In 2026, with how much money their is in aviation, it seems wild to not have digitized this ages ago. The runway should be essentially 'locked' when in use, if they don't want screens in every ground vehicle that may cross a runway, at least display it at runway entrances.

That ATC still takes place over radio just seems insane at this point. And there's pretty much no way to make ATC's job not stressful, its inherently stressful. Taking out how much of their job is held in the current operators mind versus being 'committed' seems like low hanging fruit 30 years ago.

The whole system's just begging for human error to occur. There's 1700+ runway incursions a year in the US alone, each one should be investigated as if an accident occurred and fixes proposed. Like when an accident occurs.

• matthewkayin

  today at 6:19 PM

  While modernizing ATC in the US may be overdue, the real issue here is that ATC in the US has been understaffed, underpaid, and overworked for a while now.

  My father works ATC and his schedule has him working overtime, 6 shifts a week, including overnight shifts, meaning that there is literally not a day of the week where he doesn't spend at least some time in the tower.

  If that's the reality for even half of the controllers, it's no surprise that we've been seeing more and more traffic accidents lately.

  • bikelang

    today at 6:24 PM

    Seems like everyone, everywhere is overworked, underpaid, and under supported. How much longer can we frogs survive the boiling?

    • ModernMech

      today at 7:12 PM

      The point of the frogs boiling metaphor is the frogs in fact do not survive.

      • gambiting

        today at 7:30 PM

        In reality when these experiments were conducted the frog simply jumped out as soon as the temperature started to raise, frogs will not sit there in slowly boiling water and just die without trying to escape way before the water becomes dangerous.

        • adampunk

          today at 7:41 PM

          Well, it works with humans just fine.

        • ModernMech

          today at 7:38 PM

          We need to combine the crabs in the bucket with the frogs in the water and I think we'll have the right metaphor.

    • fHr

      today at 6:37 PM

      As long as we're desperate for a job and we need to finance our lifestyle to impress the Johnsons.

      • ExtraRoulette

        today at 7:29 PM

        It's not even to impress anyone, we need to keep roofs over our heads and food in our family's bellies

    • shdudns

      today at 6:44 PM

      Not everyone. If you were friends with Epstein you got insider information and a victim to abuse.

  • aeternum

    today at 6:35 PM

    No that is not the issue. Runway incursions have always been a problem and many deaths have occurred.

    There have been many attempts to change phraseology, teach pilots and controllers to always readback runways, etc. but nothing that actually prevents the issue from occurring entirely via automation.

  • doctorpangloss

    today at 6:24 PM

    Why do so many jobs have this failure mode? Thinking about this should illuminate for you that funding is not the whole story.

    • jmalicki

      today at 6:26 PM

      Okay, so then what is? Most jobs have this failure mode because there's a tendency to strip funding until disaster happens, even when it was clearly foreseeable.

    • smallerize

      today at 7:06 PM

      Well, there was the time Ronald Reagan fired all the ATC workers because they were trying to unionize.

      • coredog64

        today at 7:18 PM

        They were already in a union (PATCO) and they were striking illegally which lead to their decertification.

        • cogman10

          today at 7:30 PM

          What's impressive is that if you look at the issues PATCO struck over, it was basically identical to the problems ATC faces today. The problem being that everything has only gotten a lot worse for ATC controllers.

          The union pretty loudly and early on pointed out major problems with that job and the response of ignoring them for 4 decades is what's driven us to the current situation.

  • thefounder

    today at 6:36 PM

    Can’t this whole thing being automated and let only special/unexpected situations being handled by humans ?

    • pjc50

      today at 6:44 PM

      Nowhere has automated ATC because errors look like this.

      • alex43578

        today at 7:03 PM

        That's like the argument about how we'll never (or should never) have self driving cars.

        Clearly human-run ATC results in situations like this, so the idea that automated ATC could result in a runway collision and should therefore never be implemented is bad.

        • today at 7:14 PM

    • cj

      today at 6:46 PM

      Imagine it were 90% automated. Now imagine there's a 3 hour outage of the automated system.

      You're left with a bunch of planes in the sky that can't stay there forever, and not enough humans on the ground to manually land them.

      Now image the outage is also happening at all airports nearby, preventing planes from diverting.

      How do you get the planes out of the sky? Not enough humans to do it manually.

