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‘Confirming we are cleared to land?’ Who said what at Austin
- martyvis 4y agoAs always Juan Browne gives tremendous insight and sober review of incidents like this https://youtu.be/SvUOHa8n7aQ https://youtu.be/SvUOHa8n7aQ
- nraynaud 4y agoSomebody is not going back into an air control seat without some re-training.
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- blantonl 4y agoGuy is a known problem child. He's been shuttled around the NAS. He's finished.
- King-Aaron 4y agoWow, reading that audio transmission log was pretty intense. Someone's losing their job for sure
- SteveNuts 4y agoWhile it's possible they'll lose their job, air travel has a really solid track record of blameless postmortems for issues like this.
- valine 4y agoIf the goal is to improve safety firing people is almost always the wrong response. That juvenile preoccupation with punishment only serves to create a culture where mistakes are hidden rather than understood.
- pooloo 4y agoIt's also an extremely niche field, with a very high attrition rate in terms of training, and few people are truly capable of working in that industry. There will be retraining for certain, and a reduction in pay/rank. They certainly do not need to lose their job over a mishap, while an egregious one, it is still a trainable moment.
- hackernewds 4y agoThis also seems counterintuitive to a blameless culture. If anything the ATC industry is in need of one.
- michaelmrose 4y agoHow do you retrain someone not to tell 2 planes they can use the same runway with repeated confirmations based on the fact that he thinks 3 miles is far enough away? At that point are we certain its not Alzheimer's?
- xeromal 4y agoThis sentence probably doesn't cover the entire situation.
- kcg 4y agoWhile I 100% think the controller in this situation made a terrible judgement call and likely shouldn't be working planes anymore, it's worth noting that that there are very specific regulations on multiple planes using the same runway (called Same Runway Separation). Specifically, for these types of aircraft (SRS Category III), the departing plane needs to be at least 6000ft down the runway and airborne by the time the arriving plane crosses the runway threshold. Heck, for smaller general aviation aircraft, you can have a plane land when another has landed and is still on the runway, as long as they are 3000ft past the threshold. A different regulation (applicable only to radar environments, which AUS is) allows for a departure if an arriving aircraft is 2+ miles away from the runway, as long as there is at least 3 miles of separation within 1 min after takeoff. All that being said -- it is possible to execute a squeeze play like this if everything is perfect, but you need the departure to go IMMEDIATELY. Trying this in low visibility was extremely reckless and incompetent.
- cratermoon 4y agoWhat if there's pressure from airlines to reduce late flights and increase the amount of traffic airports can handle resulting in ATC cutting margins on separation? Would it really be the controller's fault if their job performance is dependent on getting planes into the air as quickly as possible?
- Jtsummers 4y ago> Would it really be the controller's fault if their job performance is dependent on getting planes into the air as quickly as possible? Yes. Their primary job is safety, speedy traffic flow is secondary to that objective. Cutting corners would mean abandoning pretty much the entire purpose of bothering with ATC versus letting pilots figure it out themselves.
- kcg 4y agoThis is completely correct. One of the first sentences in the 7110.65 (the FAA document governing ATC rules in the US, often referred to as "the book" by controllers) is "the primary purpose of the ATC system is to prevent a collision involving aircraft operating in the system." Loss of adequate separation between aircraft (called a "deal") is much worse for a controller's career than being inefficient.
- cratermoon 4y agoIn a world where airline regulators weren't captured by the industries they regulate, this would be iron-clad. In the real world, where humans live and make decisions, not so much.
- aaronmdjones 4y agoI wouldn't say that's a given. For example, a similar incident occurred at Rhode Island in 1999, and the air traffic controller responsible was not fired -- merely sent for retraining before being returned to service. Like this incident, it was another flight crew that prevented the situation from becoming worse, by rejecting their takeoff clearance -- something the pilot-in-command of this Southwest flight should have done when told about a heavy 767 three miles out. EDIT: Link. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1999/12/19/runway-near-miss-probed/1d2a952e-44e1-44a7-8071-267f6ff4c61b/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1999/12/19/r...
