40 ms·

Japan's airport control towers stop using 'No.1' instruction for plane takeoffs

80 points by iooon 3y ago

cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
I’m just an avid ATC listener. I’m not a pilot, air traffic controller, or anything of the sort. I could very well completely off base. With that massive disclaimer out of the way, some of these changes really do come across as “we need to change something” meddling.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- isolli 3y ago
  I couldn't tell in this case, but sometimes it is also definitely useful [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster#Legacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster#Lega...
- makeitdouble 3y ago
  There's the whole Ishikawa situation going on taking up the news in Japan, so I think there's very little pressure for them to just appear to be doing something. On the other hand, they might be suspecting something, and apply this change as a stopgap just in case, even if they later settle down on another cause.
  - donalhunt 3y ago
    When dealing with incidents where there is no clear root cause, it's often advisable to implement guard rails to reduce the likelihood and/or impact of a repeat occurrence. As a result, this seems like a sane change.
- ajross 3y ago
  Pretty much. If you have human controllers and human pilots, eventually someone's going to misunderstand an instruction. It happens every day all over the world. The backstop to this really can't be "give different instructions", because whatever you pick can be misheard too. Obviously the primary backstop is supposed to be the pilots. The Dash 8 should have been listening to other traffic on that control frequency and should have known that there was an aircraft on final for that runway. The pilots of the A350 (and I don't understand why this angle isn't getting more attention) should have been looking out the window and seen the lighted-and-very-visible turboprop on the runway in front of them.
  - krisoft 3y ago
    > The pilots of the A350 (and I don't understand why this angle isn't getting more attention) should have been looking out the window and seen the lighted-and-very-visible turboprop on the runway in front of them. Because pilots know that it is incredibly hard or impossible to see an airplane lined up on the runway. By lighted we mean that the turboprop had the required lights on the end of the wings and the end of the tail. Otherwise the airplane is totally black, on a totally black runway. Simply it is very easy to not notice the extra lights among all the lights of the runway. The pattern you are trying to notice is 3 extra lights among many, and a small gap in the runway lights where they are obstructed. > The backstop to this really can't be "give different instructions", because whatever you pick can be misheard too. We know a solution for this. ASDE-X(Airport Surface Detection System) is a set of sensors (radars mostly) integrated together to monitor the ground movements of aircraft and automatically report deviations such as runway incursions. https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/asde-x https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/asde-x
  - CPLX 3y ago
    > The pilots of the A350 (and I don't understand why this angle isn't getting more attention) should have been looking out the window and seen the lighted-and-very-visible turboprop on the runway in front of them. Have you ever flown a plane? You're essentially blind to objects directly in front of and below you. That's also true in a car of course, but there's a lot more ground below you when you're flying a plane.
    - kergonath 3y ago
      From my experience, people who don’t know what they are talking about love to talk about pilot error and assign blame to the humans in the cockpit. You don’t see that often when reading experienced commenters who know that there should be 10 safety systems and features to prevent mistakes from getting catastrophic. Admiral Cloudberg’s analyses for example discuss at length the failures of all the mechanisms that allowed the crash to happen. It’s never “pilot need to git gud”. (Well, almost never, it was very nearly that for the recent Yeti Airlines crash).
  - 3y ago
- JackFr 3y ago
  Forget air traffic control - who new ground control was so difficult and fraught with danger.
  - myself248 3y ago
    I happened to watch this video last night, which goes into some of the details of RIMCAS, the Runway Incursion Monitoring and Conflict Alert System, and how it failed to alert to a dangerous situation a few years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj7nG6gJqsU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj7nG6gJqsU
eknkc 3y ago
As far as I can tell the ATC told the coast guard aircraft they were number 1 for takeoff but never cleared them for takeoff. They thought they were cleared and lined up on the runway, prepared for takeoff and even applied throttle just before the impact. Then the JAL aircraft basically landed on the occupied runway..
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- logifail 3y ago
  > They thought they were cleared [..] I don't know how they could think that, they read back the ATC message and it seems unambiguous: Tokyo TOWER: "JA722A Tokyo TOWER good evening. Number 1, taxi to holding point C5." JA722A: "Taxi to holding point C5 JA722A Number 1, thank you"
