Ideally, this investigation prompts some study into what might seem like a silly topic: whether the "New York attitude" of JFK controllers has a positive safety impact that isn't felt elsewhere.

throwayyy479087 4y ago
Fantastic comment. Also on the language front, New York English is spoken faster and with more emphasis - likely to be helpful here compared to say, Texan.
jonnybgood 4y ago
Does this same subculture apply to LGA?

foobarbecue 4y ago

Just like in the movie 2:22... which oddly enough I was watching on Friday night.

Jose1997 4y ago

[flagged]

fexecve 4y ago

Murphy's Law in action. With this many flights per day, you need tons of safety measures to ensure that mistakes like this are extremely unlikely. Like "defense in depth", you can't rely on just a few layers of countermeasures, the more the better. So yes, red lights at every intersection are good, but retrofitting planes with a gps-style map that shows exactly where to go and when to turn is even better (and of course probably insanely expensive).

user3939382 4y ago

I had a sort-of hobby of learning and listening to ATC at one point. Some of these guys were scary-unintelligible . I remember this Chinese ATC at some major airport saying as fast as he possibly could “clah de leh” which was supposed to be “Clear to land”. It’s amazing the system works as well as it does.

thaw239847 4y ago
Having accent is not the same as being "unintelligible". Do you know how to say "Clear to land" in Chinese?
- Spooky23 4y ago
  The universal language of aviation isn’t Chinese.
- tourist2d 4y ago
  Unintelligible: impossible to understand. Maybe you should brush up on your own English skills?
rmccue 4y ago
Worth keeping in mind that recordings of ATC are taken from people running ground stations, which may not have perfect line-of-sight to the transmitter at the airport, so recordings can be lower quality and more garbled than what the pilots are actually hearing.
- user3939382 4y ago
  Totally true, although the examples I was contemplating are like in a sibling comment to yours, where even the pilots are confused. I think a lot of pilots would agree that there’s room for improvement in diction with ATC. And of course not for the sake of aesthetics or something but for safety.
martopix 4y ago
I cannot find the video right now, but there was a widely watched one exactly as you describe, where the controller issued a 'cletala' several times, and it was a very American controller, I believe in California. EDIT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=picf7sPEhi8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=picf7sPEhi8

farseer 4y ago

Ah the old KLM, Pan Am repetition was avoided. For those who don't remember: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster

quickthrower2 4y ago
That was very peculiar circumstances. IIRC Tiny airport with single small runway without lights that had 2 controllers staff in total landing dozens of jumbo jets diverted from an airport that had a bomb go off. And very thick fog. They had to use the same runway to taxi planes for takeoff while taxi other planes to queue up. The pilot took off without clearance while another confused pilot that was allowed on the runway was trying to find the correct exit.

mkl95 4y ago

Layman question here, why can't airplane collisions be predicted automatically? Something like an axis aligned bounding box around each airplane and some basic velocity equations. You don't want airplanes to be too close so an approximation should suffice.

quickthrower2 4y ago
I was thinking why not at least have level crossing type warnings to stop anyone coming on to the runway when a plane has been cleared.
boredhedgehog 4y ago
Like TCAS? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_collision_avoidance_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_collision_avoidance_sy...) Doesn't help on the ground though.
t0mas88 4y ago
A system for this exists, but it's new and not on many airports yet: https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/rwsl/pet/ https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/rwsl/pet/ It basically uses radar data to figure out whether it's safe to enter and safe to take-off on a runway. If it's not it will show red lights at the take-off position and entry points, pilots are trained not to cross those lights when red even if ATC says to do so.
hugh-avherald 4y ago
By the time you've predicted a collision it's too late to react. There's no advantage having a predictive tool over a binary "runway clear/not clear"

c2xlZXB5 4y ago

The article mentions runway 4L was being used for takeoffs. In the ATC communications, you can hear them say "American 185, runway 31L at KE, line up and wait" before telling Delta 1943 to cancel their takeoff clearance. And after the near collision, ATC tells American 106 Heavy "we're departing runway 4L." Wouldn't the line up and wait call for American 185 mean that they were departing from both 4L and 31L?

innocenat 4y ago
Departing 4L mean that there are no 31L full length take-off (except very very heavy aircraft). 31L at KE does not conflict with 4L, nor does it require crossing 4L.
ralph84 4y ago
The ATIS recording is here: https://archive.liveatc.net/kjfk/KJFK-D-ATIS-Jan-14-2023-0130Z.mp3 https://archive.liveatc.net/kjfk/KJFK-D-ATIS-Jan-14-2023-013... They were landing 4R and 4L, departing 4L and 31L at KE. American 106 ended up departing 31L full length since that's where they had decided to taxi to and it was probably easier to just get rid of them that way rather than have them cross 4L again to depart where everyone else was departing from.

WalterBright 4y ago

Maybe 25 years ago, I'm not sure, there was some collision at an airport and the investigators were all wondering what happened, and were trying to reconstruct which airplane was where. It turns out that there were no video cameras monitoring the taxiways and runways. I asked why not? "Too expensive" WAAT? Even a 7-11 had an always on camera. "Too expensive. How would you get it to withstand the weather? How would you run power to it?" Me: install it in the control tower, point it at the taxiways, and plug it in. "That will never work" Me: Sigh. I still don't know if they have cameras monitoring the ground ops.

