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Comment by xpe | Hacker News Reader

The top of the article:

> ‘As bad as it gets without body bags.’

> Why the Austin airport situation was so dangerous.

Because the planes almost collided. But the author wants to say more than that. The article covers the “how” things went wrong by analyzing the transcript. The write-up doesn’t answer the key ”why” question —- why are existing procedures and training not suitable?

Safety-critical systems (including procedures and protocols) must be designed to account for wide human variation, including mistakes and miscommunications. Let’s not waste our time pointing fingers at one person.

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The author didn't point fingers at anyone. He was explicit that the investigators will do the job of finding out the "why". His tone is entirely appropriate given that, if the FedEx operators had not went above and beyond, we would have seen a mass casualty event at Austin's airport.

Accusing the author of blaming individuals is rather silly when you're rushing to blame training/procedures/the system.

> The author didn't point fingers at anyone.

I didn't say he did. (I was referring to comments here on HN.)

> ... blaming individuals is rather silly when you're rushing to blame training/procedures/the system.

I see your point. I am not ruling out individual culpability.

Still, by the time a person is in a cockpit or a control tower, they have a history, a record of performance. It is part of the system's responsibility to evaluate this record.

So I am less likely to blame an individual only, because to do so would require the individual to act in a way that no system could predict, mitigate, or compensate for.

OK, I've replaced the title with the first subtitle, which may not cover the entire article but at least is more accurate.

> he write-up doesn’t answer the key ”why” question —- why are existing procedures and training not suitable?

This will be the job of the investigators but it sounds like obvious tower control human operator error.

Listening to the radio traffic, everybody stayed super cool and chill throughoit this, including the ATC. All the way until FedEx cleared the runway, at which point the ATC showed some emotion in his voice. The FedEx pilots again stayed super chill. That's what coolness and professionalism during pressure and under stress looks like.

It could be the fault of the southwest crew for dallying on the runway when there was an incoming jet. Had they gone immediately they would have been long gone by the time FedEx tried to land.

The pilots take off when they take off. If their take-off clearance isn't obviously time limited, they are certainly allowed to take their time. If they rush the take-off they might skip crucial items from their checklists in the haste, we learned that lesson the hard way already. Or what would have happened had the southwest jet had an issue on take off and had to reject? There is a number of reasons to reject a take off before decision speed that will take the plane down the rest of the runway on full brakes.

The tower control is there to tell planes what to do, not to leave judgment to the pilots.

It was without a doubt a performance problem with the tower controller.

FedEx deserves all the credit for avoiding a disaster. As soon as they got their clearance to land, they called back to clarify and verify it. So, they knew that this was going to be a close one, and you can bet that they were ready to go around and abort the landing before they every broke out below minimums and saw the Southwest on the roll.

FedEx knew it was going to be ugly, and they were already ready for the go around.

Who is saying that procedures allow one plane to take off when one is "3 miles out" or 65 seconds out at a very conservative estimate of a reasonable speed. This isn't a lack of attention or coordination. He literally decided that one plane could take off in that space and repeatedly confirmed this decision.

That seems in line with what happens though. There's less than a minute, normally around 40 seconds between movements, a take off and landing. To casual observer it seems close of course but it appears the delay from the southwest crew was the issue. Then it's complicated by the lack of visibility from the tower because the controller couldn't detect the delay and issue appropriate commands.

Nearly billion dollar jets and they can't slap a gps on them to see that they're sitting on the runway.

The issue was not "Where were the aircraft". The controller knew where they were at all times.

(And they do have GPS, They also have ADSB, and ground based position detection, and, and, and..)

Time 1:54, Tower: “Southwest 708, confirm on the roll?”

They don't know if Southwest was moving?

ATC is run by humans, planes are piloted by humans. The whole environment is highly controlled and regulated. And highly complex, and as this incident shows, one mistake in the whole chain, even a little one, can literally kill hundreds of people.

This is nothing one can solve by throwing even more sensors and technology in, and have that run by ChatGPT or something. Highly trained people with the right amount and kind of technology are the solution.

Edit: Sensors and stuff tell you were aircraft is, not what the human pilots are going to do when within the aloted period of time they have to do whatever they are cleared to do. Hence, you do the logical thing and ask them.

