Xjet Denver incident

It's all speculation at this point. What would be a satisfactory answer for you, Maurus? "The Controller obviously screwed up and should be crucified"? He might have, I don't know. But because I don't know, I'm going to assume there was a good reason. We're all in this together.
 
One thing that I think people are overlooking is the weather. The tower cab was IMC in itself. Basically all the controllers had to go on was the ASDE-X system. I can say with almost 95% certainty that had it been day VMC, the controller would have been scanning the runways, saw that 5912 stopped on the runway, made the correlation and pushed the crash button. IMC can be disorienting not only for pilots but ATC as well. I'm very hesitant to blame the ATC for anything.

One question for the ATC'ers out there. In the cab are you guys hot mic'd? Is everything you say recorded transmitted or not? I ask because I find it odd that they have the recording of the ATC asking around to see if anyone else heard the same thing. If so, there goes my theory that he was distracted by something in the cab (ie coordination w/ other controllers).

I also find it odd that the news got a copy of the tape so soon. FOIA requests usually take a while. The clip wasn't anything that liveATC had, plus they had the coordination on there as well (which isn't broadcast therefore LiveATC can't grab it).

Fantastic job to the crew.
 
MikeD said:
After they touched down, yes. Prior to that, likely lots of confusion over one transmission that seems to not have been fully heard.
Click to expand...

AVIATE NAVIGATE COMMUNICATE.. without the first two the last is pointless.

Also captains have ATP's for a reason.

A$$ (save first)
Ticket (save second)
Pay check (save last)

.
 
N519AT said:
One thing that I think people are overlooking is the weather. The tower cab was IMC in itself. Basically all the controllers had to go on was the ASDE-X system. I can say with almost 95% certainty that had it been day VMC, the controller would have been scanning the runways, saw that 5912 stopped on the runway, made the correlation and pushed the crash button. IMC can be disorienting not only for pilots but ATC as well. I'm very hesitant to blame the ATC for anything..
Click to expand...

Agree. And much the same thing Ive been trying to say here also, in addition to the clipped comm that the tower controller seemingly heard and couldn't correlate.
 
Boris Badenov said:
It's all speculation at this point. What would be a satisfactory answer for you, Maurus? "The Controller obviously screwed up and should be crucified"? He might have, I don't know. But because I don't know, I'm going to assume there was a good reason. We're all in this together.
Click to expand...
Crucify the controller? No. Identify a problem and fix it. Perhaps there should be new procedures implemented in the handling of emergencies in the terminal area. I don't know exactly what procedures are in place for emergency calls such as this for ATC but they may need to be revised.

When pilots see a red annuncuator flashing at us we don't assume a sensor shorted out. We assume the worst and act. Set the same type of system up for controllers when possible and it could save lives.

There isn't any specific reply I am looking for. I have learned a lot from threads where situations happen and talking about different aspects of an event has been able to expand my knowledge.
 
Maurus said:
Crucify the controller? No. Identify a problem and fix it. Perhaps there should be new procedures implemented in the handling of emergencies in the terminal area. I don't know exactly what procedures are in place for emergency calls such as this for ATC but they may need to be revised. .
Click to expand...

This case appears to be one where there's no fault of personnel or procedure; just a bad set of circumstances that case together.

Without being able to see the runway environment, there's no way the controller could confirm the call. It could've been from any aircraft within his airspace, even one he wasn't working. Depending on his workload, he still likely had other traffic to work. When 5912 no longer makes contact, and is shown to be stopped on the runway, that will insure that someone knows and from then, a positive call can be made to the crew querying on what the problem is. It worked out for the best, it appears, because of the items in-place to assist in learning that 5912 was indeed the emergency aircraft and the source of the clipped transmission. I pretty certain that, workload permitting, the controller would've queried over the freq; but it sounds like the freq was pretty busy.
 
gne in prog said:
I landed in the time frame over at KAPA, it was the worst icing I've seen in years. Usually we might get a little trace around 8" wide at the very tip of the nose, that day I looked more like this-

6897426836_2b0e3e9bb4_b.jpg


Going back several feet off the nose, some surfaces had 3.5" built up. Those guys did great job, it sucked enough dealing with the just dealing with the weather.
Click to expand...