- cameldrv 4y agoSupposedly that controller was actually later promoted to managing the tower of a major hub airport.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 4y agoWasn’t poor visibility also a significant factor in the Tenerife airport disaster? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster
- anderber 4y agoAbsolutely. That and the fact that the senior pilot wasn't listening to his co-pilot and didn't feel like he needed to.
- jacobgorm 4y agoThe Linate incident is also similar https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linate_Airport_disaster https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linate_Airport_disaster
- bambax 4y agoYes but the primary cause of the Tenerife disaster (a collision on the ground with one 747 taking off and another one crossing the runway) was poor CRM in the cockpit of the departing plane, with bad visibility and multiple incidents as contributing factors. IIRC, it wasn't caused by the inexperience of the tower controller, or them being distracted, etc.
- duxup 4y agoFedEx crew seemed to be the adults in this situation / the most aware of the situation. Good for them.
- userbinator 4y agoYou can't hear what they said in the cockpit without keying the mic, but I have some pretty good ideas.
- xpe 4y ago> without keying the mic I’m not following
- smiley1437 4y ago'keying the mic' is turning on the microphone It's very likely they said some less polite words like 'WTF ARE THEY DOING' before turning on the mic and acting all professional
- bruce511 4y agoWhile that's certainly possible, in my very limited experience, the more dangerous things are the more professional the response. Sure there's the initial surprise, sure there's the post-mortem release of emotional energy, but after the initial surprise it's all business. The pilots are communicating with each other, there's a lot of information, and tasks, to keep them occupied. Relentless training for situations that "never happen" means that professionals go into a low-emotion state, and rely on memorized behaviours and checklists, coupled with intense intellectual evaluation. See the audio from sullys Hudson landing. It's all simple communication, coupled with drilled responses (restart engine, start apu etc) being driven from cool analytical data processing - what will work, what won't etc. Training the emotion (panic, fear etc) out of you is the very goal of training for extremely intense, life threatening, situations. If the cockpit recordings are released it'll be interesting to know if I'm right, but the level of professionalism displayed by the FedEx crew suggests to me that they are both highly trained, and worthy of that training. Congratulations to them and their trainers.
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- jonathanyc 4y agoI admire how pilots are able to communicate so concisely and professionally. No one swore at each other or ranted over the radio. Southwest didn’t drag their feet because they didn’t appreciate FedEx’s tone. I suspect that higher stakes encourage politeness. A much lower stakes example than the OP: politics at a startup vs. at a big company.
- digdigdag 4y agoIt's not just professionalism. It's intentional and codified down to how you pronounce numbers: https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/aim_html/chap4_section_2.html https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/aim_html...
- monocasa 4y agoAnd in fact one of the worst air disasters of all time was from a similar situation where a 747 taking off ran into another 747 that was still landing at least partially due to a communication breakdown and nonstandard phrasing between the planes and the ATC. 9/11 is the only air disaster with more casualties. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster#Communication_misunderstandings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster#Comm...
- xpe 4y agoThe top of the article: > ‘As bad as it gets without body bags.’ > Why the Austin airport situation was so dangerous. Because the planes almost collided. But the author wants to say more than that. The article covers the “how” things went wrong by analyzing the transcript. The write-up doesn’t answer the key ”why” question —- why are existing procedures and training not suitable? Safety-critical systems (including procedures and protocols) must be designed to account for wide human variation, including mistakes and miscommunications. Let’s not waste our time pointing fingers at one person.
- hitekker 4y agoThe author didn't point fingers at anyone. He was explicit that the investigators will do the job of finding out the "why". His tone is entirely appropriate given that, if the FedEx operators had not went above and beyond, we would have seen a mass casualty event at Austin's airport. Accusing the author of blaming individuals is rather silly when you're rushing to blame training/procedures/the system.
- xpe 4y ago> The author didn't point fingers at anyone. I didn't say he did. (I was referring to comments here on HN.)
- xpe 4y ago> ... blaming individuals is rather silly when you're rushing to blame training/procedures/the system. I see your point. I am not ruling out individual culpability. Still, by the time a person is in a cockpit or a control tower, they have a history, a record of performance. It is part of the system's responsibility to evaluate this record. So I am less likely to blame an individual only, because to do so would require the individual to act in a way that no system could predict, mitigate, or compensate for.
