Plane Crash In DC

JayUtah said:
Relying on visual separation rules at night in heavily congested airspace with reduced oversight is probably going to be one of those "normalization of deviance" cases. The near-misses were a warning. The most consequential difference between a near-miss and a midair is that you walk away from a near-miss. The operational and situational factors are only slightly different.
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Yup, in spades. This situation reeks of "normalization of deviance". Looking into how they were managing these flight routes, gave me a number of WTF moments. Seriously, what they were thinking?
 
jt512 said:
We are fiercely proud of our system of weights and measures.

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One of my partner companies in Europe once sent us, as a joke, a mechanical design in barleycorns (1/3 inch). Of course we are as conversant in SI as we are in EES, but some of our designs still have to fit American mechanical and optical breadboards that are tapped in fractions of an inch instead of in millimeters. So we have an ongoing humorous arms race in who can produce ephemeral designs in the most obscure units.

smartcooky said:
Seriously, what they were thinking?
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As with all normalizations of deviance, they were thinking, "We've been fine so far despite some near-misses, so we can just squeeze in one more helicopter route or one more comair landing and the system will just expand elastically to accept it."
 
When all is said and done, I don't think the sitting President has much to do with aviation mishaps, but we have just got started with this term.

What happened with the last Trump term in this regard?
 
imo even if they only fired 1 guy for dei and it caused a plane crash that's a problem
 
JayUtah said:
iAs with all normalizations of deviance, they were thinking, "We've been fine so far despite some near-misses, so we can just squeeze in one more helicopter route or one more comair landing and the system will just expand elastically to accept it."
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Personally, I'd go with furlongs per fortnight for airspeed.
 
Skeptical Greg said:
Just a little food for thought.
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I'm reminded of the Summer of the Shark. Anyone remember that? For some reason, shark attacks caught the public attention, and the press started reporting on seemingly every one. That made it seem like there was a huge uptick in shark attacks, even though there wasn't.

A lot of people have since forgotten about that summer, because other events in the fall of that year rather overshadowed it and brought that coverage to an end. I'm hoping that the current obsession with air traffic safety doesn't have to end similarly.
 
smartcooky said:
Yup, in spades. This situation reeks of "normalization of deviance". Looking into how they were managing these flight routes, gave me a number of WTF moments. Seriously, what they were thinking?
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Not at all an SME but my understanding is that a plane, especially a large passenger jet, on short final is in sacrosanct territory. They are stabilised, they have performed all the checks required. Now the focus is on landing and nothing else. One pilot monitoring the instruments and one the view straight ahead. Nothing else is meant to be anywhere near them. They don't have to capacity to deal with it.
 
Elon says the Verizon system is about to break so he's giving them Starlink

Elon Musk
@elonmusk

To be clear here, the Verizon communication system to air traffic control is breaking down very rapidly. The FAA assessment is single digit months to catastrophic failure, putting air traveler safety at serious risk.
The Starlink terminals are being sent at NO COST to the taxpayer on an emergency basis to restore air traffic control connectivity.

The situation is extremely dire.

Quote
Mario Nawfal
@MarioNawfal
STARLINK COULD REPLACE VERIZON—AND THE SWAMP IS PANICKING

The FAA is on the verge of canceling Verizon’s bloated $2.4 billion contract and handing it to Starlink—a move that would bring faster, safer, and more reliable air traffic control services.

And guess who’s furious? The establishment. They’re shrieking about “conflicts of interest” because Trump and Elon are putting efficiency over corruption.

Verizon’s system? Outdated and expensive. Starlink? Faster, cheaper, and proven. SpaceX engineers are already fixing the FAA’s mess.

The real “conflict of interest” is how the old system still exists. The same grifters who let U.S. infrastructure rot now cry foul when someone actually fixes it.

Elon is right: Verizon is putting air travelers at risk. And Washington just hates that they’re losing control.
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Some one jokingly said they wouldn't be flying in the USA any time soon, I would - not joking - not fly if this is happening.
 
Andy_Ross said:
Elon says the Verizon system is about to break so he's giving them Starlink
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The "single digit months to failure" estimate is from Musk, not from the FAA. There is no finding from the FAA to that effect. The Verizon contract was for 15 years, for upgrade and continued support, and was just recently granted. This is not a case of an existing Verizon system that is failing and being propped up by a legacy contractor. The dissatisfaction with the Verizon contract has surfaced only since Musk took over.

Having authority to cancel a competitor's contract and substitute one's own privately-held company for it on a no-contest, single-source bid is 100% a conflict of interest no matter how joyfully the supposed merits of the decision are spun.
 
Elon wants more FAA staff

Irony much

Elon Musk
@elonmusk

There is a shortage of top notch air traffic controllers. If you have retired, but are open to returning to work, please consider doing so.
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While representatives of air safety workers unions have said the 400 or so people fired from the FAA were in many cases critical to traffic control and air safety, none of them appear to have been ATC controllers per se. Former secretary Pete Buttigieg said shortly after the DCA midair collision that the FAA had been chronically short of controllers during his tenure and for that reason the Dept. of Transportation had stepped up recruiting efforts. We had a discussion about why it may have been so hard to attract and retain qualified controllers.

Air traffic controllers have a statutory mandatory retirement age of 56 (5 U.S.C. § 8335). This is based on cognitive factors, stress tolerance, and burnout. This is the case for most of the world, not just in the United States. The law allows the Secretary of Transportation to extend the retirement until age 61 for individuals who demonstrate special aptitude or skill. It's also unlawful to hire a controller older than age 31. It's not clear who Elon Musk is talking about, but he cannot simply waive these requirements. They're laws, not regulations.
 
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