LGA accident

MikeD said:
Which would be odd, as airport vehicle ops is highly stressed in the training. Even moreso because unlike normal aircraft vehicles, the fire trucks will be making emergency responses in the movement areas.
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I know they are trained for driving around the airport and talking on the radio. However, it seems like once they are out of their normal routes (say in the event of an actual emergency) they sound like they've never seen an airplane before.

Of course I'm exaggerating and they are dealing with the adrenaline dump of an actual emergency while I'm sitting at home in front of a computer. However I've heard some really bad responses from ARFF to relatively simple scenarios.

MikeD said:
Ground vehicles give way to aircraft under normal ops. If an emergency is in progress, ground control will make a general announcement of “emergency in progress, give way to all responding emergency vehicles.”, as emergency vehicles could be coming from multiple different locations/directions on the airport. At that time, the aircraft give way to the emergency vehicles.
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Ground is supposed to make that general announcement, but they don't always do so. I've seen multiple examples where the trucks went tearing through taxiways with no warning from ground or anybody else.
 
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HeyEng said:
I have never been an ATC controller, nothing close to it. But I do remember from my maintenance days *and* flying days, the Sunday night/Monday morning shift (graves) was the absolute worst for fatigue. I don't know what shifts would be working at that time (fresh on duty/half way through/I have no clue), but I would imagine that is a terrible time to be "the busiest" as a controller.
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1130pm would normally either be a fresh midnight shift guy or someone at the end of their swing shift waiting for the mid to come in.

nabbyfan said:
I’ve gotten my ass kicked on the Mid more than any other situation in my career.
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I always say the first couple hours of a mid are like this


View: https://youtu.be/etBRqzt7OqY?si=coO9G2s12E6Rwf6t
 
MikeD said:
Ground vehicles give way to aircraft under normal ops. If an emergency is in progress, ground control will make a general announcement of “emergency in progress, give way to all responding emergency vehicles.”, as emergency vehicles could be coming from multiple different locations/directions on the airport. At that time, the aircraft give way to the emergency vehicles.
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I never had that experience working in Ops but you've got much more experience in that arena than I. It was always on a case by case basis if aircraft were supposed to give way.
 
killbilly said:
@Minuteman - If the FADEC loses connection with the engines, do they shut down?
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I saw a report (forget where) that the engines were not running when other emergency responders arrived.

Everything I know is that the FADECs are mounted on the engines (they are not LRUs in an EE bay) and have their own permanent magnet alternators to supply power, which is why I wondered.

Given the mechanical damage, anything from the throttle cables, fire handles, or cutoff switches could have shut them down.
 
MikeD said:
Makes it even more head scratching. Moving anywhere on an airport movement area in a vehicle, it’s so severely emphasized to double check everything as a driver. Most especially entering or crossing any runway…..active, inactive, or even closed….for not only runway incursion purposes, but even if cleared to enter/cross a runway. Everywhere else on the airport, things are moving at slow speeds, but not on runways; hence the emphasis.
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There are always possibilities for holes in the Swiss cheese even if the crew was properly clearing right/left before entering the runway. Blind spots on the truck, abundant light pollution due to the urban environment (especially since the aircraft lights would have had little relative motion), etc.

I think in particular of runway 10L in PDX, traffic on the the highway north of the airport often looks like it is coming down the runway at you opposite direction.
 
NovemberEcho said:
A big problem with midnight ops is that when there’s wx during the day and delays, everything from earlier gets pushed back. Then when TMU goes home at 10-1030, all the metering programs end. It is very common that the busiest you’ll ever be in your career is the first few hours of a mid.
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For sure. I remember a thunderstorm day at SFO where from 0030-0500 I was alone in the ramp tower. Of course it'd be hard to kill someone up there, but that shift closes out the whole last day on the terminal ops side and plans the whole next day. That means BEFORE you could plot the gates on A/G terms in our case, you had to use various resources to see who was turning what, what UA planes would tow on/off rather than turn, which 5 hour gate sits UA would try to sneak in while having 5 back to back Air Canada's crammed on one gate on their "proposal". Also had to update the ETAs back then from flipping ACARS reports (FR24 was in infancy) and set up the baggage claims, counters, bag make up areas ect.