- dang 4y agoOK, I've replaced the title with the first subtitle, which may not cover the entire article but at least is more accurate.
- daguava 4y ago[dead]
- MPSimmons 4y agoPlease consider reading Sidney Dekker's books, The Field Guide to Understanding Human Error[1] and Drift Into Failure[2] [1] - https://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-Understanding-Human-Error/dp/1472439058 https://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-Understanding-Human-Error... [2] - https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=31235811635&searchurl=sortby%3D17%26tn%3DDrift%2BInto%2BFailure&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-title1 https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=3123581163...
- jonathanyc 4y agoFor those of us who aren’t familiar, can you link something in the book to the OP?
- tra3 4y agoWorking my way through it. It starts by talking about the bad apple theory but then debunks it; > The Bad Apple Theory. It maintains that: • Complex systems would be fine, were it not for the erratic behavior of some unreliable people (Bad Apples) in it. • ‘Human errors’ cause accidents: more than two-thirds of them. • Failures come as unpleasant surprises. They are unexpected and do not belong in the system. Failures are introduced to the system through the inherent unreliability of people. > • Getting rid of Bad Apples tends to send a signal to other people to be more careful with what they do, say, report or disclose. It does not make ‘human errors’ go away, but does tend to make the evidence of them go away; evidence that might otherwise have been available to you and your organization so that you could learn and improve. > • Putting in more rules, procedures and compliance demands runs into the problem that there is always a gap between how work is imagined (in rules or procedures) and how work is done. > Getting technology to replace unreliable people is an attractive idea, and is wide-spread. But technology introduces new problems as well as new capacities. Rather than replacing human work, it changes human work. New technology may lead to new kinds of ‘human errors’ and new pathways to system breakdown.
- kqr 4y agoAnd the CAST Handbook by Nancy Leveson is really good in the sort of area of systems theoretic accident analysis. (It's available for free online.)
- russdill 4y agoI'm curious in this situation if there was a TCAS warning.
- mh- 4y agoComments on Reddit from Boeing pilots suggested that TCAS wouldn't sound on the ground (or that near to the ground).
- adanto6840 4y agoMe too. Usually the pilots will mention it if they receive an RA, though. I think TCAS might even be disabled (or nerfed?) at low altitudes like this -- not positive, though. From what I've read, it sounds like this airport is not equipped with the ATC-equivalent of TCAS -- which I think would have been sounding all kinds of alarms (how early?) in the tower for a scenario like this.
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- neom 4y agoAccording to "European Organisation for Safety of Air Navigation" and FAA, on TCAS all Resolution Advisories are inhibited below 1000ft. https://skybrary.aero/articles/tcas-ii-ra-very-low-altitude https://skybrary.aero/articles/tcas-ii-ra-very-low-altitude https://www.faa.gov/documentlibrary/media/advisory_circular/tcas%20ii%20v7.1%20intro%20booklet.pdf https://www.faa.gov/documentlibrary/media/advisory_circular/...
- blantonl 4y agoTCAS is muted/disabled on the ground and at this altitude.
- alphabet9000 4y agowas wondering what it looked like from a side angle and found a 3d animation of the incident from CBS news https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlAuteLjnm0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlAuteLjnm0
- DanAtC 4y agoPlanes don't land like that. And 75 ft is a lot closer than shown.
- bagels 4y agoNot reasonable to draw inferences from that cartoon. Who knows what data (if any at all) they are using for position or if it's to scale. Pitch is definitely wrong.
- puffoflogic 4y ago[flagged]
- habibur 4y agoClickbait title that doesn't answer the question in title in its body.
- sp332 4y agoSometimes an article is just asking a question. Putting a question in the headline doesn't mean it's getting answered in the article.
- seanhunter 4y agoThe question in the post title is the first sub-bullet in the article. It is itself a quote from the transcript and gets to the heart of the human error that almost caused a disaster here. The article does confirm who said what when by having the transcript in the article. Not at all clickbaity.
- operatingthetan 4y agoDang changed the title after they commented.
