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Comment by ekianjo | Hacker News Reader

> 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 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.

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.

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