      Now imagine the system comes back online. Does it know how to handle a crisis scenario where you have dozens of planes overhead, each about to run out of fuel? Hopefully someone thought of that edge case.

      • tosapple

        today at 7:28 PM

        [dead]

    • gosub100

      today at 7:12 PM

      There's exceptions all the time. They turn back because a warning light came on. They saw a deer on the runway, a passenger got up to the bathroom. There's no way that could be automatic, plus they often need atc to look at their jet to see if it's damaged.

      My suggestion is to restrict the use of smaller jets like crj and turboprops. I know airports like LaGuardia can't handle the big jets either, but they could reduce the slots and require a jet that holds, say, 150 people or more. This would result in fewer flights per day to some airports, but reduce overall congestion while still serving the same number of passengers.

• ranger207

  today at 7:42 PM

  Automating ATC is similar to automating flying in general. Even if it's possible to automate 99% of 99% of flights, including even takeoff and landing, commercial flights still have two pilots because if things start to go wrong there's just so many edge cases that you can't easily write automation to handle all of them. Same thing for ATC, except even worse. They still have control towers because controller eyeballs still work even if nothing else does, if ground radar fails, or if a vehicle doesn't have an ADS-B transponder, or if a crash eliminates the radios, etc. There's just so many edge cases that making automation be able to handle everything is extremely difficult

• dpark

  today at 5:19 PM

  Air traffic (and ground traffic) control are not simple problems. La Guardia has 350k aircraft operations (takeoffs and landings) every year. 1000/day. Peak traffic is almost certainly more than 1 plane every minute. Runways are always in use and the idea that some simple software will solve all the safety problems is not grounded in reality.

  • PieTime

    today at 5:59 PM

    This isn’t hypothetical, this system just exists in other countries. Digital systems can confirm flight instruction from ATC with zero radio communication.

    • _moof

      today at 6:37 PM

      Changing the delivery method doesn't do anything to solve the problem of a controller sending an instruction that creates a hazard.

    • dpark

      today at 6:13 PM

      I’m not saying we couldn’t move more into automation. What I’m saying is that doing so will not solve all of our air/ground control problems. We still have human pilots and humans driving vehicles on the ground. Switching from humans directing landings to machines might improve some things but will not solve for all (and probably not most) risks.

      Literally the crash here was caused by a fire truck entering the runway.

      • clint

        today at 6:31 PM

        The ATC told them to enter the runway because they were confused or distracted due t overwork.

        No one here or anywhere is saying automation would solve or be able to handle everything that human operators handle, that's an argument you invented that no one is making.

        People are saying automation could handle a significant portion of the routine things allowing humans to handle the more complex/finicky issues.

        Even if automation could handle 10% of the most common situations it would be a huge boon. In reality its probably closer to 50%.

        • cogman10

          today at 7:19 PM

          There's unfortunately an alertness problem WRT automated systems.

          If the reason you have the human there is to handle the unusual cases, you run the real risk that they just aren't paying attention at critical moments when they need to pay attention.

          It's pretty similar to the problem with L3 autonomous driving.

          Probably the sweet spot is automation which makes clear the current set of instructions on the airport which also red flags when a dangerous scenario is created. I believe that already exists, but it's software that was last written in 1995 or so.

          Regardless, before any sort of new automation could be deployed, we need slack for the ATC to be able to adopt a new system. That's the biggest pressing problem. We could create the perfect software for ATC, but if the current air traffic controllers are all working overtime and doing a job designed for 3 people rather than one, they simply won't have the time to explore and understand that new system. It'll get in the way rather than solve a problem. More money is part of the solution here, but we also need a revamped ATC training program which can help to fill the current hole.

        • dpark

          today at 7:03 PM

          > The ATC told them to enter the runway because they were confused or distracted due t overwork.

          Very possibly. It will be interesting what comes from the investigation.

          > No one here or anywhere is saying automation would solve or be able to handle everything that human operators handle, that's an argument you invented that no one is making.

          I’m asking if it would have solved even the current situation. The truck presumably saw the red light, and was asking to cross. Would traffic control have said no if more had been automated and if so, what automation would fix this? Unless we are supposing the truck would be autonomously driven and refuse to proceed when planes are landing, in which case, maybe, though that’s not really ATC automation anymore.

          • Palomides

            today at 7:39 PM

            an automated system that could check if a plane is about to land on a runway and show some kind of alert or red light is hardly a stretch of the imagination

  • infinitewars

    today at 5:47 PM

    > more than 1 plane every minute

    Software routinely solves database coordination problems with millions of users per second.