That humans are in charge of ATC and flying the planes doesn't mean that there can't be automation to assist them and cover mistakes.

Poor visibility should not ever be a factor when we can have sensors that show exactly where the plane is on the ground. And yes we are definitely at a point where machine learning can predict the likely actions based on the human communication and warn if the predicted path could lead to a collision. The point is to have multiple safty systems (inclduing the human operators) so that one mistake doesn't kill hundreds of people because there are secondary systems to catch it.

The aircraft were at all relevant times broadcasting their position using ADSB.

The controller had at least one screen displaying their positionx probably several. It may fuse multiple data sources. They may also have been able to see the Southwest aircraft, although maybe not clearly or only as lights.

Despite this it can be difficult to judge the speed of an object at long distances under less than ideal circumstances and at night without a long observation period.

So yeah they knew where they were but not the acceleration.

It's also worth pointing out that the controller may have been in sudden stress due to realising the aircraft were too close, and so may have made a call that they already knew the answer to.

I see aircraft (and even airport ground vehicles) on the runway all the time on my ADS-B setup. They 100% have them, just nobody was looking at them at the right time.

I find that in stressful and risky situations people stop trusting the data in front of them. They want to believe things are alright and will keep looking for new pieces of information to confirm that, while downplaying the importance of contradictory information.

Do you know how true this is for (relatively) reliable systems such as those found in aviation? I know that in everyday life, what you say is absolutely true -- I definitely stop trusting electronic systems in stressful situations -- but then I also know how they feed me misleading as well as blatantly false data all the time, so I'd argue that not trusting them is not irrational per se.

The way I understand it, it's not so much about the reliability of the electronics, but rather of human cognition. A lot of people have trouble believing that they (or other people in their custody) are on a trajectory to a fatal accident, so they instinctively reject evidence of this (not using their full brain due to stress response) and continue to search for evidence confirming that everything is alright.

> Who is saying that procedures allow one plane to take off when one is "3 miles out"

The FAA says that, specifically the 7110.65 which governs ATC rules and procedures. In a radar environment it allows for departures when the arriving aircraft is 2+ miles from the runway, and there will be at least 3 miles of separation within 1 min of takeoff. A separate rule requires that the departing aircraft is at least 6000ft down the runway and airborne before the arrival crosses the runway threshold.

If there is a departing plane rolling up to the hold short line and confirmed ready for immediate takeoff, there is possibly time to get them out and maintain separation. If it's low visibility, the departing plane is rolling slowly and not confirmed ready, then it's a bad bad idea.

I think that's generally correct, but I'm not familiar with all of the rules. That said, even if the Southwest plane had been faster on the runway, they weren't going to be able to maintain 6000 feet of separation. If Southwest starts rolling from a dead stop, and Fedex is barreling in at 140 knots from two miles, they're necessarily going to converge until Southwest accelerates, which takes a minute.

Juan Brown [1] made an interesting point also. For a Cat II or III approach, and this one was definitely Cat III, there is an ILS critical area that Southwest would have impinged on as it was taking off.

The controller very clearly made a huge mistake.

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvUOHa8n7aQ

It says there can be as little as 2 miles of separation which I read as 2 miles when the wheels lift off begining acceleration would end up with 0 ft of separation.

The rules specifically state how 2 miles of separation is defined. 7110.65 5-8-4-Note 1 says "This procedure permits a departing aircraft to be released so long as an arriving aircraft is no closer than 2 miles from the runway at the time. This separation is determined at the time the departing aircraft commences takeoff roll." [1]

Just to keep stating this: I'm not at all defending the AUS controller here. A squeeze play like this in low visibility is needlessly reckless.

[1] https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/atc_html...

2 miles is like 43 seconds at 165. You are right standard seems insufficient.

It is well known in the ATC community that this tower controller that was responsible for this incident was a problem child. He had been shuttled multiple times between facilities as a poor performer and was well known for filling EO complaints against the FAA for performance actions taken against him.

So it's someone crying racism every time they are disciplined. A position that can kill tons of people with one wrong move should not be able to do this.

On what basis are you saying this? Please, let's not jump to conclusions without evidence.

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