Humans have a powerful need to affix blame and punish individuals. On the internet, you are forever the worst moment of your life.
We set air traffic controllers up to fail, and then when something goes wrong we torture them until they die, and then torture their memory after they die.
1: https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/cleared-to-collide-the-c...
The NTSB only makes recommendations.
https://www.airlinepilotforums.com
You will see many are terrified ( in commercial pilot terms...) of flying into La Guardia or JFK...
Just a quick read/speculation based on the linked forum post...
Short of insane visibility conditions that prevented them from seeing the plane coming, the firetruck operator seems to be the liable party (beyond the airport for understaffing controllers—this seems to be exacerbated by government cuts but that's still no excuse for having a solo controller at that busy of an airport, especially at night).
The controller in question seems to have caught their mistake quickly and reversed the order instead asking the firetruck to stop (but for some reason, this wasn't heard).
Is it common now to have solo operators running control towers?
This guy was doing at least 3 people's jobs even before the first emergency occurred.
Then it was an inevitable cascade failure situation. It was never his fault.
Management failed here. If its stupid but it works, its not stupid, is the old saying, but the reality I've seen is its still stupid but you got lucky. -Maxim 43
The luck finally ran out.
And who was managing here? Do we dare point the finger at Congress and the POTUS for creating the conditions necessary for this to happen?
I hope the final report does point the finger. As far as politicians are concerned, accountability is for suckers.
I am reminded of the Uberlingen disaster:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_%C3%9Cberlingen_mid-air_c...
The mid-air collision occurred because the Russian air crew maneuvered contrary to their TCAS instruction (it commanded them to climb, the controller ordered them to descend). They were not trained that TCAS is the ultimate authority in this situation; it exists precisely because the controller has already failed in their separation duties, and if you have TCAS giving you a resolution advisory, your aircraft is no longer under ATC control and you must ignore any ATC instruction to the contrary. The other aircraft was correctly following its TCAS instruction (descending) because their crew was trained in this. Both planes descended and still hit each other.
In this case, KLGA has RWSLs (Runway Status Lights), including RELs (Runway Entrance Lights) on taxiways, that behave like traffic lights on roads. This too is completely automated and is the last-ditch resort for when a controller has already failed in their separation duties. This system processes transponder data of nearby aircraft and determines whether an aircraft is about to take off (is on the runway and accelerating) or land (is approaching the runway and descending). In either case the RELs go red automatically, and the controller cannot override this.
The driver of the ARFF probably [1] placed more emphasis on the controller's clearance to cross than the lights telling him to stay put, in exactly the same way that the Russian air crew placed more emphasis on the controller's instruction to descend than their TCAS instruction to climb, not realising that they were maneuvering contrary to the thing that exists specifically to prevent these accidents.
EDIT: I am not assigning blame to the controller here. They are human, and humans make mistakes. That's why these systems exist. Having one person handle an airport the size of KLGA is an accident waiting to happen.
[1] Obviously this is unknown at this point, and is something the NTSB will investigate. The system could have been down for maintenance for example.
The truck involved in the collision did not have one. https://bsky.app/profile/flightradar24.com/post/3mht7m2f3rc2...
Source? Because that isn't true; they can quit like any other civilian government job.
> ...and the gov't put the screws to them.
That part is true though.
Empowering workers to make safety-critical meta-decisions does not seem to be a feature of actually-existing capitalism.
Well, what you are describing is a strike, and it is currently illegal for ATC to strike, so in theory one possible structural change would be to make it legal for the workers to do what you're describing.
https://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/sms https://www.faa.gov/media/94731
The way I think about it is this: substandard ATC staffing is just as bad as lacking jetways or damaged runways. When the airport can't land planes because of physical capacity constraints, flights get cancelled or delayed (literally happening today at LGA, flights are getting canceled because they're down one runway). The carriers need to eat the costs of forcing too much demand on ATCs.
Running ATC (and limiting flights if necessary) seems like the job of the government to me.
Why put this on the carriers?
The idea that waste must be reduced is killing society, and this mindset must be addressed first before any other safety-critical system can be made reliable again.
How many planes land at LGA in the middle the night?
One controller overnight is completely reasonable.
So if said controller has a medical episode?
Ever?
In practice? It depends. Delays have a tendency to cascade in the air travel system and the Port Authority can curtail or cancel the curfew at their discretion. How frequently do exceptions to normal ops have to happen for it to be unreasonable to use "normal ops traffic" as a justification for scheduling a single controller? Ultimately, controllers have to control the traffic that they get, not the traffic that they want/expect to get, and a system that is overly optimized becomes brittle and unable to deal with exceptions to the norm.