- mynegation 4y agoSo I am neither a pilot nor an aviation geek, but to me it looks like, besides heavy fog, two things happened. (1) control misjudged the approach time for FedEx. 3 miles out is - what? - a minute and a half, at best at approach speed? (2) control did not expedite a takeoff for southwest so they took their sweet time rolling onto the runway and accelerating. At this day and age it is bewildering to see all of this running on human communication essentially. Why cannot descending plane lay a claim on a runway in some computer system and a cabin in Southwest - blare a horn for pilots trying to steer into a claimed runway?
- idlewords 4y agoThe Southwest crew here is also to blame, they knew a plane was on short final to their runway in terrible visibility and for some reason took their sweet time taking off.
- kelnos 4y agoOr hell, they could have taken the even-safer option and informed ATC they were going to hold until FedEx landed. Regardless, I think it's too early to lay definitive blame until the NTSB report comes out.
- cjrp 4y agoCommercial pressures. Holding for Fedex would have added a few mins, maybe lost them their place in the queue, etc. It's not a reason to act unsafely, but it is a factor.
- ninjagoo 4y ago> Commercial pressures. Holding for Fedex would have added a few mins They spent a minute extra before starting their takeoff roll; it wouldn't have hurt to wait an additional 5 minutes. Commercial flights build in a generous margin for ground ops these days. I doubt this was a factor in this specific case. > maybe lost them their place in the queue, etc. They were at the runway already, there's no way for them to have lost their place in the queue for that runway 18L [1]. [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/AUSFAA.pdf https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/AUSFAA.p...
- catminou 4y agoReminds me of a time in 1999 when a US Air crew at Rhode Island refused to takeoff in the fog when the controller insisted it was okay. Another aircraft had landed and was lost in the fog about their location, even saying they were on on an active runway and even said an aircraft just took off (over them). Animation + text here if curious: https://youtu.be/qUDFY5qlTSA https://youtu.be/qUDFY5qlTSA
- bagels 4y agoThat one is pretty infuriating to listen to!
- the_mitsuhiko 4y agoThe full version is worse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7AP-8uZWxA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7AP-8uZWxA
- doctor_eval 4y agoThat’s horrifying. The controller completely ignores all the information and clears the USAir plane to take off, twice. But the crew knew there was a plane on the runway and refused, twice. Incredible. Well, I guess the Swiss cheese worked.
- Dalewyn 4y agoOne of my acquaintances used to be an ATC (air traffic controller) and has many pilot friends from back then. They all say the same thing whenever they talk about the most important thing in aviation: Have the courage to not take off. Kudos to that US Airways captain for refusing to takeoff and stay put until everyone got on the same page.
- catminou 4y agoAnd the first officer too. It's a team effort and safety is the responsibility of all crew members (including the flight attendants to call out something, jumpseaters and even folks dead heading). I recall in a CRM training they asked the class what would you do if the captain wanted to take off and you thought it was unsafe. Various answers and one person said "I'd hold my feet on the brakes to prevent moving" to which the trainer said yes - that's the right answer.
- quickthrower2 4y agoCould the Fedex plane have caused wake turbulence for the other plane in this scenario?
- poly_morphis 4y agoAccording to Flightradar24, FedEx didn't appear to pass Southwest
- hugh-avherald 4y agoYes, and you've reminded me of a very similar example[1] captured by my favourite planespotting channel. At Perth Airport, a Singapore Airlines 777 was slow to take-off, the (I'm guessing trainee) controller ordered a landing Qantas 787 to go around, froze momentarily, causing her supervisor to intervene to hold the Singapore 777 whom the trainee then held for wake turbulence. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdZpPikptP4#t=3m25s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdZpPikptP4#t=3m25s
- thot_experiment 4y agoblancolirio does excellent breakdowns of air incidents over on youtube with very low latency, here's his video on the above incident for those interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvUOHa8n7aQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvUOHa8n7aQ
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- rflrob 4y agoSeeing other comments fault the Southwest pilot for not starting faster, but it’s not obvious to me that there was any significant delay—a few seconds at most between lining up and starting the roll down the runway. The diagram isn’t to scale, so it’s hard to tell. I wonder how much faster an expedited departure could have been.