    • infinitewars

      today at 5:52 PM

      I'm pretty sure the amount of data isn't the problem here. Maybe it's the number of corner cases? You would still want some human-in-the loop with quality UI for ATC.

      • matthewkayin

        today at 6:13 PM

        There are plenty of stories of ATC helping to guide pilots back to the ground after an engine failure or after a student pilot had their instructor pass out on them or something like that.

        Even if most of the work is routine, you definitely still want a human in the loop.

        • jrockway

          today at 6:37 PM

          It's worth pointing out that plenty of pilots take off and land safely at uncontrolled airports. ATC is a throughput optimization; the finite amount of airspace can have more aircraft movements if the movements are centrally coordinated. It feels like we are nearing the breaking point of this optimization, however, and it's probably worth looking for something better (or saying no to scheduling more flights).

          • nradov

            today at 7:06 PM

            The FAA already does issue temporary ground stops for IFR flights when ATC capacity is saturated. This acts as a limit on airlines scheduling more flights, although the feedback loops are long and not always effective. The FAA NextGen system should improve this somewhat.

            https://www.faa.gov/nextgen

    • PunchyHamster

      today at 6:17 PM

      with extremely controlled conditions. There is no fog in database, nor fallible humans involved, What an ignorant response

    • yifanl

      today at 6:18 PM

      In a digitized environment. We cannot yet simulate the real world.

    • mongol

      today at 5:53 PM

      True. But to avoid 1 minute unavailability per year requires 99.9999 % availability

      • verelo

        today at 6:12 PM

        Like any scale system, degrade the experience. Use radio if the more advanced systems are unavailable?

    • glitchc

      today at 5:49 PM

      Yup, by having backup runways.

      • jjmarr

        today at 5:57 PM

        A third runway for Heathrow was formally proposed in 2007 and is projected for completion in 2040. This is an airport so overburdened people are buying and trading slots.

        This isn't a Kubernetes cluster where you can add VMs in 30 seconds.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expansion_of_Heathrow_Airport

      • dpark

        today at 5:54 PM

        And no fire trucks crossing the runways.

        • PunchyHamster

          today at 6:18 PM

          ....they need to get to fucking fire

          ....if they go around kilometer of the runway the fire will turn into bigger fire

          • singleshot_

            today at 6:29 PM

            Two trucks

    • johnbarron

      today at 6:02 PM

      >> Software routinely solves database coordination problems with millions of users per second.

      A naive view that confuses the map with the territory.

      While in a database state you write a row and reality updates atomically....for aircraft they exist in a physical world where your model lives with lag, noise, and lossy sensors, and that world keeps moving whether your software is watching or not. Failed database transactions roll back, a landing clearance issued against stale state does not. The hard problem in ATC is not coordination logic but physical objects with momentum, human agency, and failure modes that do not respect your consistency model.

  • mvdtnz

    today at 5:40 PM

    No one said it was simple. You're tilting at windmills.

    • dpark

      today at 5:42 PM

      Literally called it “low hanging fruit”.

      • slg

        today at 6:05 PM

        But context is important. "Low-hanging fruit" doesn't mean the solution is "easy" in a vacuum, it just means this specific aspect is the easiest and/or most obvious place to start attacking a problem.

        Or to stick with the language of the analogy, every fruit tree has some fruit that is lower than the others. That doesn't mean all "low-hanging fruit" is within arm's reach of the ground, some fruit just doesn't require as big of a ladder as other fruit.

        This comment isn't a judgment of this specific case. I don't know enough about ATC to have any confidence in my opinion on the viability of replacing humans with software.

        • PLenz

          today at 6:53 PM

          That goal post moved so fast it made a whooshing noise as it passed

          • slg

            today at 7:10 PM

            I think you're mistaken. That whooshing sound must have been my comment flying over your head.

            That was my first comment in this thread, so there was no established goal to change. My sole goal was to clarify the meaning of an idiom that the comment I was replying to was misstating.

            I even included a disclaimer that "This comment isn't a judgment of this specific case", so I don't know how you could have received it as such.