If LGA was a small regional airport, sure one controller or maybe even no controls overnight could be appropriate. But LGA is not a small regional airport.
How many fatal accidents are reasonable in your opinion?
Do you really think it's appropriate to have zero margin for handling unusually high ATC workloads? Because we just saw what happens when you have zero margin for handling unusually high ATC workloads: people start dying.
According to whom? Management, or controllers?
Certainly does not seem like controllers agree:
This is worthy of losing flagging privileges IMO.
The Secretary of Transportation said on record at the first press conference that reports this guy was working alone in the tower are INACCURATE. The actual number is the responsibility of the NTSB to disclose.
95% of this discussion is people blowing smoke out of their ass as per usual.
What happens when they need the bathroom, or have some kind of medical problem? If it's really a common case for one controller to handle things, the system itself needs to be fundamentally rethought.
Currently over 41% of facilities are reliant on mandatory overtime, with controllers frequently working 60-hour weeks with only four days off per month.
The PATCO Strike of 1981 was a union-organized work stoppage by air traffic controllers (ATCs) in the United States. The Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) declared a strike on August 3, 1981, after years of tension between controllers and the federal government over long hours, chronic understaffing, outdated equipment, and rising workplace stress. Despite 13,000 ATCs striking, the strike ultimately failed, as the Reagan administration was able to replace the striking ATCs, resulting in PATCO's decertification.
The failure of the PATCO strike impacted the American labor movement, accelerating the decline in labor unions in the country, and initiating a much more aggressive anti-union policy by the federal government and private sector employers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Professional_Air_Traffic_...
Counterpoint. It's Regen's fault. He's the guy who decided that a high priority of the government was making sure air traffic controllers had no power to fight back against being horrifically overworked (because unions are evil you see)
I place no blame on the ATC as they were doing everything they could given the shit sandwich they were handed. I see this happening all over with staffs getting pared down to minimums, more (sometimes unpaid) over time, prices going up, and no raises.
Being an air-traffic controller anywhere in the world is a very intense job at times, and needs a huge amount of proficiency that only a small number of people are capable of doing. Couple that with:
- the FAA expects you to move to where ATCs are needed, so many of the qualified applicants give up when they hear where the posting is. You can't force them to take the job!
- the technology is decades out of date and the Brand New Air Traffic Control System (it's seriously called that) won't roll out until 2028 at the earliest
- Obama's FAA disincentivised its traditional "feeder" colleges that do ATC courses to "promote diversity", net outcome was fewer applicants
- Regan broke the union in the 1980s
- DOGE indiscriminately decimated the FAA like it did most other government departments
Not saying this is the right number of controllers to have, just sharing what I read in NYT.
Expecting a single person to consistently keep their mental picture clear and perfect for their entire career is asinine and irresponsible.
We need systems and tools to eliminate such errors and support people, not use them as a person to blame when things inevitably go wrong.
> But he [Sean Duffy] denied rumors that the tower had only one controller on duty.
Actually, you might be able to try this. Live ATC and radar is available.
Were they not operating correctly, or did the driver ignore them is one of the questions the investigation will answer.
The system is called Runway Status Lights. And in case there is a disagreement between the ATC clearance and the lights the drivers are supposed to not enter the runway.
> When activated, these red lights indicate that ... there is an aircraft on final approach within the activation area
When did this lunacy become an arguable position?
We have TCAS/ACAS in air, but no similar automatic safety guards near/on the field?
Imagine that you're landing at one of two parallel runways. There's a plane lining up on the other runway. You can't have proximity warnings like TCAS, because this is a safe situation even though you get close to the other plane. What if that plane is taxiing towards your runway? You can't predict its movements until it starts entering the runway because it may just stop at the hold short line, as it should. Extrapolate this simple scenario to anything that could ever happen at airports with a large variety of actors, and you'll start to see why everyone in the world is still relying on humans to do this.
I wonder if it'd even be reliable to see such a plane coming fast enough.
Now multiply that by the dozens of planes in your vicinity, and by the 100ish big US airports.
Yes we know. There was an other airplane who declared an emergency and was about to evacuate the passengers on the tarmac. The other plane in question had two aborted takeoffs, and then they smelled some “odour” in the aft of the plane which made some of the crew feel ill.