WalterBright 4y ago
These days you could point a handful of cameras at the taxiways, hook it to a computer, and have a realtime display of everything on the taxiways and runways. Then, the computer could detect potential collisions and alert.
- speedgoose 4y ago
  They already have a real-time display. I can’t say for American airports but I have been involved in European air traffic control research and I can say that using algorithms isn’t very very well received by air traffic controllers. Computers tend to do better than humans in optimal situations, but can also completely fail in other situations. One example is the sun magnetic waves disturbing the radars. For cameras I can think of many things that can fail, rabbits eating the cables, snow of the lense, or the local cloud provider having a downtime. So because computers can fail and humans are the backup, humans must be always present and have the best situation awareness. And to have the best situation awareness, you can’t let algorithms do the work.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    > For cameras I can think of many things that can fail, wabbits eating the cables, snow of the lense, or the local cloud provider having a downtime If the people in the tower can see the operations, then a camera in the tower can see them, too. Don't need a local cloud provider. > So because computers can fail and humans are the backup, humans must be always present and have the best situation awareness Think of the video system as the backup. It's like the system in the car that will hit the breaks automatically if you're about to hit a wall. BTW, I infer from your post that there STILL are no cameras pointed at the taxiways. Heck, a good chunk of homes have an always-on camera in their doorbell. This is not rocket science, and is not expensive. Remember when that SST caught fire taking off? No video of it. The accident investigation had to do a lot of investigation to figure out when it caught fire. Because of the lack of a simple, cheap camera like you'd find in convenience store. P.S. There are plenty of wabbits in my yard. So far, none of them have eaten through the power or phone cables. I must be just lucky :-/

rnk 4y ago

As we know from experience trying to use computers, humans struggle to remember a series of words, letters and numbers - like these runway instructions. When we are tired or stressed we'll make mistakes. This is true even for highly trained pilots. We need some additional safety methods like the lights. I imagine the pilot writes it down and tries to follow it. But it's a dynamic env, it might be raining, bright, or dark, planes comes and going. You might not remember the details of this runway. That's my naive view as an outsider. Eventually this system will fail (remembering and following) and lead to crash. I never thought about it but it seems inherently risky to have people "remember directions".

shepherdjerred 4y ago

This video does a great job illustrating the situation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N1gDSZJ5s0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N1gDSZJ5s0

ho_schi 4y ago

Question Did the B777-200 Pilots assumed the should takeoff from 4R with 2.560m length? Should be enough for a B777-200? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_777#Specifications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_777#Specifications

N19PEDL2 4y ago

It reminds me of an air disaster that happened about 20 years ago for the same reason. [0] In that case, the pilot of a plane misread the taxiway number (he confused R5 with R6 [1]) and entered the runway while another plane was taking off. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linate_Airport_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linate_Airport_disaster [1] This is what the junction between R5 and R6 looked like that day: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Disastro_Linate-02.png https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Disastro_Linate-02.png

tompccs 4y ago

It's surprising that ATC works in such a human-driven manual way. Compare to train signalling, where tracks are divided into signalled sections, and a train cannot enter the next section until the section ahead is clear, with automated braking if a red signal is run. This system was developed over many tragic accidents. Even the Victorians came up with ways to minimise human error (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Token_(railway_signalling) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Token_(railway_signalling) )

KptMarchewa 4y ago
One reason is air corridors aren't so well defined as railways.

thret 4y ago

Given that you absolutely never swear (or even waste words) on the radio, I wonder if beginning the transmission with an expletive is actually optimal: it is short, sharp, and immediately conveys the urgency of the command.

addandsubtract 4y ago
Reading the transcript, I thought it might've been a waste of time to start with "Shit...", but listing to the audio does make the following command a lot more urgent and severe. Either way, with all the things going on (and through a pilot's head) at take-off, I'm glad they were able to respond to the message and stop the plane in time.
- bscphil 4y ago
  I don't know how accurate the various videos are, but if they are, the Delta pilot was probably able to visually see the plane on the runway ahead, perhaps even before the tower noticed it. The plane seems to begin decelerating very early, before I'd expect the "cancel takeoff clearance" message to have been fully understood by the pilot.

O__________O 4y ago

Once flying into NYC after passing over the end of the runway to land the plane pulled up super hard back into cursing altitude for landing. Once we leveled off, pilot came on to say, “Sorry about that folks, there was a plane taking off.” - Guess I always assumed this was a common issue.

ec109685 4y ago
Cursing altitude is a good description.

martopix 4y ago

Recording of the ATC conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N1gDSZJ5s0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N1gDSZJ5s0

zestyping 4y ago

Watching the animation at https://twitter.com/CaseWade/status/1614342894248394752 https://twitter.com/CaseWade/status/1614342894248394752, I am astonished that ground paths are routinely planned with so many conflicts, all crisscrossing frequently with so little clearance between airplanes. I counted six other path conflicts in the space of 25 seconds, in this tiny section of the airport. With conflicts happening every few seconds, it's incredible to me that crashes don't happen more often. Why are paths planned this way? Is capacity pressure so extreme that airplanes have to be crammed together this tightly? Is it not possible for airplanes to travel along taxi-only paths that minimize runway crossings, or wait in orderly queues and achieve nearly the same rate of takeoffs?