  - eknkc 3y ago
    They would also be able to hear the landing clearance for the other aircraft, no?. They would know someone was landing at that moment. Weird accident.
    - anilakar 3y ago
      They checked in on the tower frequency after the landing clearance was given so they likely were on ground until that point.
    - logifail 3y ago
      > They would know someone was landing [...] A good friend of mine worked for decades in ATC, I asked him earlier today what he'd have said, he thought "Taxi to C5 and hold" would have avoided confusion. In his view "Number 1" isn't helpful.
dghughes 3y ago
This reminds me of seeing a video about a demolition of something using explosives. The person was UK military and the person counted down "10..9..8..7..6.. .. 4..3..2..1..fire" They omitted 5 because supposedly it may sound like fire (as in shoot or do the thing now!).
- ditn 3y ago
  Yeah this is standard practise in the UK armed forces/EOD teams. Source: spent time with No. 5131 Squadron in Akrotiri.
  - CodinM 3y ago
    Oh the nice folks with the RC-135s!
  - darkwater 3y ago
    You mean Squadron No. .131 no? /s
    - dotancohen 3y ago
      Five frei!
- RNAlfons 3y ago
  Same thing here in German military where instead of saying "zwei" because it might sound like "drei", you say "zwo". It's quite useful even though its a small problem compared to all those problems which happen because of the way you read numbers above 20. "Twenty one" becomes "one and twenty". It's not as bad as French but still a pain and I've seen Germans mixing it up also.
  - lqet 3y ago
    When I was in 4th grade in Germany in the 90ies, the teacher once asked a classmate of mine to come to the blackboard. She asked her to write thirty-one ("einunddreißig", or "one and thirty"). She wrote "13", and the whole classroom exploded with laughter. I guess this is how you instill math phobia in children.
WARGANETLIFE 3y ago
[dead]
mixdup 3y ago
Don't towers all over the world give this information? It's almost every time I'm flying that the pilot tells us as we approach the runway we're number 1 for departure, or number 5 for departure With explicit phraseology of "cleared for takeoff" or "line up and wait" every single time, and the tower not saying either of those things, how does "you're next" confuse things? Is it possible that it was a language thing since English is required in these situations and is not any of these people's native tongue?
- CPLX 3y ago
  They do, it's incredibly common and it's useful information. This Japanese response seems very confusing, it's hard to understand how this could possibly be relevant to the accident. Unless of course there's a Japanese/English phonetic overlap I'm not aware of.
  - cromka 3y ago
    > This Japanese response seems very confusing, it's hard to understand how this could possibly be relevant to the accident. "The move comes after the misinterpretation of the phrase could have led to last week's deadly collision between a Japan Airlines passenger plane and a Japan Coast Guard aircraft on a runway at Tokyo's Haneda Airport."
    - alistairSH 3y ago
      That would indicate "you are next" was being used as a substitute for either/both of "line up and wait" and "cleared for take-off." While that's certainly possible, it would be surprising. Typical ATC commands at a busy commercial airport would be something like: "Taxi via XYZ, hold at ABC" (where ABC is close to, but a safe distance from, the runway surface) "Line up and wait" (enter the runway, but hold while existing traffic clears the runway) "Clear for takeoff" (runway is clear, you may depart) In this incident, I don't think either of those last two commands were given.
    - thrill 3y ago
      I suspect that it was common, at least to that pilot's ear, that "line up and wait, you're number one for takeoff" had been heard together so many times that when he heard only the latter his brain "helpfully" filled in the former. Some terminology change is occasionally warranted.
jansan 3y ago
In Japanese there are two words for some numbers. For example number 4 is yon or shi and for 7 it is shichi or nana. For announcements on train platforms they do not use shichi, because it sounds like "ichi", which is the word for 1. Also, I think they do not use "shi" for 4 for the same reason. (I hope I got this right, have not studied Japanese for 25 years). Maybe someone from Japan can clarify if the are talking about the English word "number 1" or if they mean the japanese term "dai ichi".
- sneak 3y ago
  English is used for air radio communications, per ICAO.
  - arghwhat 3y ago
    This is only a recommendation by ICAO where international traffic is expected. Towers and pilots speaking the local language is common outside the busy international routes.
- gwill 3y ago
  it's the english phrase. all pilots and ATC in the world are required to use english. it seems like the use of "number 1" made them think they were ready to take off, not that it sounded like a similar phrase. someone please correct me if i'm wrong.
  - Leherenn 3y ago
