11 ms·

The FAA's Real Air Traffic Control Crisis Runs Much Deeper

75 points by js2 2y ago

skellington 2y ago
Uh oh, you posted something factual that invites questions. HN not going to like this... >>>Facing pressure to diversify an overwhelmingly white workforce, the FAA began using a biographical test as a first screen of candidates. Minority candidates were fed “buzz words” to bump their resumes up to top priority. Apparently saying your worst subject in school was science served as a golden ticket. Correct answers to the take-home biographical questionnaire were given in their entirety. These questionnaires were later banned. This was dumb, but it’s not the problem.<<< Ok, besides the fact that this, along with the evidence that the magic keywords were given in secret to special groups, is blatantly illegal, after they banned it, what did the criteria become? What is the criteria today? Did they switch to a primarily merit/skills based assessment of candidates? Did they lower standards and if so, by how much? Have they tracked their assessment performance against real-world performance across the ATC pool?
- zug_zug 2y ago
  So how it works is there's a selection process to go to ATC school/training. Just getting into training doesn't mean you get to be a controller, you get tested a lot and hard with very representative work (a close relative failed this actually), and only get to be an ATC if you pass well enough. I think maybe you misread the article, because it explicitly says "Note that leaving behind qualified applicants from Collegiate Training isn’t why we don’t have more controllers"
  - skellington 2y ago
    I saw that. But it's laced with political overtones. The question is not just # of controllers, it's the quality of controllers. Have they lowered the standards to get through ATC school? What is the truth? Just asking so I have ammunition against right-wing arguments.
    - nxobject 2y ago
      I assume you want ammunition against your own arguments. But I'm confused about what you're asking: you were talking in your original comment about the _admissions_ process to ATC academy, and now you're talking about the process to _graduate_ from ATC academy. So let me see if I'm clear about what you're asking: despite the fact that aptitude requirements to get into ATC academy did not change, are you asking about whether the standards to _leave_ ATC academy were lowered? What would an answer to that question prove?
    - zug_zug 2y ago
      No, they haven’t lowered the standard to graduate.
      - skellington 2y ago
        How do you know? Do you work for FAA? We wouldn't have to guess and allow for right-wing conjectures if FAA were just transparent on the process and if any changes have been made.
        zug_zug 2y ago
        > We wouldn't have to guess and allow for right-wing conjectures if FAA were just transparent on the process and if any changes have been made. There's no world where you out-research every conspiracy theory, especially all the right-wing ones during an Trump/RFK/Musk era. But for what it's worth the family member who failed was a minority, even though my father was an ATC, so all else being equal you'd expect them to have a relatively good set of chances (just due to genes, if that's a thing).
  - lttlrck 2y ago
    But if the standard to get into school was lowered (not saying it was as I have no evidence), that it would alter the output. If not in quality then in volume.
    - nxobject 2y ago
      The author's argument is that aptitude requirements did not change, but what changed is that some candidates were now less experienced after not having gone through ATC degrees. (But the author doesn't attribute the tragedy to that, in any case, so speculating about a counterfactual is something else.)
- rayiner 2y ago
  Not only was it blatantly illegal. How do you trust the overall judgment of the people who signed off on it? Who thinks it’s okay the make a mandatory screening test for air traffic controllers where the scoring rubric is basically random and has a 90% failure rate unless you have secret information from affiliated groups. What else did they think was a good idea?
- viraptor 2y ago
