3 ms·

Berlin Airport Fiasco Shows Chinks in German Engineering Armor

2 points by youngerdryas 14y ago

mschuster91 14y ago
It's not the engineering which is at fault here, but constant fuck-ups by the political management. Two federal states (Berlin and Brandenburg), the German federal government AND the European Union all messing with the project. I remember the Munich airport, which was finished on-the-day and moved in a single fucking night. This is what happens when politicians don't mess too much with stuff they don't understand.
- dalke 14y ago
  "the new site, the smoke ventilating equipment installed throughout the glass-sheathed structure is faulty even after lessons learned from Germany’s worst airport disaster" That sounds like an engineering fault. "There are deficits in the sprinkler system and a lack of fire protection on some steel girders used for construction." Those sound like engineering faults. "Planners also failed to consider that authorities might balk at an experimental nuclear reactor located under a planned flight path. ... “The risk of a plane crash and an aviation terrorist attack and the release of ionized radiation from the research reactor was insufficiently considered,” " That sounds like an engineering or planning fault, and not a "fuck-up by the political management." In some sense though, most things everything can be traced back to a people/political problem. The Denver airport baggage handler project some 10+ years ago was due to taking on a very complex task with not enough time, the Hubble Space Telescope problem was due to a decision to reduce funding for testing, and so on. Shortage of building materials could be interpreted as bad planning to acquire the materials and bad management in not allocating enough funds for the task. Problems with the building ground (eg, an unexpected underground stream) could also be seen as bad planning. So if you want to go that route, then you are welcome. Just be aware that that view means that essentially no project fails due to engineering being at fault.
  - mschuster91 14y ago
    Smoke ventilation/sprinkler systems: the requirements for the airport changed multiple times due to politicians changing stuff around. Nuclear reactor: environmentalists and local interest groups forced changed flight routes, there was no way to predict this... Certainly, there were engineering problems. But these happen at every project, it's management job to make sure there's timing buffers.
    - dalke 14y ago
      Hence your statement "It's not the engineering which is at fault here" is a truism, and didn't need to be said. Everything falls on management, so with any problematic large-scale build site you can always say there "constant fuck-ups by the political management." Here's what the court said, regarding the reactor: Der 11. Senat ist der Auffassung, dass die streitgegenständliche Festsetzung der Flugroute rechtswidrig ist und die Kläger in ihren abwägungserheblichen Belangen (Gesundheit, Planungshoheit) verletzt. Der Festlegung des angegriffenen Flugverfahrens liegt ein Ermittlungsdefizit zugrunde. Das Risiko eines Flugunfalls und eines terroristischen Anschlags auf den Luftverkehr und der dadurch ausgelösten Freisetzung ionisierender Strahlung des Forschungsreaktors wurde nicht hinreichend in den Blick genommen. Eine solche fallspezifische Risikoermittlung wäre notwendige Grundlage einer Abwägung gewesen. Die Risikoermittlung war auch deshalb geboten, weil die Risikobetrachtungen für den Reaktor in Bezug auf den Flugverkehr veraltet waren und die Beklagte darauf durch die Atomaufsichtsbehörde hingewiesen wurde. Reading the decision (through Google Translate), the planners used outdated information about the crash probabilities, which did not take into account that the flight path would go over a nuclear reactor which was not shielded against airplane crashes. The court took into account information from the Atomaufsichtsbehörde that it was not possible to structurally modify the reactor. There are other factors as well, but using the wrong information is predictable.

2 points by youngerdryas 14y ago

It's not the engineering which is at fault here, but constant fuck-ups by the political management. Two federal states (Berlin and Brandenburg), the German federal government AND the European Union all messing with the project. I remember the Munich airport, which was finished on-the-day and moved in a single fucking night. This is what happens when politicians don't mess too much with stuff they don't understand.

dalke 14y ago
"the new site, the smoke ventilating equipment installed throughout the glass-sheathed structure is faulty even after lessons learned from Germany’s worst airport disaster" That sounds like an engineering fault. "There are deficits in the sprinkler system and a lack of fire protection on some steel girders used for construction." Those sound like engineering faults. "Planners also failed to consider that authorities might balk at an experimental nuclear reactor located under a planned flight path. ... “The risk of a plane crash and an aviation terrorist attack and the release of ionized radiation from the research reactor was insufficiently considered,” " That sounds like an engineering or planning fault, and not a "fuck-up by the political management." In some sense though, most things everything can be traced back to a people/political problem. The Denver airport baggage handler project some 10+ years ago was due to taking on a very complex task with not enough time, the Hubble Space Telescope problem was due to a decision to reduce funding for testing, and so on. Shortage of building materials could be interpreted as bad planning to acquire the materials and bad management in not allocating enough funds for the task. Problems with the building ground (eg, an unexpected underground stream) could also be seen as bad planning. So if you want to go that route, then you are welcome. Just be aware that that view means that essentially no project fails due to engineering being at fault.
- mschuster91 14y ago
  Smoke ventilation/sprinkler systems: the requirements for the airport changed multiple times due to politicians changing stuff around. Nuclear reactor: environmentalists and local interest groups forced changed flight routes, there was no way to predict this... Certainly, there were engineering problems. But these happen at every project, it's management job to make sure there's timing buffers.
  - dalke 14y ago
    Hence your statement "It's not the engineering which is at fault here" is a truism, and didn't need to be said. Everything falls on management, so with any problematic large-scale build site you can always say there "constant fuck-ups by the political management." Here's what the court said, regarding the reactor: Der 11. Senat ist der Auffassung, dass die streitgegenständliche Festsetzung der Flugroute rechtswidrig ist und die Kläger in ihren abwägungserheblichen Belangen (Gesundheit, Planungshoheit) verletzt. Der Festlegung des angegriffenen Flugverfahrens liegt ein Ermittlungsdefizit zugrunde. Das Risiko eines Flugunfalls und eines terroristischen Anschlags auf den Luftverkehr und der dadurch ausgelösten Freisetzung ionisierender Strahlung des Forschungsreaktors wurde nicht hinreichend in den Blick genommen. Eine solche fallspezifische Risikoermittlung wäre notwendige Grundlage einer Abwägung gewesen. Die Risikoermittlung war auch deshalb geboten, weil die Risikobetrachtungen für den Reaktor in Bezug auf den Flugverkehr veraltet waren und die Beklagte darauf durch die Atomaufsichtsbehörde hingewiesen wurde. Reading the decision (through Google Translate), the planners used outdated information about the crash probabilities, which did not take into account that the flight path would go over a nuclear reactor which was not shielded against airplane crashes. The court took into account information from the Atomaufsichtsbehörde that it was not possible to structurally modify the reactor. There are other factors as well, but using the wrong information is predictable.