    That's not true, you can use the local language as well. What is required is to answer in English if prompted in English. Though nowadays most major airports probably are English only, it wasn't so long ago that pilots were complaining that most of the traffic at CDG was in French for instance. For what it's worth, I believe Japan is very strict in the English only however.
    - gwill 3y ago
      thanks for the info!
anilakar 3y ago
And suddenly the comment section is full of professional aviators.
- dotancohen 3y ago
  Please don't post Reddit memes to HN.
- CPLX 3y ago
  I have a pilot's license. Many people do they are fairly common.
  - arghwhat 3y ago
    To nitpick, most will have GA, not commercial (i.e., professional) licenses. But yeah, there's a lot of pilots.
    - engcoach 3y ago
      If we’re nitpicking then the pros have ATP licenses so they can fly for the airlines
      - arghwhat 3y ago
        If we're really nitpicking... In Europe and UK, an ATP is only required for those flying as pilot-in-command (i.e., captain) of a multi-pilot airplane for air transport purposes. In the US after a crash in 2009, ATP or R-ATP is required for all scheduled air transport flights, but that is not all commercial flights. Ironically, that crash was flown by two ATP holders and so this requirement change would not have helped. In both cases, a CPL is a prerequisite for the ATP (ignoring military hacks and some MPL stuff).
        engcoach 3y ago
        Even charter flights practically require an ATP due to IFR and night flying restrictions on CPL holders
AC_8675309 3y ago
Similar article with some additional background. https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2024/01/afc485d5a59b-japan-runway-incursion-measures-not-shared-suitably-with-coast-guard.html https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2024/01/afc485d5a59b-japa...
paxys 3y ago
It seems bizarre to me that such a critical part of air safety is still handled by a bunch of people keeping a large amount of information in their heads and talking to each other over shitty radios. ATC needs some massive upgrades top to bottom. This "no changes, we have always done it this way" attitude is slowly starting to collapse on itself.
- toss1 3y ago
  Yup, in no small measure, this is a problem of scaling. It is true that "we've always done it this way (keeping stuff in our heads and talking on crappy radios)" has worked. It is also true that there is more traffic than ever at almost every airport. Every system has limits to its ability to scale. This system is evidently starting to exceed those limits. Beyond this one deadly accident, more worrying are the record number of near-misses in US airspace [0]. The entire system needs to be changed. It'll be interesting to see how they do this and still stay backwards-compatible with small general-aviation airports. Or will there be a hard-break at some class of airspace? [0] https://www.aviationtoday.com/2023/09/12/alarming-rise-in-near-misses-among-u-s-airlines/ https://www.aviationtoday.com/2023/09/12/alarming-rise-in-ne...
  - burnerthrow008 3y ago
    Part of the problem is that the scale of aircraft manufacturing is small. Cessna has produced fewer 172’s since the beginning of time (the most-produced civil aircraft in history) than Toyota sells Corollas in a month. So everything is expensive because of NRE. That means nobody wants to pay to add another box to the cockpit. Now you have a game of prisoner’s dilemma: unless every aircraft is equipped with the safety technologies HN is proposing, you get little benefit. Until everyone has the little box, the controller still has to say everything over the radio (so unequipped planes can hear what everyone else is doing). “So what’s in it for me if I upgrade?” So things like ADSB don’t happen until the FAA mandates that everyone spend $10k for parts and labor on cockpit upgrades and offers a new free digital weather service and a bunch of other sweeteners. And still some aircraft are exempt from the ADSB mandate.
Noe2097 3y ago
It feels like civil international airports is the best place where dedicated embedded systems could be required for authorizing if not guiding airplanes to driveways.
- alistairSH 3y ago
  These systems exist (they cover certain subsets of airport operations). They were disabled at the time of this incident; there was a NOTAM in effect.
thimkerbell 3y ago
I wonder if there are any additional common situations in life where miscommunication produces such immediate, high-amplitude feedback.
- alistairSH 3y ago
  Not exactly common, but live-fire military operations come to mind (friendy-fire or civilian-casualty incidents and the like).
carlosdp 3y ago
Listening to the ATC recording, I feel like the real problem is that they didn't explicitly say "hold short" (which means "wait right before the runway on the taxiway"), like they do in the US. If you say that phrase, it's very clear where you're supposed to be. If they want you on the runway, they say "line up and wait"
unsupp0rted 3y ago
You'd think in 2024 every cockpit would show a meter-precision map of every other transponder blip on the same runway. When do airplanes get Bluetooth 5.0?
- aeternum 3y ago
  It's pretty ridiculous that any passenger with a smartphone and ADS-B viewer app like FlightAware has a better view of the nearby planes than the pilots do in many cockpits. We rarely consider the lives lost due to regulation that slows new tech.