  Good context for the "magic keywords" from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42901362 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42901362 which is now folded: > The list is on the last page of this document: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/17Vi9dDtZvbwHDafrygRGYcG888f-6PDs https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/17Vi9dDtZvbwHDafrygRG... It looks like it's a page that was photocopied from a book about how to write a resume. It's a list of dozens of incredibly generic verbs like "manage", "analyze", "administer", "make", "improve", "design", etc. pretty much any resume will have at least some of these verbs. So it's not a secret code, but rather "tailor your CV for the job, ok?"
tac19 2y ago
I know I shouldn't get my news from Reddit, but the consensus there is that the entire FAA crisis (and both recent crashes in the US), is Trump's fault. I don't know the details, but apparently he "gutted" the FAA last week, on the first day he took office, leaving the FAA unable to protect the flying public.
- readthenotes1 2y ago
  "I know I shouldn't" --> then don't
- CrazyStat 2y ago
  The air traffic controller shortage long predates Trump; here [1] for example is a statement about it from 2015. [1] https://www.natca.org/2015/12/09/natca-discusses-air-traffic-controller-staffing-shortage-at-congressional-roundtable/ https://www.natca.org/2015/12/09/natca-discusses-air-traffic...
  - CamperBob2 2y ago
    The so-called "DEI" hiring policies currently in effect, however, were instituted under Trump: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/01/30/faa-dei-trump-fact-checker/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/01/30/faa-dei-t... The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears...
  - lumost 2y ago
    I'd argue that in our quest to maximize income inequality, we've made many necessary careers non-viable from a living standards perspective. These non viable careers include pilots, atc, teaching, and a large portion of the skilled trades and more. While a non viable career path will still have some individuals in the field due to sunk cost, passion, or inertia - a shortage is inevitable. Supply and demand should rationalize this - but if training is long, wage visibility is low, and sunk cost is high, and negotiation power is low - its entirely possible for a employers to collectively push the prevailing wage below the level which makes the job worth it to enough individuals.
- 2y ago
zug_zug 2y ago
tl; dr -- "Pinning Last Night’s Disaster On Diversity Hiring Is Unsupportable"
- suby 2y ago
  I think it's unfortunate if this is your only take away. Two things can be true at once: A) Diversity hiring is unrelated to the crash B) There is a real scandal with hiring and the FAA What I have read so far about this situation is outrageous. My understanding is that in 2014, Obama appointed a head of the FAA who wanted to diversify the workforce. They introduced a biographical questionnaire which had rather arbitrary criteria for passing. It appears to have been explicitly designed to fail people that do not know the magical answers. The failure rate was 90%. This is not the only example, but perhaps the most egregious questions: you are asked what your best subject was in highschool. If you answered science, you get 15 points (a substantial amount). No points for any other subject. Next, you're asked your best subject in college. If you answer history, you get 15 points. No points for any other subject. Here is an alleged recreation of the test: https://kaisoapbox.com/projects/faa_biographical_assessment/ https://kaisoapbox.com/projects/faa_biographical_assessment/ There are supposedly voicemails in which they helped select candidates pass this biographical questionnaire by providing their preferred race/gendered candidates with the answers. I haven't been able to find a voice mail online, but Fox Business reported that these voicemails exist. Per a 2016 Yahoo Finance article, an internal FAA report falsely cleared the employee of wrongdoing. It's my understanding that there is currently a lawsuit making its way through the courts regarding this. It's also my understanding that some allege that the problems are not all resolved yet with hiring, despite the questionnaire being withdrawn in 2018. I'm not sure of the specifics of how there may still be problems with hiring and the FAA. https://x.com/tracewoodgrains/status/1752091831095939471 https://x.com/tracewoodgrains/status/1752091831095939471
  - rayiner 2y ago
    What allegedly happened at the FAA wasn’t just “let’s try to have a more diverse workforce.” It was “let’s collide with racial advocacy groups to make a test that would allow us to deny white applicants because they won’t have the secret pass words.” Anybody who was involved in this obviously has severely compromised judgment. Who can trust anything else they did?