  • today at 5:39 PM

  • CamperBob2

    today at 5:21 PM

    [flagged]

    • JohnMakin

      today at 5:23 PM

      One jet landing every minute, coordinating the airspace for miles around the airport, along with coordinating non-landing traffic (helicopters, small craft), while making sure these (already heavily automated) flight systems dont get confused and kill several hundred people sounds easy to you, along with keeping everything on time and schedule?

      Go write it then.

      • estearum

        today at 5:24 PM

        And I think most critically: being able to adapt all of this on the fly when invariably something goes off-plan.

        • CamperBob2

          today at 5:26 PM

          Aviation is over 100 years old. Everything that can possibly happen in ATC has either already happened or can reasonably be anticipated.

          It's stupid, wasteful, and ultimately dangerous to make a human do a machine's job.

          • thomascountz

            today at 5:40 PM

            You say it “…sounds like a simple problem,” and sure, if you think this is a computer problem, it sounds simple. But if all you’re getting back is indignant sputtering, that’s your cue to explain why it’s simple—explaining something simple shouldn't be hard. What do you actually know?

            It takes all of two minutes of Wikipedia reading for me to understand why this isn’t simple; why it's actually extremely not simple! If you ignore the incumbency, the regulations, the training requirements, the retrofitting, the verification, the international coordination, and the existing unfathomably reliable systems built out of past tragedies, then sure, it’s "simple". But then, if you're ignoring those things, you’re not really solving the problem, are you?

            • CamperBob2

              today at 5:51 PM

              If you ignore the incumbency, the regulations, the training requirements, the retrofitting, the verification, the international coordination, and the existing unfathomably reliable systems built out of past tragedies, then sure, it’s "simple".

              Those are excuses and encumbrances, not reasons. If they are so important, it leads to a question: what existing automated systems can we improve by adding similar constraints?

              If these are just "excuses" and not "reasons," then explain how you have determined them as such.

              I would like to say, "Because knowledgeable people have explained the difference to me." But again, this has come up before, and no explanations are ever provided. Only vague, reactionary hand-waving, assuring me that humans -- presumably not the same ones who just directed a fire truck and an aircraft onto the same active runway, but humans nevertheless -- are vital for safety in ATC, because for reasons such as and therefore.

              There you are doing it in order to avoid engaging with the substance of what people are saying.

              There is no substance in the replies. There never is. Only unanchored FUD.

              • estearum

                today at 6:18 PM

                The only difference between an excuse and a reason is the designator's belief as to the validity of the reason provided. You have already said you do not have the expertise required to assess validity, yet here you are doing it in order to avoid engaging with the substance of what people are saying.

                If these are just "excuses" and not "reasons," then explain how you have determined them as such.

          • estearum

            today at 5:48 PM

            > Aviation is over 100 years old. Everything that can possibly happen in ATC has either already happened or can reasonably be anticipated.

            This is just not how complex systems work. N of 1 events happen regularly, which is exactly what makes them challenging.

            You simply asserting every scenario has been seen before does not actually make it so.

      • CamperBob2

        today at 5:25 PM

        while making sure these (already heavily automated) flight systems dont get confused and kill several hundred people

        Confusion is indeed a common side effect of a job done halfway.

        Replying: I'm really confused at the point you're trying to make - you declared yourself not an expert in this field, while loudly declaring it's so easy to automate.

        Because we've already done harder things. 1000 takeoffs and landings per day equals a trillion machine cycles between events... on the phone in your pocket. It is an extraordinary claim, requiring extraordinary proof, to say that this task isn't suitable for automation.

        Why don't you do it then? What am I missing?

        I'm not qualified to do it, I didn't say I was, and in any event, I don't work for free. I'm asking for concrete reasons why it's not feasible. Spoiler: there are no reasons, only excuses.

        The concrete reason your ideas won’t work is you don’t have any.

        It's not my job to explain how to do it, it's your job to explain why it can't or shouldn't be done. The extraordinary claim is yours, not mine.

        Remember how we installed traffic lights all over the roads and now car crashes never happen any more at intersections? Truly automation solves all problems.

        Hard to respond to an argument of this quality, at least without getting flagged or worse.

        • estearum

          today at 5:47 PM

          > I'm asking for concrete reasons why it's not feasible. Spoiler: there are no reasons, only excuses.

          It sounds like you're not asking anything at all

          Just to play it out a bit, are you imagining that a pilot would be reporting a mechanical failure upon descent into busy airspace to some type of like AI voice agent, who will then orchestrate other aircraft out of the way (and not into each other) while also coaching the crippled aircraft out of the sky?