80 points by iooon 3y ago

I’m just an avid ATC listener. I’m not a pilot, air traffic controller, or anything of the sort. I could very well completely off base. With that massive disclaimer out of the way, some of these changes really do come across as “we need to change something” meddling.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
isolli 3y ago
I couldn't tell in this case, but sometimes it is also definitely useful [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster#Legacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster#Lega...
makeitdouble 3y ago
There's the whole Ishikawa situation going on taking up the news in Japan, so I think there's very little pressure for them to just appear to be doing something. On the other hand, they might be suspecting something, and apply this change as a stopgap just in case, even if they later settle down on another cause.
- donalhunt 3y ago
  When dealing with incidents where there is no clear root cause, it's often advisable to implement guard rails to reduce the likelihood and/or impact of a repeat occurrence. As a result, this seems like a sane change.
ajross 3y ago
Pretty much. If you have human controllers and human pilots, eventually someone's going to misunderstand an instruction. It happens every day all over the world. The backstop to this really can't be "give different instructions", because whatever you pick can be misheard too. Obviously the primary backstop is supposed to be the pilots. The Dash 8 should have been listening to other traffic on that control frequency and should have known that there was an aircraft on final for that runway. The pilots of the A350 (and I don't understand why this angle isn't getting more attention) should have been looking out the window and seen the lighted-and-very-visible turboprop on the runway in front of them.
- krisoft 3y ago
  > The pilots of the A350 (and I don't understand why this angle isn't getting more attention) should have been looking out the window and seen the lighted-and-very-visible turboprop on the runway in front of them. Because pilots know that it is incredibly hard or impossible to see an airplane lined up on the runway. By lighted we mean that the turboprop had the required lights on the end of the wings and the end of the tail. Otherwise the airplane is totally black, on a totally black runway. Simply it is very easy to not notice the extra lights among all the lights of the runway. The pattern you are trying to notice is 3 extra lights among many, and a small gap in the runway lights where they are obstructed. > The backstop to this really can't be "give different instructions", because whatever you pick can be misheard too. We know a solution for this. ASDE-X(Airport Surface Detection System) is a set of sensors (radars mostly) integrated together to monitor the ground movements of aircraft and automatically report deviations such as runway incursions. https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/asde-x https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/asde-x
- CPLX 3y ago
  > The pilots of the A350 (and I don't understand why this angle isn't getting more attention) should have been looking out the window and seen the lighted-and-very-visible turboprop on the runway in front of them. Have you ever flown a plane? You're essentially blind to objects directly in front of and below you. That's also true in a car of course, but there's a lot more ground below you when you're flying a plane.
  - kergonath 3y ago
    From my experience, people who don’t know what they are talking about love to talk about pilot error and assign blame to the humans in the cockpit. You don’t see that often when reading experienced commenters who know that there should be 10 safety systems and features to prevent mistakes from getting catastrophic. Admiral Cloudberg’s analyses for example discuss at length the failures of all the mechanisms that allowed the crash to happen. It’s never “pilot need to git gud”. (Well, almost never, it was very nearly that for the recent Yeti Airlines crash).
- 3y ago
JackFr 3y ago
Forget air traffic control - who new ground control was so difficult and fraught with danger.
- myself248 3y ago
  I happened to watch this video last night, which goes into some of the details of RIMCAS, the Runway Incursion Monitoring and Conflict Alert System, and how it failed to alert to a dangerous situation a few years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj7nG6gJqsU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj7nG6gJqsU

eknkc 3y ago

As far as I can tell the ATC told the coast guard aircraft they were number 1 for takeoff but never cleared them for takeoff. They thought they were cleared and lined up on the runway, prepared for takeoff and even applied throttle just before the impact. Then the JAL aircraft basically landed on the occupied runway..