Xiol32 2y ago
Amazes me how much the AI generated slop artwork puts me off the actual content of the article, which I'm assuming is of greater quality.
- dkasper 2y ago
  Makes you assume the article is also at least partially generated by AI
  - elif 2y ago
    Makes you wonder if an LLM wouldn't be the perfect air traffic controller. Only one on duty? How about 100 agents continually monitoring
    - SteveNuts 2y ago
      What happens when a situation that the agent hasn’t been trained on occurs? Is it going to have the critical thinking skills to understand the situation and make the right decision or is it going to just hallucinate some impossible answer and get people killed? I’m not saying human controllers don’t make mistakes but this should be one of the last areas to fully automate.
    - root_axis 2y ago
      This kind of thinking is why AI hype is dangerous.
      - diggan 2y ago
        Thinking is never bad, it's what happens afterwards that's important.
        root_axis 2y ago
        Certain types of thoughts are definitely "bad" regardless of what comes after.
ck2 2y ago
So is someone making jokes of our reality? No really, think about it: RONALD REAGAN AIRPORT has a disaster because of decades-long crisis of too few air-traffic controllers available? Reagan fired thousands upon thousands of ATC because they dared to ask for proper wages. That seems like an odd place to put his name. (oh and this had nothing to do with DEI, just like all attacks on DEI are ridiculous and just people being trolls for entertainment)
- WillyWonkaJr 2y ago
  The air traffic controller union was asking for a 32-hour work week and a $10,000 a year raise. The counter offer would give them salaries higher than the private sector, but keep the work week at 5 days instead of 4. So they went on strike. After the workers disobeyed a Federal judge's orders to return to work, they were fired. EDIT: It's so funny that if you make any comment that doesn't tow the left wing narrative here on HN you're down voted. I'm not right or left, but find it kinda sad.
  - dml2135 2y ago
    There are privately-employed air traffic controllers?
    - WillyWonkaJr 2y ago
      The salaries were in comparison to the private sector. TBH I'm not sure what jobs & ages they chose to compare Federal salaries to the private sector. Seems kinda arbitrary. Perhaps it was in comparison to private sector union workers?
    - blantonl 2y ago
      Yes, a number of smaller airports are staffed by contract tower controllers.
  - ck2 2y ago
    Do the reasons for firing them (looked it up, over 11,000 !) even matter? Because the remainder and future employment prospects for ATC simply looked at how they were treated and how they had absolutely no options and decided to NOPE NOPE out of that profession. And so here we are: naming airports after people whose actions eventually led to the specific reasons for the disaster
mrcwinn 2y ago
The facts seem to be that a helicopter diverted from its published course (300 feet rather than 100 feet) and made a reckless, fatal mistake. TCAS was too late or not usable at that low altitude. The controller - who had previously warned of inbound traffic and passed responsible to the pilot by putting them in visual separation, which was in turn confirmed - was also too late. Hire more controllers? Sure, maybe, but I can't help but think this was very avoidable using technology and training.
- formerly_proven 2y ago
  Visual separation at night in dense airspace has no checks and no margin for error. There is no way for anyone to tell whether the crew is tracking the correct aircraft or whether they are correctly guessing its attitude etc. That practice is plainly asking for an accident to happen.
  - PaulRobinson 2y ago
    In the UK I know traffic is indicated with a relative position and altitude: “traffic at your 10 o’clock, 2 miles, altitude 1500 feet”. The ATC for the Reagan crash did not indicate a relative or absolute position, only referencing “the CRJ”, which might be hard to identify in the dark, and the helicopter pilot may have assumed he “had visual”, but was looking at a different aircraft.
    - davkan 2y ago
      I keep seeing comments that no relative position was given but ATC does provide detail in their initial communications, though not subsequent. > Traffic just south of the Woodrow Bridge, a CRJ, it's 1,200 feet setting up for Runway 33.
      - lumost 2y ago
        Where is the Woodrow bridge? Are all pilots expected to know this flying around the Reagan airport? There are multiple bridges on the Potomac.