One day, the 2300 bank was pushed back to 0300 due to legit storms and we had Murphy's law in full effect with a super delayed Lufthansa A380 needing our side with G side customs closed, WX issues in BOS/JFK giving tons of jetBlue arrivals and some turns while I did a whole "page" (we'd record times of inital contact on a clipboard) of movements by myself during that period and then some, I think roughly 35 which is insane at that time of night. Plus, I had to assign and coordinate remote parking and tows for this CF which took up most of my off mic or telephone time.

When the 0500 person rolled in with a 30 minute overlap (to then be alone until 0600), the first thing they said was "Why are all the terminal signs blank, did you even do them?".

Nope. I prioritized the gate plot (worst one I ever did) and had no time for anything else. Lazy coworker sent it in as is with no updates, UA of course ran with it and plugged flights all over (they are allowed to plug domestic flights where they fit at will once the gates were "released" to the public and final).

I came in to find 20+ planes held over 30 mins for gates on Concourse G while I slept.

When I was the 0500 living 55 miles from SFO with the attendance of an Indonesian low cost airline, I personally impacted the airport with my horrible time management many times due to the setup (especially when I worked ALONE in Shadow Tower and overslept lmfao that almost made local news). It's really dumb to have no contingency in case someone is left alone or comes late. Especially in an FAA tower. Like wtf?
 
Last year's mid-air in DCA
NMAC with two 121s last week in EWR
Last night in LGA.

Those are the high profile events that made the news, who knows how much else is happening out there. At this point we can say that the business model of "do more with less" isn't working for ATC.

Is the solution change the hiring criteria and streamline training which means new controllers are less trained than before?
Reduce operations to match staffing?
Raise ATC compensation and create their own rest rules similar to 117 after Colgan in BUF?

I don't know what the answer is, but maybe all of the above?
 
CFI A&P said:
Last year's mid-air in DCA
NMAC with two 121s last week in EWR
Last night in LGA.

Those are the high profile events that made the news, who knows how much else is happening out there. At this point we can say that the business model of "do more with less" isn't working for ATC.

Is the solution change the hiring criteria and streamline training which means new controllers are less trained than before?
Reduce operations to match staffing?
Raise ATC compensation and create their own rest rules similar to 117 after Colgan in BUF?

I don't know what the answer is, but maybe all of the above?
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Maybe all of the above. Wouldn’t be a bad start. Seems like we have a systemic problem and the people that hold the cards don’t want to make sacrifices to fix it.

Idk how hard NATCA has been advocating for proper staffing or pushing back on carriers adding flights into already saturated markets. Maybe this will be the thing that tips the scale in the right direction. Hearing the controller try to fix the mistake and afterwards is sobering. Who knows how busy he was. Hopefully he gets the help he needs and doesn’t get left hung out to dry.
 
There has been a few pushes to open more Academy locations in the last few years. Currently there is an instructor shortage becuase no one wants to retire and then move to Oklahoma. However, the good Republican representatives of Oklahoma always manage to shoot down any attempt to open an Academy anywhere but OKC.
 
phill1174 said:
Maybe all of the above. Wouldn’t be a bad start. Seems like we have a systemic problem and the people that hold the cards don’t want to make sacrifices to fix it.

Idk how hard NATCA has been advocating for proper staffing or pushing back on carriers adding flights into already saturated markets. Maybe this will be the thing that tips the scale in the right direction. Hearing the controller try to fix the mistake and afterwards is sobering. Who knows how busy he was. Hopefully he gets the help he needs and doesn’t get left hung out to dry.
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My conspiracy theory is that the tech bros are lobbying for a massive investment in some kind of AI solution
 
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NovemberEcho said:
We have leaked airport security footage before a statement from NATCA. Our union is useless.

Also notice all the other vehicles stopped way before truck 1 entered the runway.
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I couldn’t bear to listen to the audio, was truck 1 the one doing radio comms? Typically I hear a group like that as calling “ops/fire/airport 1 and company” with presumably the lead vehicle handling comms.
 
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