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
logifail 3y ago
> They thought they were cleared [..] I don't know how they could think that, they read back the ATC message and it seems unambiguous: Tokyo TOWER: "JA722A Tokyo TOWER good evening. Number 1, taxi to holding point C5." JA722A: "Taxi to holding point C5 JA722A Number 1, thank you"
- eknkc 3y ago
  They would also be able to hear the landing clearance for the other aircraft, no?. They would know someone was landing at that moment. Weird accident.
  - anilakar 3y ago
    They checked in on the tower frequency after the landing clearance was given so they likely were on ground until that point.
  - logifail 3y ago
    > They would know someone was landing [...] A good friend of mine worked for decades in ATC, I asked him earlier today what he'd have said, he thought "Taxi to C5 and hold" would have avoided confusion. In his view "Number 1" isn't helpful.

dghughes 3y ago

This reminds me of seeing a video about a demolition of something using explosives. The person was UK military and the person counted down "10..9..8..7..6.. .. 4..3..2..1..fire" They omitted 5 because supposedly it may sound like fire (as in shoot or do the thing now!).

ditn 3y ago
Yeah this is standard practise in the UK armed forces/EOD teams. Source: spent time with No. 5131 Squadron in Akrotiri.
- CodinM 3y ago
  Oh the nice folks with the RC-135s!
- darkwater 3y ago
  You mean Squadron No. .131 no? /s
  - dotancohen 3y ago
    Five frei!
RNAlfons 3y ago
Same thing here in German military where instead of saying "zwei" because it might sound like "drei", you say "zwo". It's quite useful even though its a small problem compared to all those problems which happen because of the way you read numbers above 20. "Twenty one" becomes "one and twenty". It's not as bad as French but still a pain and I've seen Germans mixing it up also.
- lqet 3y ago
  When I was in 4th grade in Germany in the 90ies, the teacher once asked a classmate of mine to come to the blackboard. She asked her to write thirty-one ("einunddreißig", or "one and thirty"). She wrote "13", and the whole classroom exploded with laughter. I guess this is how you instill math phobia in children.

WARGANETLIFE 3y ago

[dead]

mixdup 3y ago

Don't towers all over the world give this information? It's almost every time I'm flying that the pilot tells us as we approach the runway we're number 1 for departure, or number 5 for departure With explicit phraseology of "cleared for takeoff" or "line up and wait" every single time, and the tower not saying either of those things, how does "you're next" confuse things? Is it possible that it was a language thing since English is required in these situations and is not any of these people's native tongue?

CPLX 3y ago
They do, it's incredibly common and it's useful information. This Japanese response seems very confusing, it's hard to understand how this could possibly be relevant to the accident. Unless of course there's a Japanese/English phonetic overlap I'm not aware of.
- cromka 3y ago
  > This Japanese response seems very confusing, it's hard to understand how this could possibly be relevant to the accident. "The move comes after the misinterpretation of the phrase could have led to last week's deadly collision between a Japan Airlines passenger plane and a Japan Coast Guard aircraft on a runway at Tokyo's Haneda Airport."
  - alistairSH 3y ago
    That would indicate "you are next" was being used as a substitute for either/both of "line up and wait" and "cleared for take-off." While that's certainly possible, it would be surprising. Typical ATC commands at a busy commercial airport would be something like: "Taxi via XYZ, hold at ABC" (where ABC is close to, but a safe distance from, the runway surface) "Line up and wait" (enter the runway, but hold while existing traffic clears the runway) "Clear for takeoff" (runway is clear, you may depart) In this incident, I don't think either of those last two commands were given.
  - thrill 3y ago
    I suspect that it was common, at least to that pilot's ear, that "line up and wait, you're number one for takeoff" had been heard together so many times that when he heard only the latter his brain "helpfully" filled in the former. Some terminology change is occasionally warranted.

jansan 3y ago

In Japanese there are two words for some numbers. For example number 4 is yon or shi and for 7 it is shichi or nana. For announcements on train platforms they do not use shichi, because it sounds like "ichi", which is the word for 1. Also, I think they do not use "shi" for 4 for the same reason. (I hope I got this right, have not studied Japanese for 25 years). Maybe someone from Japan can clarify if the are talking about the English word "number 1" or if they mean the japanese term "dai ichi".

sneak 3y ago
English is used for air radio communications, per ICAO.
- arghwhat 3y ago
  This is only a recommendation by ICAO where international traffic is expected. Towers and pilots speaking the local language is common outside the busy international routes.
gwill 3y ago
it's the english phrase. all pilots and ATC in the world are required to use english. it seems like the use of "number 1" made them think they were ready to take off, not that it sounded like a similar phrase. someone please correct me if i'm wrong.
- Leherenn 3y ago
  That's not true, you can use the local language as well. What is required is to answer in English if prompted in English. Though nowadays most major airports probably are English only, it wasn't so long ago that pilots were complaining that most of the traffic at CDG was in French for instance. For what it's worth, I believe Japan is very strict in the English only however.
  - gwill 3y ago
    thanks for the info!