Looking at airport security, it's impossible not to ascribe waste, fraud and abuse if indeed there is a lack of ATC hires causing this. We can go without a greeter at the beginning of the security line, or a pre-screener of boarding passes halfway through the security line and have an extra ATC on duty. If you can't find the extra $ for that you're either blind or we need to charge each passenger $1 more.
The truth is, this sort of situational control shouldn't really be given to a human.
This is exactly the kind of thing a computer should be handling, in the same way we don't have a traffic guard at every intersection. Yes I understand airports are complex. So you have a computer and a human, and they work together.
how do you think it works today? some guy with binoculars?
The vehicle that crashed into the plane did not have one and thus no automated alert was triggered.
"2384, it is oder like a smoke odor ...like from fire?" - Control
"No, it was a weird odor. I don't know exactly how to describe it. But yeah... we can't get a hold of anyone at the ops for a gate assignment." - United pilot
"Ground, United 2384 is declaring an emergency. The flight attendants in the back are feeling ill because of the odor. We will need to go into an available gate at this time." - United pilot
"... the fire trucks are over there. They're going to bring a stair truck just in case you guys do want to evacuate. Let me know if you do." - Control
"Copy, yeah, we prefer to wait on a gate, but I mean, again, we only got so much time here because there's still a bit of odor in the back of the airplane." - United pilot
"646, number two, clear to land 4." - Control
"Truck one and company, cross four Delta." - Control
"Truck one and company, crossing four at Delta." - Truck 1
"Stop, stop, stop, stop, Truck 1. Stop,stop, stop. Stop, Truck 1, Stop." - Control
"That was - that wasn't good to watch." - Frontier pilot
"Yeah, I know. I was here. I tried to reach out to [inaudible]. We were dealing with an emergency earlier... um, I messed up." - Control
"No, man, you did the best you could." -Frontier pilot
Aeronautics, yes, but I was still surprised to see NASA and not the FAA here. But folllowing up here https://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/overview/immunity.html
> The FAA determined that ASRP effectiveness would be greatly enhanced if NASA, rather than the FAA, accomplished the receipt, processing, and analysis of raw data. This would ensure the anonymity of the reporter and of all parties involved in a reported occurrence or incident and, consequently, increase the flow of information necessary for the effective evaluation of the safety and efficiency of the NAS.
Very neat. It's by design. Well done.
The workloads are too high. Nobody running life-critical operations should be working 60+ hour weeks and overnight shifts. We've known for decades how these practices increase errors. One effective answer is to dilute the workload by hiring more people. But this slows the race to lower costs, so it isn't done. We need to spend more on people.
> LGA Tower initiated a takeoff clearance for an aircraft waiting on 13 when we were only 300 feet high on final for 22. The voice accepting the takeoff clearance, most likely the First Officer, did not seem concerned, but the departing aircraft seemed to hesitate moving for a couple seconds. I believe this was because the Captain of that flight was likely the pilot flying, and was in a position to see how close we were to landing. I think he or she thought twice before starting their takeoff roll. Due to the thick smoky haze from the Canadian wildfires and a possible helicopter in the area, I judged it safer to continue the approach and land around 10 seconds after the departing aircraft crossed our path, instead of suddenly going around and trusting that the helicopter was not near the departure end of 22. The guidance in ATC’s 7110.65 does not seem to give guidance on exactly how close aircraft in this situation can get. Based on today’s and close calls I have seen over the years for Runway 27R/35 at PHL and 22L/29 at EWR, it seems to be a judgement call by the Local Controller. Another concern is that the portion of the runway status light system visible to aircraft departing 13 appears to have been disabled. In the past, this system provided an additional layer of safety to prevent runway incursions. Now, I never see it light up anymore when I am waiting in position on 13 while a plane lands on 22. The pace of operations is building in LGA. The controllers are pushing the line. On thunderstorm days, LGA is starting to feel like DCA did before the accident there. Please do something. At least turn the RWSL for 13 back on.
I think it's misleading to act like this was some kind of whistleblower.
I'm just tired of bullshit rhetoric. 33 is less than 37, that's "understaffed" not "very well staffed". Fuck Sean and our "leaders"... they speak with unauthority and spiritlessness.
The US is just in an active state of collapse in many areas, including air travel.
> Nasa reports show repeated warnings of close calls before crash...
So was there an increase in repeated warnings before crash, or was there just the normal amount of warnings over a long period of time? If you go to that database they are referencing (using that web1.0 interface), there are a lot of reports, even ones marked 'critical'.