stackedinserter 2y ago
[flagged]
hiatus 2y ago
Why isn't air traffic control run by the military in the US like it is in other countries?
- wombatpm 2y ago
  In the 1980’s Reagan fired all members of PATCO, the air traffic controller union and replaced them with military personnel until a new cohort could be trained.
  - p_l 2y ago
    And the military traffic controllers were not ready for civilian traffic
    - wombatpm 2y ago
      I remember It was mess. I believe some PATCO members were allowed to reapply for jobs, but most were banned.
- viraptor 2y ago
  Is that actually common? I did a spot check of few big ones and couldn't find an example.
  - hiatus 2y ago
    I'm not sure it is common. I was thinking about Brazil when I made this comment but further review makes me believe it is not all that common worldwide.
whycome 2y ago
here are the bits as I've come to understand them: - there was a similar incident just the day before where a helicopter's path came close to a similar plane. It was high enough, so the plane received the TCAS (traffic alert/collision avoidance) 'resolution advisory' warning and made the proper actions. - warnings from TCAS are inhibited under 1000ft because they would be full of false/nuisance warnings that close to the ground and potentially suggest unsafe evasive maneuvers. - the helicopter was following a designated route along the river as the general guide - the helicopter went a bit higher than the designated ceiling (and that probably happens pretty often). - the incoming airplane was following the 'glideslope' of the 'instrument landing system' - the helicopter crew may have been wearing night vision goggles. such goggles can affect ability to see periphery. Also, nighttime lights of a city can appear bright and distracting. - the helicopter crew of 3 may have been less than other similar flights - airplane was initially looking to land on the longer runway #1 but was asked by the ATC to use #33 instead (their smaller plane could use it fine). They take awhile considering it and then accept it. They had to slightly change the angle of their approach. This may have been a choice to simplify the workload for the ATC controller. - There was one controller handling both the plane and helicopter traffic and one left earlier - the plane and atc use VHF to communicate while the military helicopter uses UHF, thus, the plane had no awareness of any communications with the helicopter - the ATC mentions the presence of the plane to the helicopter. the helicopter says they see them and request "visual separation" which is basically 'we can see them, so we can move around them accordingly' So, it's possible the helicopter was looking at a different plane/set of lights when they mentioned that they had them in sight. Another plane had just taken off from runway 1. It's also possible that they saw the CRJ plane and just misjudged its location (maybe due to the turn they were making for the alignment to land?). As for systems issues, it seems there's no way for ATC to know just which plane a helicopter (or other plane) is referring to when they 'confirm' seeing it. It's interesting to note that some airlines actually forbid "visual separation" at nighttime due to the safety concerns (misidentifications, conflicting city lights, human perception). (eg, KLM (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rdapQfJDAM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rdapQfJDAM)) US ATC might prefer visual separation which means that planes can be closer together in lining up to land whereas an instrument approach means a bigger gap. (More planes landing means more money for airports?) It seems like the 'glidescope' area when landing should be treated like a 3d extension of the runway -- keep planes and craft out of it during a plane's landing. Anything crossing into it should be treated like a "runway incursion" (which is also clearly a problem that the US needs to fix...In someways, this crash might be seen as an extension of that issue?) There needs to be a way to verify just which planes a craft is "confirming visual' of - especially at night.
robbbed 2y ago
So what as normies can we do about this? Boycott air travel? Write congress? I'm seriously considering postponing any upcoming air travel. If a core component of safe air travel is antiquated and lacking in resources then it seems incredibly foolish to risk our lives any further taking this form of transportation.
thomas4151 2y ago
[flagged]

