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Comment by mixdup | Hacker News Reader

Don't towers all over the world give this information? It's almost every time I'm flying that the pilot tells us as we approach the runway we're number 1 for departure, or number 5 for departure

With explicit phraseology of "cleared for takeoff" or "line up and wait" every single time, and the tower not saying either of those things, how does "you're next" confuse things?

Is it possible that it was a language thing since English is required in these situations and is not any of these people's native tongue?

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Just a typical corporate/bureaucratic response. They've already made a bigger joke of themselves with the announcement that traffic controllers are now officially instructed to look at screens.

Agree that this change doesn’t address what happened. I’m studying for my PPL and certainly very inexperienced at this but this accident seems to be a combination of many mistakes on everyone’s part.

I know when instructor and I were going in for a landing we’d always note that there was a plane lined up to take off. Granted haven’t done night flying yet but would imagine the same thing would occur.

When we’re lined up to take off, after we get permission to enter the runway, we confirm it over the radio then make sure nobody is on approach or at least far enough out to make a speedy departure if asked by tower.

I think some combinations of aircraft and runways leads to landing pilots not having a good view of the end of the runway

'you are next' as in I am going next right after they guy goes. Or 'you are next' as in go now because its your turn.

We've already been through several disasters based on misunderstandings about whether or not a pilot was cleared for takeoff. That's why they explicitly use "cleared for takeoff" and if you hear anything other than that, you are not cleared for takeoff

It should be painfully obvious, given how often towers give sequence numbers, that "you're next" does not mean "you can go" or cleared for takeoff given that runways are used for dual operation takeoff and landing all the time

I wonder if this was a language situation, along with a pilot that is not used to operating at a large commercial airport (the coast guard) and maybe even some differences the Japanese coast guard/military writ large might have vs. civilian practices

There should be some explicit non-idiomatic variation of "you're on deck", since "you are next" is ambiguous.

They do, it's incredibly common and it's useful information.

This Japanese response seems very confusing, it's hard to understand how this could possibly be relevant to the accident. Unless of course there's a Japanese/English phonetic overlap I'm not aware of.

> This Japanese response seems very confusing, it's hard to understand how this could possibly be relevant to the accident.

"The move comes after the misinterpretation of the phrase could have led to last week's deadly collision between a Japan Airlines passenger plane and a Japan Coast Guard aircraft on a runway at Tokyo's Haneda Airport."

That would indicate "you are next" was being used as a substitute for either/both of "line up and wait" and "cleared for take-off."

While that's certainly possible, it would be surprising.

Typical ATC commands at a busy commercial airport would be something like: "Taxi via XYZ, hold at ABC" (where ABC is close to, but a safe distance from, the runway surface)

"Line up and wait" (enter the runway, but hold while existing traffic clears the runway)

"Clear for takeoff" (runway is clear, you may depart)

In this incident, I don't think either of those last two commands were given.

I suspect that it was common, at least to that pilot's ear, that "line up and wait, you're number one for takeoff" had been heard together so many times that when he heard only the latter his brain "helpfully" filled in the former. Some terminology change is occasionally warranted.

If that was literally the words used probably need to enforce that it's "you're number one for departure" so that you can't inadvertently think takeoff meant cleared for takeoff

This may be down to how people interpret number 1 in a queue. Think of the floor numbers: some countries use 1 as a ground floor, some use 0. So being number 1 in line may mean something else in different cultures, and considering how cultures mingle nowadays, it's not hard to imagine someone just got confused there for a second.

Reportedly the sole surviving captain of the turboprop had understanding that he was cleared to enter the active runway, which to (ATC clip watcher non-pilot) me sounds like there is skill aspect to this accident stemming from lack of public interest in general aviation here in Japan.

There has also been news articles pointing fingers on this. I don't know whether it's media fixating out of depth or whether there is such early stage suspicion shared among investigators.

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