Hacker News Reader

Comment by SoftTalker | Hacker News Reader

Between overworked, understaffed ATC and undertrained pilots, I'm expecting some major disasters in the coming years.

One of the problems with modern internet discourse is there is an implicit assumption that the problem of one country is automatically the problem of another country.

Flights operate internationally?

Yes, between other countries without having to go via the US!

Internationally yes, but Ryanair don't travel transatlantic.

I think that's just Americans tbh.

I've never heard of any of these problems with RyanAir. They treat you as less than cattle and generally their service is shit, but I'm not aware of RyanAir being unsafe.

Actually, in a quick check it seems the total fatality count for RyanAir is zero, with only two (on-fatal) major incidents (2008, 2021). That's seems a pretty good track record considering the amount of flights they do.

Yeah there's a lot of hatred of Ryanair given their somewhat pugnacious attitude. But as far as I know they don't mess around when it comes to safety.

> Between overworked, understaffed ATC and undertrained pilots, I'm expecting some major disasters in the coming years.

Maybe in the US, but this story is based in Europe, each country maintains a regulated standard and there are no EU wide disruptions that have ever happened to the best of my knowledge. Also Ryanair don't travel transatlantic flights.

Three weeks ago in Nice, France it was a fraction of a second away from two A320s crashing [0] and possibly hundreds of deaths, similar to Tenerife disaster [1].

Investigation is ongoing and many factors are at play (bad weather, extra work for ATC due to that, confusing lighting of runways etc) but also, from French media reports, there used to be 15 people per shift 5y ago in Nice ATC, now there are just 12, and traffic is higher.

Many people left the profession during Covid and haven't been replaced.

[0] https://avherald.com/h?article=52d656fd&opt=0

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster

Mistakes and disasters happen, unfortunately the safety we have while flying today has been written in blood, but there is no major understaffed ATC and undertrained pilots in general as mentioned.

15 down to 12 in 5 years with more traffic is not out of the question with advancements in technology but of course, if there is a report that shows understaffing then absolutely it should be addressed straight away and it will be, by the French government.

Ryanair does use low-hour fresh-out-of-training pilots though. Certainly not the only airline that does that either.

I mean, the US also hasn't had any widespread waves of disruptions that led to incidents or flight problems. Same as the EU. American flights and airspace are usually safer too, statistically speaking.

Why? Is ATC a problem in other countries than the US? Are they also under training pilots? If anything RyanAir with its flamboyant history of cost cutting (CEO always threatening to charge for use of the onboard lavatory) seems a more likely source than the flying infrastructure itself.

Ryanair has a very good safety history, among the highest in the world.

They make outrageous claims for publicity, and their customer experience is all about hidden extras and "gotcha" pricing, but I don't think they fuck around when it comes to safety.

They know that with their reputation they would be sunk if they did have a major incident.

So it's sunk? They just had a major incident.

Let's wait for the investigation results before coming to that conclusion.

It's both true that Ryanair has very good safety record, and that in the past there were incidents with them landing on low fuel.

https://www.eurocockpit.eu/news/mayday-mayday-wins-over-ryan...

> In 2012 and 2013 “Brandpunt Reporter” broadcasted a two episode TV investigation in which Ryanair pilots, speaking anonymously, raised concerns about the airline’s fuel policies and company culture. The pilots revealed that the company may be exerting pressure on them to minimize the amount of fuel they take on board – a practice which limits significantly the fuel costs for the company but could jeopardise safety in certain circumstances. The direct reasons for this broadcast were 3 emergency landings of Ryanair aircraft in Valencia Spain on the 26 July 2012, within a short timeframe due to low fuel levels.

What indication is there that our pilots are undertrained?

I am just a PPL, and that was not an easy thing to accomplish (most pilots complete 50% more hours than required before they are able to pass that test), but my impression is that western training standards for commercial pilots are incredibly high, and the safety record seems to back that up.

Internet vibes, basically.

Its arguably too high, constraining the supply of pilots, and the supply of well-paying jobs, resulting in things like Colgan Air Flight 3407.

In the US, I think that's probably true especially using hours as a proxy for training.

The EU has shown us that you can safely have far fewer hours.

As a pilot I do think that nothing replaces butt in seat, but I also think that 1500 hours of instructing/aerial surveying/hour building is well into the diminished marginal returns area.

This had nothing to do with any of that tho.

Pilots are ultimately the ones who are responsible for when and where to land, when to divert, and how much fuel to take along.

In this case, they likely had adequate fuel for, the usual eventualities but the weather in Scotland was particularly bad that night across the whole country (source: I live near Prestwick airport).

Either Edinburgh (on the east coast) or Prestwick (on the west coast) are ok (one or the other or both) but in this case neither was suitable so the nearest was Manchester - definitely an edge-case.

I don't know how much fuel they had, or if they could've fitted any more on the plane but it was unusual circumstances.

There was a military plane right behind it with the same issue that night too.

Were these pilots undertrained?

Closely followed by the ritual lampooning of some senior middle managers who by the fish-in-barrel method were discovered to not be doing very much.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com