- vezuchyy 4y agoThey have their checklists and everything, it's not an unusual case when the plane goes to a runway and stops for a few seconds. Again, as an ATC, if you need a passenger plane to get out as fast as possible - be clear about it or don't clear them to the runway. It was also a Fedex pilot who figured what's about to happen by themselves.
- cameldrv 4y agoYes. The controller should have said "no delay" along with the takeoff clearance, but also given the extremely poor visibility (they couldn't even see 1/4 of the way down the runway), it shouldn't be surprising when a plane takes a few seconds longer on the runway to get situated and double check a few things.
- awiesenhofer 4y agoFrom TFA: "Time 1:54, Tower: “Southwest 708, confirm on the roll?” Note that this comes 34 seconds after the previous transmission, and nearly a minute after the tower cleared Southwest for takeoff. In that minute, the FedEx plane has covered most of the distance to the airport. Presumably the visibility is so bad that the tower can’t even see the Southwest plane sitting on the runway. So the tower controller is asking: Hey, are you moving? Southwest immediately replies, “rolling now.” Investigators will also want to find out what the Southwest crew was doing through this time, in the minute after saying “we’re ready” and while knowing that another plane was about to land."
- jnsaff2 4y agoSouthwest had clearance. So they are clear, you can't rush take-off or anything. They could have been more mindful of what is around them and refused to line up if 3 miles felt like too rushed. Why are overlapping clearances allowed (and used) by rules, regulations and local operating procedures DURING CAT III operations, is beyond me. I don't like overlapping clearances in normal times but during CAT III operations this is insane.
- kylehotchkiss 4y agoIs zero visibility an unheard of condition at Austin’s airport? I thought I saw the other day they don’t have ground radar, which would probably be the leading resolution item if it’s the case. But even then, why not slow things down for the weather? 3 miles or 60 second turnaround when the runway is cat III??
- pixl97 4y agoWe get occasional fog at the AUS Airport, so not unheard of. Austin has been experiencing a lot of growth and I'm wondering how much of this is stressing the different systems at the airport. Earlier this year it was common for us to run low on jet fuel for lack of storage. On the weekends we've had issues with lines lasting for hours. There is a fight between the city and one of the leaseholders regarding expansion. These aren't directly related with the flight line, but point at a system that's stretching its capacity.
- irjustin 4y agoListening to that audio is incredible almost chilling. The calmness in the voices. I understand this is how they are selected, trained and ultimately operate everyday moment-to-moment but the gap is so far for me I can't begin to understand it. Genuine question, why is this not fully automated today? Seems like something we should be easily capable of doing given CAT III.
- EdwardDiego 4y agoTo be honest, recordings from cockpits where pilots aren't that eerily calm (to our amateur ears) typically end with a fatal crash. It reminds me of a video I saw that explored the crew resource management of a plane, and the good culture of the airline, that led to decision making that prevented a situation caused by the captain's earlier error becoming far worse. https://youtube.com/watch?v=SeDulCEr-40 https://youtube.com/watch?v=SeDulCEr-40
- seanhunter 4y agoMan the FedEx crew who gave the "Southwest Abort" call on the radio earned their wings that day. Just amazing presence of mind to do exactly the right thing in the moment.
- harshreality 4y agoIt was a good thing to try, but the Southwest plane was above V1 (edit: may not have been, but acted as if they were) and couldn't abort, and didn't. Both planes climbed away from the runway with minimal clearance between them. It was simply luck that they didn't crash anyway. The fast reaction by the Fedex pilots may have contributed to increased distance between the planes that saved them, but their callout to the Southwest flight didn't fundamentally change anything. Maybe we'll find out that the Southwest flight climbed slower, suspecting the Fedex plane was directly over them. In that case maybe the callout in addition to the Fedex crew being attentive saved the day, but I haven't seen anyone claim that yet. If the Southwest crew had realized how close the Fedex plane was, maybe they would have aborted even if it meant running off the end of the runway, but they didn't do that. ... The flightradar replay is terrifying. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3cVMUCdxG0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3cVMUCdxG0 I'm not sure anymore, given the above replay, that the Southwest plane was at V1. The Fedex flight was at least directly over (according to some other transponder-based replay videos), and might have passed the Southwest plane by about a plane length (as shown in the above video), before the Southwest plane had accelerated enough to close the velocity gap. Maybe Fedex waited, but if they radioed the request for Southwest to abort before the planes were overlapping in the horizontal plane, Southwest should have easily been able to stop.
