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How many more close calls will it take for us to significantly overhaul the ATC system and bring it into the present century? Or is a large scale disaster the o

by paxys 3y ago

How many more close calls will it take for us to significantly overhaul the ATC system and bring it into the present century? Or is a large scale disaster the only way to make people understand the urgency?

ranger_danger 3y ago
sounds like the movie Swordfish
toomuchtodo 3y ago
> Or is a large scale disaster the only way to make people understand the urgency? Yes. And a controller is going to get scapegoated (likely ruining their life) when a few hundred people die in the process, versus the failing system. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/02/business/air-traffic-controllers-safety.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/02/business/air-traffic-cont... | https://archive.today/bFcAh https://archive.today/bFcAh (Obviously, I would rather be wrong about this)
- WorkerBee28474 3y ago
  > Obviously, I would rather be wrong about this No, you're right, this is a common procedure across industries
- stevepeg 3y ago
  > But The Times found that the combination of six-day workweeks and round-the-clock schedules has caused controllers to develop physical and mental health problems. Many avoid seeking professional help because doing so might jeopardize the medical clearances they need to work. This is happening frequently to pilots and cabin crew as well, all over the world. Regulators have allowed a lot of flex in rostering in recent years, maybe a bit too much.
- yongjik 3y ago
  Two planes collided in LAX in 1991 due to what was clearly a controller error, killing 35. Investigators decided that anyone could have made such a mistake given circumstances. The controller wasn't punished, and instead a bunch of changes were made to prevent similar situations in the future. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_runway_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_runway_disaster Obviously it would be ideal if such changes are made before planes collide, but the US air accident investigation system generally does its job, as far as I've heard.
TillE 3y ago
It's really crazy that ATC isn't 99% computerized. It's exactly the kind of problem which is trivial for a computer program with all the necessary information, but incredibly stressful for a human.
- dralley 3y ago
  It's not exactly trivial, certainly when it comes to the edge cases. Emergencies, unusual situations, etc.
- squigz 3y ago
  If it's so trivial, why do you think we haven't done it yet?
  - paxys 3y ago
    The same reason why ACH transfers still happen by transferring large files to a FTP server once a day or why San Francisco's train routing system still uses 5.25-inch floppy disks or why social security payments are calculated by a system running COBOL. It has always worked this way, and there's no political will or public pressure to change it.
- icegreentea2 3y ago
  I'd argue against the triviality, but even if we accept that premise, the exact challenge is "with all the necessary information". Human ATC operators integrate a huge variety of information including voice comms to build a situational awareness of not just the current position and velocities of planes, but also their stated intentions. Yes, with sufficient coordination you could push all of that over into the cockpit and have the pilots input their intentions directly. We all know that voice transcription is a bit hit and miss (though the phraselogy used would probably be quite helpful), and certainly typing is... not optimal for emergencies. This aligns with basically all questions about automation in aviation (including in the cockpit). Automated systems can generally out perform human operators in probably the 99.99+% of typical cases. However a human with full situational awareness is still critical in the remaining situations. The challenge is that: * For a human to have proper awareness, they must be meaningfully engaged. They must actually be having some real agency and effect on the system. * Neither full human nor full automation provides the degree of safety and performance that we currently desire. Somehow we must integrate the two systems together.
jmward01 3y ago
I'm a big fan of overhauling the system for a lot of reasons, but safety isn't one of them. 'Close call' without 'accident' still means there wasn't an accident. Rebuilding the system because you think it is dangerous will likely lead to a less safe system since the one in place is incredibly safe with many years of statistics to prove it. However, overhauling the current system because it is incapable of handling the future where autonomous vehicles flood the skies, now that is something I can get behind.
- randmeerkat 3y ago
  > However, overhauling the current system because it is incapable of handling the future where autonomous vehicles flood the skies, now that is something I can get behind. Until cars can drive themselves without crashing into stopped fire trucks[1], I don’t want anything autonomous flying anywhere near where I live. [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/tesla-driver-killed-plowing-firetruck-northern-california-freeway-rcna71436 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/tesla-driver-killed-plo...
  - jmward01 3y ago
    People do that a lot too. Over 40k people died on the roads in 2022. Maybe we could save some of them if we went autonomous. The better decision point is about overall safety, not one-off incidents. In aviation, like driving, the #1 source of accidents is human error.
- mlyle 3y ago
  > 'Close call' without 'accident' still means there wasn't an accident. Close calls are a very important signal for how safe the system is. Good safety systems are redundant and require many failures to result in a crash. Here, we got down to the last link in the chain: weather was clear and the departing pilots could see there was an obvious problem while there was time to stop. > since the one in place is incredibly safe with many years of statistics to prove it. We've gotten to this safe system by chipping away at problems we see-- both from actual accidents and close calls. The only way we reach and keep (and perhaps surpass) this level of safety is to keep (carefully) correcting problems. (And yes, there is risk of changes making things worse. We need to do our best to avoid that and detect it quickly if it happens).