75 points by js2 2y ago

Uh oh, you posted something factual that invites questions. HN not going to like this... >>>Facing pressure to diversify an overwhelmingly white workforce, the FAA began using a biographical test as a first screen of candidates. Minority candidates were fed “buzz words” to bump their resumes up to top priority. Apparently saying your worst subject in school was science served as a golden ticket. Correct answers to the take-home biographical questionnaire were given in their entirety. These questionnaires were later banned. This was dumb, but it’s not the problem.<<< Ok, besides the fact that this, along with the evidence that the magic keywords were given in secret to special groups, is blatantly illegal, after they banned it, what did the criteria become? What is the criteria today? Did they switch to a primarily merit/skills based assessment of candidates? Did they lower standards and if so, by how much? Have they tracked their assessment performance against real-world performance across the ATC pool?

zug_zug 2y ago
So how it works is there's a selection process to go to ATC school/training. Just getting into training doesn't mean you get to be a controller, you get tested a lot and hard with very representative work (a close relative failed this actually), and only get to be an ATC if you pass well enough. I think maybe you misread the article, because it explicitly says "Note that leaving behind qualified applicants from Collegiate Training isn’t why we don’t have more controllers"
- skellington 2y ago
  I saw that. But it's laced with political overtones. The question is not just # of controllers, it's the quality of controllers. Have they lowered the standards to get through ATC school? What is the truth? Just asking so I have ammunition against right-wing arguments.
  - nxobject 2y ago
    I assume you want ammunition against your own arguments. But I'm confused about what you're asking: you were talking in your original comment about the _admissions_ process to ATC academy, and now you're talking about the process to _graduate_ from ATC academy. So let me see if I'm clear about what you're asking: despite the fact that aptitude requirements to get into ATC academy did not change, are you asking about whether the standards to _leave_ ATC academy were lowered? What would an answer to that question prove?
  - zug_zug 2y ago
    No, they haven’t lowered the standard to graduate.
    - skellington 2y ago
      How do you know? Do you work for FAA? We wouldn't have to guess and allow for right-wing conjectures if FAA were just transparent on the process and if any changes have been made.
      - zug_zug 2y ago
        > We wouldn't have to guess and allow for right-wing conjectures if FAA were just transparent on the process and if any changes have been made. There's no world where you out-research every conspiracy theory, especially all the right-wing ones during an Trump/RFK/Musk era. But for what it's worth the family member who failed was a minority, even though my father was an ATC, so all else being equal you'd expect them to have a relatively good set of chances (just due to genes, if that's a thing).
- lttlrck 2y ago
  But if the standard to get into school was lowered (not saying it was as I have no evidence), that it would alter the output. If not in quality then in volume.
  - nxobject 2y ago
    The author's argument is that aptitude requirements did not change, but what changed is that some candidates were now less experienced after not having gone through ATC degrees. (But the author doesn't attribute the tragedy to that, in any case, so speculating about a counterfactual is something else.)
rayiner 2y ago
Not only was it blatantly illegal. How do you trust the overall judgment of the people who signed off on it? Who thinks it’s okay the make a mandatory screening test for air traffic controllers where the scoring rubric is basically random and has a 90% failure rate unless you have secret information from affiliated groups. What else did they think was a good idea?
viraptor 2y ago
Good context for the "magic keywords" from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42901362 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42901362 which is now folded: > The list is on the last page of this document: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/17Vi9dDtZvbwHDafrygRGYcG888f-6PDs https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/17Vi9dDtZvbwHDafrygRG... It looks like it's a page that was photocopied from a book about how to write a resume. It's a list of dozens of incredibly generic verbs like "manage", "analyze", "administer", "make", "improve", "design", etc. pretty much any resume will have at least some of these verbs. So it's not a secret code, but rather "tailor your CV for the job, ok?"

tac19 2y ago

I know I shouldn't get my news from Reddit, but the consensus there is that the entire FAA crisis (and both recent crashes in the US), is Trump's fault. I don't know the details, but apparently he "gutted" the FAA last week, on the first day he took office, leaving the FAA unable to protect the flying public.

readthenotes1 2y ago
"I know I shouldn't" --> then don't
CrazyStat 2y ago
The air traffic controller shortage long predates Trump; here [1] for example is a statement about it from 2015. [1] https://www.natca.org/2015/12/09/natca-discusses-air-traffic-controller-staffing-shortage-at-congressional-roundtable/ https://www.natca.org/2015/12/09/natca-discusses-air-traffic...
- CamperBob2 2y ago
  The so-called "DEI" hiring policies currently in effect, however, were instituted under Trump: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/01/30/faa-dei-trump-fact-checker/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/01/30/faa-dei-t... The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears...
- lumost 2y ago
  I'd argue that in our quest to maximize income inequality, we've made many necessary careers non-viable from a living standards perspective. These non viable careers include pilots, atc, teaching, and a large portion of the skilled trades and more. While a non viable career path will still have some individuals in the field due to sunk cost, passion, or inertia - a shortage is inevitable. Supply and demand should rationalize this - but if training is long, wage visibility is low, and sunk cost is high, and negotiation power is low - its entirely possible for a employers to collectively push the prevailing wage below the level which makes the job worth it to enough individuals.
2y ago

zug_zug 2y ago

tl; dr -- "Pinning Last Night’s Disaster On Diversity Hiring Is Unsupportable"