- reisse 4y ago> Southwest plane was above V0 and couldn't abort It's up to investigators to find out. Pilots definitely can (and have the right to) abort after V1, if they consider it safer than taking off. Before V1, you can be sure that abort is safe, after V1, you have to weigh risks of high-speed abort against risks of continuing flying, but staying on the ground is still possible. Yes, and nitpicking - decision speed is V1, not V0.
- bmitc 4y agoAnd this recently happened at JFK didn't it?
- Jtsummers 4y agoSimilar. Second link from this article is to his article on that one: https://fallows.substack.com/p/that-runway-incursion-at-jfk-what https://fallows.substack.com/p/that-runway-incursion-at-jfk-...
- b800h 4y agoWow. Just listed to the audio on this. At the end the tower radios over to the Fedex crew: "You have our apologies, we appreciate your professionalism".
- bilekas 4y ago> "You have our apologies and we appreciate your professionalism" For almost killing them that's a light statement. Insane how they sound so calm. Always impressive fromn pilots.
- pfortuny 4y agoUnbelievable behavior “You have our apologies” (by this time I would have had a heart attack being the controller), “Thank you” (not a single bad word or insinuation from the pilot). What people!
- arlcode 4y ago1. They are trained very well to handle stressful situations calmly. 2. Knowing an incident just happened, they are probably aware of the fact that each of their words is being recorded and will be examined during the investigation. Like "don't talk to the police if you are arrested" it's wise to say as little as possible (after the danger has passed)
- zackbloom 4y agoJust to give a little context as a pilot: It is the job of the tower controller to decide who uses the runway when. There are often multiple planes waiting to take off, and multiple planes nearing the airport to land. It's not uncommon for a tower controller to allow a plane to takeoff while another is approaching the runway. The theory is, of course, that the flight will depart in plenty of time. In this case, the controller failed to tell the departing flight to hurry (the references to 'no delay' or 'immediate' in the blog post), AND frankly timed things pretty close given the weather. Without the ability to actually see the approaching plane, or perhaps even the plane on the ground, it will probably be found that timing a departure that close at all was reckless. That said, I feel for these tower controllers, it's not common for many planes to get stacked up waiting to depart, and it is their job to get them out. What may have worked just fine on a clear-weather day simply became too dangerous on that day. The official manual for air traffic controllers in the US is the FAA Order JO 7110.65W [1], if anyone cares to review it. 1 - https://www.faa.gov/documentlibrary/media/order/atc.pdf https://www.faa.gov/documentlibrary/media/order/atc.pdf
- SQueeeeeL 4y agoI'm not sure how many people know this, but one of the first instances of "union busting" ever committed by the US federal govt was against air traffic controllers. The job used to be extremely competitive and prestigious, but overall lower wages and security has made it way harder to attract as many highly talented individuals. And with how many rules there are in that pdf, it's shocking we don't see multiple accidents a year.
- bilekas 4y agoI don't knock unions but I will add : > The median annual wage for air traffic controllers was $129,750 in May 2021 SOME unions do take advantage, given the traffic controllers' 'single point of failure' it can be very attractive for some unions who are greedy. Again I reiterate, unions are not a bad idea, just not all of them are solely in the interests of the actual employees.
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- softsound 4y agoAs someone who lives in Austin and recalls a fair amount of other issues with the airport I didn't realize I had yet another concern to worry about... Good thing we had someone paying attention but it seems like we should add more buffer time between these comings and goings. Though I know a lot of the airport has been overwhelmed with plenty of other issues.