by paxys 3y ago

ranger_danger 3y ago

sounds like the movie Swordfish

toomuchtodo 3y ago

> Or is a large scale disaster the only way to make people understand the urgency? Yes. And a controller is going to get scapegoated (likely ruining their life) when a few hundred people die in the process, versus the failing system. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/02/business/air-traffic-controllers-safety.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/02/business/air-traffic-cont... | https://archive.today/bFcAh https://archive.today/bFcAh (Obviously, I would rather be wrong about this)

WorkerBee28474 3y ago
> Obviously, I would rather be wrong about this No, you're right, this is a common procedure across industries
stevepeg 3y ago
> But The Times found that the combination of six-day workweeks and round-the-clock schedules has caused controllers to develop physical and mental health problems. Many avoid seeking professional help because doing so might jeopardize the medical clearances they need to work. This is happening frequently to pilots and cabin crew as well, all over the world. Regulators have allowed a lot of flex in rostering in recent years, maybe a bit too much.
yongjik 3y ago
Two planes collided in LAX in 1991 due to what was clearly a controller error, killing 35. Investigators decided that anyone could have made such a mistake given circumstances. The controller wasn't punished, and instead a bunch of changes were made to prevent similar situations in the future. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_runway_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_runway_disaster Obviously it would be ideal if such changes are made before planes collide, but the US air accident investigation system generally does its job, as far as I've heard.

TillE 3y ago

It's really crazy that ATC isn't 99% computerized. It's exactly the kind of problem which is trivial for a computer program with all the necessary information, but incredibly stressful for a human.

dralley 3y ago
It's not exactly trivial, certainly when it comes to the edge cases. Emergencies, unusual situations, etc.
squigz 3y ago
If it's so trivial, why do you think we haven't done it yet?
- paxys 3y ago
  The same reason why ACH transfers still happen by transferring large files to a FTP server once a day or why San Francisco's train routing system still uses 5.25-inch floppy disks or why social security payments are calculated by a system running COBOL. It has always worked this way, and there's no political will or public pressure to change it.
icegreentea2 3y ago
I'd argue against the triviality, but even if we accept that premise, the exact challenge is "with all the necessary information". Human ATC operators integrate a huge variety of information including voice comms to build a situational awareness of not just the current position and velocities of planes, but also their stated intentions. Yes, with sufficient coordination you could push all of that over into the cockpit and have the pilots input their intentions directly. We all know that voice transcription is a bit hit and miss (though the phraselogy used would probably be quite helpful), and certainly typing is... not optimal for emergencies. This aligns with basically all questions about automation in aviation (including in the cockpit). Automated systems can generally out perform human operators in probably the 99.99+% of typical cases. However a human with full situational awareness is still critical in the remaining situations. The challenge is that: * For a human to have proper awareness, they must be meaningfully engaged. They must actually be having some real agency and effect on the system. * Neither full human nor full automation provides the degree of safety and performance that we currently desire. Somehow we must integrate the two systems together.

jmward01 3y ago

I'm a big fan of overhauling the system for a lot of reasons, but safety isn't one of them. 'Close call' without 'accident' still means there wasn't an accident. Rebuilding the system because you think it is dangerous will likely lead to a less safe system since the one in place is incredibly safe with many years of statistics to prove it. However, overhauling the current system because it is incapable of handling the future where autonomous vehicles flood the skies, now that is something I can get behind.

randmeerkat 3y ago
> However, overhauling the current system because it is incapable of handling the future where autonomous vehicles flood the skies, now that is something I can get behind. Until cars can drive themselves without crashing into stopped fire trucks[1], I don’t want anything autonomous flying anywhere near where I live. [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/tesla-driver-killed-plowing-firetruck-northern-california-freeway-rcna71436 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/tesla-driver-killed-plo...
- jmward01 3y ago
  People do that a lot too. Over 40k people died on the roads in 2022. Maybe we could save some of them if we went autonomous. The better decision point is about overall safety, not one-off incidents. In aviation, like driving, the #1 source of accidents is human error.
mlyle 3y ago
> 'Close call' without 'accident' still means there wasn't an accident. Close calls are a very important signal for how safe the system is. Good safety systems are redundant and require many failures to result in a crash. Here, we got down to the last link in the chain: weather was clear and the departing pilots could see there was an obvious problem while there was time to stop. > since the one in place is incredibly safe with many years of statistics to prove it. We've gotten to this safe system by chipping away at problems we see-- both from actual accidents and close calls. The only way we reach and keep (and perhaps surpass) this level of safety is to keep (carefully) correcting problems. (And yes, there is risk of changes making things worse. We need to do our best to avoid that and detect it quickly if it happens).