anilakar 3y ago

And suddenly the comment section is full of professional aviators.

dotancohen 3y ago
Please don't post Reddit memes to HN.
CPLX 3y ago
I have a pilot's license. Many people do they are fairly common.
- arghwhat 3y ago
  To nitpick, most will have GA, not commercial (i.e., professional) licenses. But yeah, there's a lot of pilots.
  - engcoach 3y ago
    If we’re nitpicking then the pros have ATP licenses so they can fly for the airlines
    - arghwhat 3y ago
      If we're really nitpicking... In Europe and UK, an ATP is only required for those flying as pilot-in-command (i.e., captain) of a multi-pilot airplane for air transport purposes. In the US after a crash in 2009, ATP or R-ATP is required for all scheduled air transport flights, but that is not all commercial flights. Ironically, that crash was flown by two ATP holders and so this requirement change would not have helped. In both cases, a CPL is a prerequisite for the ATP (ignoring military hacks and some MPL stuff).
      - engcoach 3y ago
        Even charter flights practically require an ATP due to IFR and night flying restrictions on CPL holders

AC_8675309 3y ago

Similar article with some additional background. https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2024/01/afc485d5a59b-japan-runway-incursion-measures-not-shared-suitably-with-coast-guard.html https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2024/01/afc485d5a59b-japa...

paxys 3y ago

It seems bizarre to me that such a critical part of air safety is still handled by a bunch of people keeping a large amount of information in their heads and talking to each other over shitty radios. ATC needs some massive upgrades top to bottom. This "no changes, we have always done it this way" attitude is slowly starting to collapse on itself.

toss1 3y ago
Yup, in no small measure, this is a problem of scaling. It is true that "we've always done it this way (keeping stuff in our heads and talking on crappy radios)" has worked. It is also true that there is more traffic than ever at almost every airport. Every system has limits to its ability to scale. This system is evidently starting to exceed those limits. Beyond this one deadly accident, more worrying are the record number of near-misses in US airspace [0]. The entire system needs to be changed. It'll be interesting to see how they do this and still stay backwards-compatible with small general-aviation airports. Or will there be a hard-break at some class of airspace? [0] https://www.aviationtoday.com/2023/09/12/alarming-rise-in-near-misses-among-u-s-airlines/ https://www.aviationtoday.com/2023/09/12/alarming-rise-in-ne...
- burnerthrow008 3y ago
  Part of the problem is that the scale of aircraft manufacturing is small. Cessna has produced fewer 172’s since the beginning of time (the most-produced civil aircraft in history) than Toyota sells Corollas in a month. So everything is expensive because of NRE. That means nobody wants to pay to add another box to the cockpit. Now you have a game of prisoner’s dilemma: unless every aircraft is equipped with the safety technologies HN is proposing, you get little benefit. Until everyone has the little box, the controller still has to say everything over the radio (so unequipped planes can hear what everyone else is doing). “So what’s in it for me if I upgrade?” So things like ADSB don’t happen until the FAA mandates that everyone spend $10k for parts and labor on cockpit upgrades and offers a new free digital weather service and a bunch of other sweeteners. And still some aircraft are exempt from the ADSB mandate.

Noe2097 3y ago

It feels like civil international airports is the best place where dedicated embedded systems could be required for authorizing if not guiding airplanes to driveways.

alistairSH 3y ago
These systems exist (they cover certain subsets of airport operations). They were disabled at the time of this incident; there was a NOTAM in effect.

thimkerbell 3y ago

I wonder if there are any additional common situations in life where miscommunication produces such immediate, high-amplitude feedback.

alistairSH 3y ago
Not exactly common, but live-fire military operations come to mind (friendy-fire or civilian-casualty incidents and the like).

carlosdp 3y ago

Listening to the ATC recording, I feel like the real problem is that they didn't explicitly say "hold short" (which means "wait right before the runway on the taxiway"), like they do in the US. If you say that phrase, it's very clear where you're supposed to be. If they want you on the runway, they say "line up and wait"

unsupp0rted 3y ago

You'd think in 2024 every cockpit would show a meter-precision map of every other transponder blip on the same runway. When do airplanes get Bluetooth 5.0?

aeternum 3y ago
It's pretty ridiculous that any passenger with a smartphone and ADS-B viewer app like FlightAware has a better view of the nearby planes than the pilots do in many cockpits. We rarely consider the lives lost due to regulation that slows new tech.