- jnsaff2 4y agoI got my PPL in EU and here it was drilled into me that in Europe there can be exactly ONE plane cleared to use a runway at any time. When the approaching plane is cleared then there is no allowance for anyone and anything to be on the runway. So if there is a departing plane waiting on the runway or someone crossing then the approaching plane is given "cleared approach runway 08" but never "cleared to land". Which also means that if you are piloting the landing plane then at your decision height you have to go around. Also when someone is cleared to land no-one can be given a permission to enter the runway. There is one clearance that kinda-sorta allows which is "BEHIND landing Boeing 737, line up and wait BEHIND". It intentionally has "BEHIND" before and after the call to be extra clear that the waiting pilot has to confirm that the plane has passed their nose and they can enter the runway while the landing plane is on rollout. But that plane can not be given a takeoff clearance before the plane on the rollout has exited the runway. We were told that the americans do it differently and I've always found it dangerous.
- cjrp 4y agoIt seems that the US also has different rules about Low Visibility Procedures / protection of the ILS sensitive area; I don't believe you'd clear anyone for takeoff with someone on a 2-3 mile final, under LVPs.
- jnsaff2 4y agoYes, this! In Europe, I have heard, you can't operate CAT III ILS (or even maybe CAT II) when your ground radar is inop. It seems that in Austin they don't even have a ground radar. How the hell is CAT III a thing there?
- mulmen 4y agoEurope uses pessimistic runway locks but the US prefers optimistic locks. This improves throughput at US airports with the risk of a rollback on a dirty runway.
- 0xFF0123 4y agoI'd be curious to know how much it actually improves throughput. It seems strange to use optimistic locks in such a safety critical process, when a more fail-safe approach is available.
- tomohawk 4y ago[flagged]
- Xcelerate 4y agoI know nothing about ATC, but to be blunt, it sounds like the controller is absolutely not paying attention and possibly even distracted with something else throughout most of the video until they realize there is a near-collision. Is there video footage of the control room that will be reviewed?
- twawaaay 4y agoF for Southwest and the tower for lack of awareness, big fucking A+ for FedEx guys for babysitting everybody around. I think one problem with the radio communication is that because of its terse and scripted nature all of the emotion is removed and it does not convey the urgency. I can imagine the apprehension of FedEx pilots when they asked "confirming we are cleared to land Runway 18 Left?". I can also understand why the controller just treated it as one of the million other question of the same type without ever catching there is anything wrong here.
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y agoThis story reminds me a bit of the Tenerife disaster[0]. I remember that. I don't think it's been beaten, yet, in terms of fatalities. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster
- hoseja 4y agoDon't they have live location information for all the vehicles around the airport?
- insane_dreamer 4y agoQuestion: are all approaching and departing planes on the same radio channel? Just wondering how the FedEx pilot communicated with Southwest plane. And if so, how does that work at very busy airports like Atlanta where there must be a couple dozen planes coming at going during peak times? Seems it would be confusing for everyone to be hearing everyone’s comms with ATC? (On the other hand it’s probably a good thing, and certainly was in this situation; just wondering how they handle that)
- blantonl 4y agoFor operations on a specific runway, yes. Departing and arriving traffic on the same runway use the same frequency (called "Tower"). Some airports will have a single "Tower" frequency that controls all arriving and department traffic on all runways. Some larger airports will have multiple "Tower" frequencies that cover certain runway(s). But a single runway will always have departing and arriving traffic working on the same frequency.
- insane_dreamer 4y agomakes sense; thanks. So in airport with multiple "Towers", an approaching aircraft is contacted (on a preset freq?) while still a ways out, and instructed to switch to a given "Tower" frequency on approach? (Same with departing planes)
- blantonl 4y agoFor all intents and purposes, yes, you are correct.
- rtkwe 4y agoGenerally planes do the initial contact to airports on the approach frequency and get handed over to the appropriate next frequency as needed. The frequencies are set and static for a particular airport with alternatives available if there's some issue with the standard one. AFAIK planes are told which frequencies to contact on the whole way by whatever previous controller had them.
- bckr 4y agoOff topic but I need to ask this. When I was flying from Austin to SLC on October 30 2022, I saw something which looked like an airplane suspended stationary in the air with black smoke billowing out of both wings. I didn’t have the presence of mind to get a video, and I haven’t been able to find out anything about it since. Any idea what the heck I was looking at?