suby 2y ago
I think it's unfortunate if this is your only take away. Two things can be true at once: A) Diversity hiring is unrelated to the crash B) There is a real scandal with hiring and the FAA What I have read so far about this situation is outrageous. My understanding is that in 2014, Obama appointed a head of the FAA who wanted to diversify the workforce. They introduced a biographical questionnaire which had rather arbitrary criteria for passing. It appears to have been explicitly designed to fail people that do not know the magical answers. The failure rate was 90%. This is not the only example, but perhaps the most egregious questions: you are asked what your best subject was in highschool. If you answered science, you get 15 points (a substantial amount). No points for any other subject. Next, you're asked your best subject in college. If you answer history, you get 15 points. No points for any other subject. Here is an alleged recreation of the test: https://kaisoapbox.com/projects/faa_biographical_assessment/ https://kaisoapbox.com/projects/faa_biographical_assessment/ There are supposedly voicemails in which they helped select candidates pass this biographical questionnaire by providing their preferred race/gendered candidates with the answers. I haven't been able to find a voice mail online, but Fox Business reported that these voicemails exist. Per a 2016 Yahoo Finance article, an internal FAA report falsely cleared the employee of wrongdoing. It's my understanding that there is currently a lawsuit making its way through the courts regarding this. It's also my understanding that some allege that the problems are not all resolved yet with hiring, despite the questionnaire being withdrawn in 2018. I'm not sure of the specifics of how there may still be problems with hiring and the FAA. https://x.com/tracewoodgrains/status/1752091831095939471 https://x.com/tracewoodgrains/status/1752091831095939471
- rayiner 2y ago
  What allegedly happened at the FAA wasn’t just “let’s try to have a more diverse workforce.” It was “let’s collide with racial advocacy groups to make a test that would allow us to deny white applicants because they won’t have the secret pass words.” Anybody who was involved in this obviously has severely compromised judgment. Who can trust anything else they did?

Xiol32 2y ago

Amazes me how much the AI generated slop artwork puts me off the actual content of the article, which I'm assuming is of greater quality.

dkasper 2y ago
Makes you assume the article is also at least partially generated by AI
- elif 2y ago
  Makes you wonder if an LLM wouldn't be the perfect air traffic controller. Only one on duty? How about 100 agents continually monitoring
  - SteveNuts 2y ago
    What happens when a situation that the agent hasn’t been trained on occurs? Is it going to have the critical thinking skills to understand the situation and make the right decision or is it going to just hallucinate some impossible answer and get people killed? I’m not saying human controllers don’t make mistakes but this should be one of the last areas to fully automate.
  - root_axis 2y ago
    This kind of thinking is why AI hype is dangerous.
    - diggan 2y ago
      Thinking is never bad, it's what happens afterwards that's important.
      - root_axis 2y ago
        Certain types of thoughts are definitely "bad" regardless of what comes after.

ck2 2y ago

So is someone making jokes of our reality? No really, think about it: RONALD REAGAN AIRPORT has a disaster because of decades-long crisis of too few air-traffic controllers available? Reagan fired thousands upon thousands of ATC because they dared to ask for proper wages. That seems like an odd place to put his name. (oh and this had nothing to do with DEI, just like all attacks on DEI are ridiculous and just people being trolls for entertainment)

WillyWonkaJr 2y ago
The air traffic controller union was asking for a 32-hour work week and a $10,000 a year raise. The counter offer would give them salaries higher than the private sector, but keep the work week at 5 days instead of 4. So they went on strike. After the workers disobeyed a Federal judge's orders to return to work, they were fired. EDIT: It's so funny that if you make any comment that doesn't tow the left wing narrative here on HN you're down voted. I'm not right or left, but find it kinda sad.
- dml2135 2y ago
  There are privately-employed air traffic controllers?
  - WillyWonkaJr 2y ago
    The salaries were in comparison to the private sector. TBH I'm not sure what jobs & ages they chose to compare Federal salaries to the private sector. Seems kinda arbitrary. Perhaps it was in comparison to private sector union workers?
  - blantonl 2y ago
    Yes, a number of smaller airports are staffed by contract tower controllers.
- ck2 2y ago
  Do the reasons for firing them (looked it up, over 11,000 !) even matter? Because the remainder and future employment prospects for ATC simply looked at how they were treated and how they had absolutely no options and decided to NOPE NOPE out of that profession. And so here we are: naming airports after people whose actions eventually led to the specific reasons for the disaster

mrcwinn 2y ago

The facts seem to be that a helicopter diverted from its published course (300 feet rather than 100 feet) and made a reckless, fatal mistake. TCAS was too late or not usable at that low altitude. The controller - who had previously warned of inbound traffic and passed responsible to the pilot by putting them in visual separation, which was in turn confirmed - was also too late. Hire more controllers? Sure, maybe, but I can't help but think this was very avoidable using technology and training.

