Private jet crossing runway nearly causes crash at Midway airport

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12 points·binarynate··5 comments

I wonder how easy it is for an unfamiliar pilot to “drive” around and recognise the different features that were discussed. Seems like you are relying on someone understanding the instructions over the radio and navigating the “roads” they might be seeing for the first time. Is this super easy and hard to get wrong? Seems like even some (automated?) traffic lights would be enough to have stopped this but I know nothing about it so would be interested in hearing what it’s actually like.

Pilots have a saying: “aviate, then navigate, then communicate.” Roughly this means use your own perception and assessments of the situation to keep the plane safe, then get to where you’re going, then coordinate with ATC. The Southwest pilot demonstrates the crucial nature of this method. If they had blindly followed ATC’s clearance to land there would have been a fatal collision.

Video that includes the radio communication between the control tower and the pilots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6Mp9aUJaTY

Has the internet merely become more sensitive to aviation related incidences, or has there been a quantitatively measurable increase in them?

My impression is that airline incidents are currently one of the winners of "the game", and that our difficulty to grasp the true scale of the complete situation hinders our ability to contextualize the trends. Personally I still assume that it is not indicative of the sky falling for air travel. Articles like [0] seem to agree, although it uses number of incidents and not casualties to make its case.

[0]: https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/19/business/airplane-crashes-sta...

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