This week, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) published a pair of preliminary reports on “close calls” involving airliners at Hollywood Burbank Airport in California and JFK Airport in New York. Unusually, the California incident occurred more than a year ago in February 2023. But the preliminary report—usually posted within weeks of the incident—was delayed by the recent reclassification of the incident as a more serious “Class 3” event.
The more recent near miss at JFK occurred on April 17, when a Swiss Air Airbus A330 crew aborted its takeoff from Runway 4L after spotting conflicting taxiing traffic on the runway.
In that incident, one controller had cleared the Swiss Air flight for takeoff, while a ground controller had cleared four other airliners to cross the same runway. Unlike another incident last year at JFK, the Swiss Air Airbus did not trigger the Model X (aka ASDE-X) airport surveillance detection equipment since the aircraft did not attain the required acceleration and velocity levels to qualify as a “departure state.” But the alert crew spotted the crossing traffic and discontinued the takeoff.
In the Feb. 22, 2023, incident at Hollywood-Burbank Airport, crews of both an inbound Mesa Airlines Bombardier CRJ900 and a SkyWest Embraer EMB-170 responded to traffic/collision alert system (TCAS) “resolution advisories,” averting a collision. According to this week’s “preliminary” report, at their closest point, the two aircraft were determined to be within 1,700 feet of each other.
The best safety device is a well trained pilot, not an A.I. fed system manned by computer savvy handlers.
Amen brother.
Yes, but these well trained pilots are good at driving planes into the ground. Pilot error is real.
It was forty years ago ……….. and I was at Van Nuys, Ca., cleared for takeoff and was rolling …… and another aircraft was cleared across the runway in front of me. It’s a long runway and I pulled power and stood on the brakes and stopped. I called Tower and said “I was rolling — why did you put that aircraft across the runway in front of me?” (I was very unhappy).
The controller responded ……. “Operations normal 23Y”.
Incredible! Those bastards will write up pilots at the drop of a hat but when they screw up it’s OK?
Now times seem to have changed.
Did you file a report?
Oh Yeah? In the late 70’s, when Van Nuys was the busiest airport in the country, I was told that I was number 12 for the airport. After finally being cleared to land and approaching the threshold, I was told to go around because the plane behind me was overtaking me and he wouldn’t acknowledge his instructions to go around. The pattern was so wide and long I was tempted to log the flight as a cross country.
Although not a near miss, we can now add Southwest 4069 low alt occurrence to the stack of negative trends.
On approach to LAS 26L in a 767-300ER IFR (but CAVU) as we were approaching the ridge, very busy decelerating from arrival to final speed, I was PM/CA and noticed a TCAS target at our 2 o’clock and closing. From the speed and altitude I suspected a helo.
No alert from approach nor tower.
Sure enough we get a TCAS resolution and go around. “Hey ACA why did you go around?” Asks terminal. “TCAS at the ridge, in the control zone, in the approach path, no deconfliction by YOU”. “OH, ya, the VFR traffic goes that way to XXX airport. We saw him.” “Well thanks for letting us know.” Cowboys…
Tom Waarne
June 20, 2024 At 8:55 pm
“The best safety device is a well trained pilot, not an A.I. fed system manned by computer savvy handlers”
ROGER THAT! CONCUR.
So where is the link to the report? You know I depend you to make my life simpler.
Here you go: https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/NR20240620.aspx
“But the preliminary report—usually posted within weeks of the incident—was delayed by the recent reclassification of the incident as a more serious “Class 3” event.”
Does anyone else find this strange? I get that the higher classification probably means it’s a more thorough report. But it’s still only a preliminary report. Final reports are more thorough and take longer.
I would expect that a higher classification would give the incident more priority, and thus the report would be released /faster/…
So, you can be fast enough to crash into four other airliners, but because the AI thinks you’re going too slow, it doesn’t tell you to stop?
Sounds like more of an error on the programmer’s end.