formerly_proven 2y ago
Visual separation at night in dense airspace has no checks and no margin for error. There is no way for anyone to tell whether the crew is tracking the correct aircraft or whether they are correctly guessing its attitude etc. That practice is plainly asking for an accident to happen.
- PaulRobinson 2y ago
  In the UK I know traffic is indicated with a relative position and altitude: “traffic at your 10 o’clock, 2 miles, altitude 1500 feet”. The ATC for the Reagan crash did not indicate a relative or absolute position, only referencing “the CRJ”, which might be hard to identify in the dark, and the helicopter pilot may have assumed he “had visual”, but was looking at a different aircraft.
  - davkan 2y ago
    I keep seeing comments that no relative position was given but ATC does provide detail in their initial communications, though not subsequent. > Traffic just south of the Woodrow Bridge, a CRJ, it's 1,200 feet setting up for Runway 33.
    - lumost 2y ago
      Where is the Woodrow bridge? Are all pilots expected to know this flying around the Reagan airport? There are multiple bridges on the Potomac.

stackedinserter 2y ago

[flagged]

hiatus 2y ago

Why isn't air traffic control run by the military in the US like it is in other countries?

wombatpm 2y ago
In the 1980’s Reagan fired all members of PATCO, the air traffic controller union and replaced them with military personnel until a new cohort could be trained.
- p_l 2y ago
  And the military traffic controllers were not ready for civilian traffic
  - wombatpm 2y ago
    I remember It was mess. I believe some PATCO members were allowed to reapply for jobs, but most were banned.
viraptor 2y ago
Is that actually common? I did a spot check of few big ones and couldn't find an example.
- hiatus 2y ago
  I'm not sure it is common. I was thinking about Brazil when I made this comment but further review makes me believe it is not all that common worldwide.

whycome 2y ago

here are the bits as I've come to understand them: - there was a similar incident just the day before where a helicopter's path came close to a similar plane. It was high enough, so the plane received the TCAS (traffic alert/collision avoidance) 'resolution advisory' warning and made the proper actions. - warnings from TCAS are inhibited under 1000ft because they would be full of false/nuisance warnings that close to the ground and potentially suggest unsafe evasive maneuvers. - the helicopter was following a designated route along the river as the general guide - the helicopter went a bit higher than the designated ceiling (and that probably happens pretty often). - the incoming airplane was following the 'glideslope' of the 'instrument landing system' - the helicopter crew may have been wearing night vision goggles. such goggles can affect ability to see periphery. Also, nighttime lights of a city can appear bright and distracting. - the helicopter crew of 3 may have been less than other similar flights - airplane was initially looking to land on the longer runway #1 but was asked by the ATC to use #33 instead (their smaller plane could use it fine). They take awhile considering it and then accept it. They had to slightly change the angle of their approach. This may have been a choice to simplify the workload for the ATC controller. - There was one controller handling both the plane and helicopter traffic and one left earlier - the plane and atc use VHF to communicate while the military helicopter uses UHF, thus, the plane had no awareness of any communications with the helicopter - the ATC mentions the presence of the plane to the helicopter. the helicopter says they see them and request "visual separation" which is basically 'we can see them, so we can move around them accordingly' So, it's possible the helicopter was looking at a different plane/set of lights when they mentioned that they had them in sight. Another plane had just taken off from runway 1. It's also possible that they saw the CRJ plane and just misjudged its location (maybe due to the turn they were making for the alignment to land?). As for systems issues, it seems there's no way for ATC to know just which plane a helicopter (or other plane) is referring to when they 'confirm' seeing it. It's interesting to note that some airlines actually forbid "visual separation" at nighttime due to the safety concerns (misidentifications, conflicting city lights, human perception). (eg, KLM (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rdapQfJDAM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rdapQfJDAM)) US ATC might prefer visual separation which means that planes can be closer together in lining up to land whereas an instrument approach means a bigger gap. (More planes landing means more money for airports?) It seems like the 'glidescope' area when landing should be treated like a 3d extension of the runway -- keep planes and craft out of it during a plane's landing. Anything crossing into it should be treated like a "runway incursion" (which is also clearly a problem that the US needs to fix...In someways, this crash might be seen as an extension of that issue?) There needs to be a way to verify just which planes a craft is "confirming visual' of - especially at night.

robbbed 2y ago

So what as normies can we do about this? Boycott air travel? Write congress? I'm seriously considering postponing any upcoming air travel. If a core component of safe air travel is antiquated and lacking in resources then it seems incredibly foolish to risk our lives any further taking this form of transportation.

thomas4151 2y ago

[flagged]