Letters to the Editor
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crossing runways
With the tangled runways you see at the airports you mentioned, I'm impressed that there are not more incursions, and that's a testament to the ground control and pilots. Below is a link to an ORD runway map, with 7 intersections in runways, plus there are all the taxiways. http://www.oharenoise.org/O'Hare%20Runway%20Map.htm
Sure, not all runways are active at all times, but still, navigating that tangle without getting in someone else's way is impressive. Granted, sometimes it seems like your taxi to the runway at some of these airports is longer than the flight itself, but if it keeps plans from running into each other it's worth it.
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Shouldn't it be "near hit"?
I mean, wouldn't you rather almost hit another plane than almost miss it? That seems more logical to me.
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vehicles on runways
Patrick just barely mentioned it, but another occasional incursion hazard is maintenance vehicles. This incident in Bucharest occurred after days and days of solid fog - presumably the ground crew needed to repair something that couldn't wait for the fog to lift. Obviously there was a major breakdown in communication, since no vehicle is supposed to enter a runway without the full knowledge of ATC, but I have not yet heard the outcome of the investigation. Fortunately, nobody was injured in the incident.
The video: http://planecrashes.blogspot.com/2008/01/tarom-737-300-hits-car-on-takeoff.html
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Tenerife is not a mandatory case study?
I'm a bit perplexed by your closing statements in which you suggest FAA should hire Bob Bragg to educate the pilots and controllers. Tenerife is the worst air disaster and are you telling that when you graduate out of pilot training they do not learn about these famous disasters? I thought the crashes such as Delta 191, AeroMexico 498, CI 140, TAM 3054, Saudi 163, Singapore 006 etc are terrific case studies.
Also, I'm confused by you describing as flight attendant's "we are cleared to land" as bogus. Are you telling that the flight deck crew and cabin crew do not communicate properly? Thanks BTW for using the now obsolete word "aerodrome". Come to think of it is there any distinction between aerodrome and airport??
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Technology is not the only answer, but...
Patrick: you're seriously saying that for safety you prefer a 4-way stop to traffic signals? C'mon. You may be the only person in the country who feels that way.
Neither technology nor procedures is a silver bullet for preventing runway incursions. That shouldn't morph into a rationale for not investing - in a timely manner - in technology. Some of this stuff is hardly rocket surgery - we're talking about traffic lights at runway intersections, for goodness' sake. There's no excuse at all for not already having these in place in the most crowded and poorly laid out airports. I find it bizarre to read (not in this column) that the FAA is still undertaking 'studies' of whether traffic light systems will work or not.
You didn't mention the very short shrift that foreign crews (with English as a second language) can get from controllers, especially in the chronically crowded skies of the northeast. At least one major accident had that as (at least) a contributory cause (the Varig flight that ran out of fuel without formally declaring an emergency, and crashed short of the runway). I remember listening (United channel 9) to the ground controller at Chicago O'Hare being just outright rude and unhelpful to a Turkish Airlines flight a few years ago (granted it was the day before Thanksgiving, probably his busiest day of the year).
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Re: Shouldn't it be "near hit"?
Probably, but "near miss" - whether it's planes, trains, ships, or automobiles - sounds so much less serious.
There are some beauties along these lines to be found out at the fun site ntsb.gov, including one of my favorites: "collision with terrain."
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But What's the Real Issue??
Patrick writes:
"These are all good ideas, but the FAA has a habit of overengineering complicated fixes to simple problems. There will be no magic technological bullet. At heart this is a human factors issue."
Human factors, indeed... misunderstandings and miscommunication are at the heart of all runway incursions. So what psychological studies are cited to help illuminate and solve this problem?
None... in true corporate fashion, all such studies are quickly shelved.
You've got to wonder why this is so. Could it be that neither the airlines nor the FAA are interested in exploring any topic that might open discussion of their unrealistic, unsafe yet "cost-effective" crew duty regulations?
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The Halfassedness of Everything
Why? Because everything is headed that way. Everything is rock bottom discount price Indian call center C minus outsourced inattentive minimum wage crud.
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Cleared to land
The "we've now been cleared to land" announcement commonly made by flight attendants is bogus; they haven't the slightest idea when the pilots are cleared to land.
And neither do the passengers, Patrick - but using verbiage like, "we're on approach" is pretty meaningless to them in terms of getting the cabin prepared for touchdown. The word "landing" is used for a reason, whether it's specifically technically correct or not. It's about getting a particular response.
Every P.A. book I've ever used has had some version of this phrase - "cleared to land", "landing shortly", "to prepare for landing" - but they all refer to the landing, not the approach. If we waited until were actually cleared to land to start prepping the cabin, it wouldn't give us nearly enough time.
And for ravikch - there is generally no communication (other than for serious safety issues) between the flight deck and cabin crew below a certain altitude (usually 10,000 ft.) - it's what's known as sterile flight deck. The pilots will signal the flight attendants (often with a series of chimes) at a certain point in the approach - this gives them time to check the cabin and secure the galleys one last time before they take their jumpseats. And yes, this all normally takes place long before they've been cleared to land.
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Near miss NOT uncommon
OK "error" is a blanket covering a host of individual problems covering more profound systemic problems. But what it comes down to is the our air travel system has become less, not more safe since Reagan busted the flight controller union, and deregulation became an escape hatch for lowering pay and benefits and thus eroding professionalism.
If you want a simple and deeply disturbing example go to Google Earth and look up LaGuardia Airport in New York City. Look at runway 51. There you will see a plane either on takeoff or landing about 1/3 of the way along. On the end of the runway there is a plane waiting to take off. (It's sitting on the white strips so look closely.) And 400 yards behind it on approach is a third plane! Yes, that is error. But what are the odds that a snapshot from a satellite would capture this event? Astronomical if it is uncommon, not so large if it is more common than the republican FAA wants us to know!