4 ms·
The controller was talking to Frontier plane when he first said stop, then said stopstopTruck1stopstopstop and it would be easy for there to be a gap in process
by joncrane 6mo ago
The controller was talking to Frontier plane when he first said stop, then said stopstopTruck1stopstopstop and it would be easy for there to be a gap in processing for the driver of truck 1 because the verbiage all flowed in the same stanza that was started when addressing the Frontier flight.
- inaros 6mo agoI am afraid the fire truck might have some level of responsibility, since it seems FAA ground vehicle guidance says: AC No: 150/5210-20A - "Subject: Ground Vehicle Operations to include Taxiing or Towing an Aircraft on Airports" https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/150-5210-20A.pdf https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/... “you must ensure that you look both ways down the runway to visually acquire aircraft landing or departing even if you have a clearance to cross.” These trucks seem to have pretty good visibility from inside. Not sure if La Guardia model was the same: https://youtu.be/rfILwYo3sXc https://youtu.be/rfILwYo3sXc
- phearnot 6mo agoNot arguing with the regulations, just pointing out that based on airport diagram[1], since the truck was crossing rwy on taxiway D, the CRJ was on the right approaching from behind. I have never been inside an airport firetruck, but I guess from the driver's seat the jet would be quite hard to see in this case. [1]https://www.avherald.com/h?article=536bb98e https://www.avherald.com/h?article=536bb98e
- inaros 6mo agoThat is a good point but it seems instructions for ground vehicles seem to really stress this. For example this one: https://skybrary.aero/sites/default/files/bookshelf/1003.pdf https://skybrary.aero/sites/default/files/bookshelf/1003.pdf Says at pag 9: "While driving on an aerodrome : Clear left, ahead, above and right Scan the full length of the runway and the approaches for possible landing aircraft before entering or crossing any runway, even if you have received a clearance."
- cucumber3732842 6mo ago>but I guess from the driver's seat the jet would be quite hard to see in this case. They have mostly glass cabs for exactly that reason. Only thing that would block your view is a passenger in the right seat.
- userbinator 6mo ago...and that passenger should also be actively looking around.
- caminante 6mo agoVisibility was bad (night and mist) too. But if your truck has blind spots and vis is poor, you shouldn't be driving as fast if at all.
- dghlsakjg 6mo agoHe was stopped until he received instructions to cross the runway from the person whose job it is to sit in a position with good visibility and tell people when they can cross runways. He wasn’t driving fast at all. The whole system is set up so that vehicles with blind spots (every large passenger jet) can safely move. We can’t say that emergency vehicles should just stay in on dark and stormy nights.
- caminante 6mo ago>from the driver's seat the jet would be quite hard to see in this case. ..is what I was responding to. >We can’t say that emergency vehicles should just stay in on dark and stormy nights. This conclusion is flawed and doesn't apply to what I said. If a truck can't see (conditions or not), then they shouldn't be on the same runway as takeoff/landing because...the consequences were severe despite the safeguards you mentioned, e.g. Not driving fast is relative and the "eyes" failed too initially.
- dghlsakjg 6mo ago“Vehicles with large blind spots don’t belong on the runway” is a completely untenable proposal. Almost every airplane is bigger, blinder and slower than that truck. If it had been a plane cleared across the runway, this would have been so much worse. Even if you want to exempt airplanes, it would require a complete rebuild of most major airports or using completely different emergency equipment. Every airport you have ever flown to commercially has ground vehicles crossing or operating on runways every day. It is simply not possible to operate a commercial airport without ground vehicles in aircraft movement areas, including runways. The solution is not to spend billions on new trucks or access roads because of a single incident. It is to ensure that controllers, the people directly in charge of coordinating safe ground movement, have the mental bandwidth and tools to do their jobs. The fact that this was a truck and not an airplane is luck, making any discussions about truck cab visibility very much secondary. You have to go upstream of “trucks have blind spots” to truly prevent another of these incidents.
- vkou 6mo agoEvery other truck in the column immediately stopped when the call was made. Truck 1 was the only one that didn't.
- krisoft 6mo agoI very much doubt that you know the exact timing of the event. My guess is that you might have seen a video where some industrious editor put the ATC recordings over the leaked surveilance footage, but there is no way that is correctly synced.
- hatthew 6mo agoWith publicly available information we can sync it to within ~2 seconds. All trucks other than the first one were definitely in the process of stopping in between the first and second time ATC told them to stop (5 seconds apart).
- dghlsakjg 6mo agoThey were all, including truck 1, queued up at the stop line waiting for clearance to cross. Truck 1 received clearance to cross, he began crossing, then received instructions to stop after it was too late. The rest of the emergency vehicles were stopped because they hadn’t been authorized. Truck 1 started moving because he had received specific instructions to do exactly what he was doing. I take it you’re not a pilot, controller or someone who has ever worked an aviation radio?