We saw that type of icing last year on the 727. Ice down the side all the way back to the R3 & L3 windows.
 
MikeD said:
This case appears to be one where there's no fault of personnel or procedure; just a bad set of circumstances that case together.

Without being able to see the runway environment, there's no way the controller could confirm the call. It could've been from any aircraft within his airspace, even one he wasn't working. Depending on his workload, he still likely had other traffic to work. When 5912 no longer makes contact, and is shown to be stopped on the runway, that will insure that someone knows and from then, a positive call can be made to the crew querying on what the problem is. It worked out for the best, it appears, because of the items in-place to assist in learning that 5912 was indeed the emergency aircraft and the source of the clipped transmission. I pretty certain that, workload permitting, the controller would've queried over the freq; but it sounds like the freq was pretty busy.
Click to expand...


Haven't listend to the tape yet. but we are trained to do the following on aborts or Emergency landings in certain situations.


Callsign 925 aborting on runway 26L.

or

Callsign 925 Emergency evacuating on 26L

this way the tower and other aircraft know their is an aircraft on 26L and it isn't clear. Hopefully ATC rolls the trucks.
 
Something to toss in our pockets of tricks would be a quick 7700 code if emergencys pop up. For this flight, who knows what the cockpit was like at the time. I know in sims sometimes it's been the last thing on my mind.
 
scooter2525 said:
Something to toss in our pockets of tricks would be a quick 7700 code if emergencys pop up. For this flight, who knows what the cockpit was like at the time. I know in sims sometimes it's been the last thing on my mind.
Click to expand...

Workload is the same reason military transponders have an emergency portion of the ON knob, to instantly squawk M3/7700 without having to fiddle with numbers.
 
MikeD said:
Workload is the same reason military transponders have an emergency portion of the ON knob, to instantly squawk M3/7700 without having to fiddle with numbers.
Click to expand...

With the advent of ASDE-X and ADSB-out, it would be interesting to see if you could alert the activation of EMER lights on an active taxiway/runway to an ATC screen. I would see two benefits:

1) The crew initiated the lights and an evacuation will most likely ensue.
2) An auto-activation occurred, possibly inducing a NO COMM scenario (obviously aircraft-specific).
 
MikeD said:
Workload is the same reason military transponders have an emergency portion of the ON knob, to instantly squawk M3/7700 without having to fiddle with numbers.
Click to expand...
Is it any easy turn to squak that? I could see inanvertant emergency squaks.
 
scooter2525 said:
Is it any easy turn to squak that? I could see inanvertant emergency squaks.
Click to expand...

No. From "NORM", you have to lift and turn to move it to "EMER", for that very reason. Once you turn it to "NORM", you don't usually touch it again inflight (unless ATC has you Squawk LOw [LO position], which they don't really do anymore), as thats simply power for the system, and there are separate rocker switches to individually turn on/off Modes 1/2/3/4.
 
MikeD said:
No. From "NORM", you have to lift and turn to move it to "EMER", for that very reason. Once you turn it to "NORM", you don't usually touch it again inflight (unless ATC has you Squawk LOw [LO position], which they don't really do anymore), as thats simply power for the system, and there are separate rocker switches to individually turn on/off Modes 1/2/3/4.
Click to expand...
That makes sense. Their is a similar protection on the king air for fuel cut off.
 
scooter2525 said:
That makes sense. Their is a similar protection on the king air for fuel cut off.
Click to expand...

You and your fancy King Airs. Was there even a "fuel cutoff" on the 99? I can't remember, but I'll bet if there was it was behind the pilot's seat and didn't work.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Patriot _BOY
Let's play a METAR Game
2
Replies
32
Views
4K
Mainline_or_bust
Mainline_or_bust
pljenkins
Irma Eye Over KRSW
Replies
2
Views
870
nyk
nyk
deadstick
EMS helo down west of Ft Rucker/Enterprise, AL
Replies
18
Views
2K
deadstick
deadstick
pianokeys
Air Canada A320 Crash at YHZ
4 5 6
Replies
114
Views
14K
jtrain609
jtrain609
Mach82
NYC WX Mess
Replies
8
Views
2K
pljenkins
pljenkins
Back
Top