          Are you imagining some vast simplification that obviates the need for such capability? Because that doesn't seem simple at all to me.

        • JohnMakin

          today at 5:37 PM

          I'm really confused at the point you're trying to make - you declared yourself not an expert in this field, while loudly declaring it's so easy to automate. Why don't you do it then? What am I missing?

          • dpark

            today at 5:41 PM

            > Why don't you do it then? What am I missing?

            I know this was rhetorical but the obvious answer is a complete lack of any actual ideas. “Just automate it” is a common refrain from people who don’t know how to fix the actual issues with any domain.

            Remember how we installed traffic lights all over the roads and now car crashes never happen any more at intersections? Truly automation solves all problems.

        • dpark

          today at 6:05 PM

          To repeatedly declare something simple to fix, but then have no idea how to fix it, and indeed to declare oneself unqualified to fix it, is kind of an astounding level of hubris.

          > I'm asking for concrete reasons why it's not feasible.

          The concrete reason your ideas won’t work is you don’t have any.

    • HoldOnAMinute

      today at 5:27 PM

      I worked in aviation in the late 1990s and automating ATC is all they could talk about. So, that's almost 30 years of talking and no action.

      • CamperBob2

        today at 5:33 PM

        That's because it's a political problem, and not a technical problem. It could have been done then, and it can be done now.

        Just curious: how many people in this thread know what SAGE was? A $5 Arduino has more computing power than the whole SAGE network. This isn't 1958, so we don't need the 'Semi' part of 'Semi-Automatic Ground Environment' anymore.

    • dpark

      today at 5:33 PM

      > Every time I've asked what's so hard about automating ATC

      Why don’t you describe the hypothetical automation you believe would solve the problems then?

      My hunch is that either your ideas are already implemented (like GP post who said they need to add red lights at the runway instances, except yeah, they do have that), or they are just bad.

      > indignant sputtering and patronizing hand-waving.

      Preemptively insulting everyone who might respond to you certainly looks like you’re asking for a real conversation. :|

      Your accusation of “patronizing hand-waving” is especially off base considering you literally proposed nothing except “automating”. Hand waving indeed.

  • felipellrocha

    today at 6:27 PM

    Hehehehe, grounded.

• _moof

  today at 6:31 PM

  You can't just throw software at this. It's a complex system that involves way more than just an airplane and someone in a tower. Systems engineering, human factors, and safety management systems are the relevant disciplines if you'd like to start reading up. In addition there are decades of research on the dynamics between human operators and automation, and the answer is never as simple as "just add more automation." Increased reliance on automation can paradoxically decrease safety.

  CPDLC is already being deployed domestically. It's currently available to all operators in en route segments.

  All runway incursions at towered airports are reported, classified according to risk, and investigated.

  • mlyle

    today at 6:48 PM

    On the flipside, look at the success of TCAS. It doesn't have a perfect operational history. It hasn't completely eliminated midairs, either. But it took a relatively rare event and further reduced the frequency by about a factor of 5.

    I wouldn't be so quick to rule out that there's some kind of relatively easy technological double check that could greatly reduce incidents. The fact that we've not gotten there despite years of effort to reduce runway incursions doesn't mean that it's not possible.

    • _moof

      today at 6:54 PM

      TCAS is fantastic - absolutely stellar example of effective automation.

      But calling a replacement of major ATC functions with software a "simple fix" is a perfect illustration of why this is a bad idea. Nothing about human-rated safety-critical software is simple, and coming at it with the attitude that it is? In my view, as an experienced pilot, flight instructor, spacecraft operator, and software engineer, that thinking is utterly disqualifying.

      Besides, there already are a lot of "simple" fixes in place for this problem, e.g. RWSL, which didn't prevent this accident.

      • mlyle

        today at 7:01 PM

        I don't know. At some point, you need to do all the systems engineering. But "why not just ......" is a perfectly reasonable place to start looking at a problem and sometimes the answers really are that simple.

        > Besides, there already are a lot of "simple" fixes in place for this problem, e.g. RWSL

        It'll be interesting to hear why RWSL didn't help, as it is supposedly deployed at LGA.

      • dist-epoch

        today at 7:25 PM

        You could put a TCAS on every ground vehicle. It's not rocket science.

        Yes, I know it probably costs $300k, surely today you can have a $10k ground version.

        You could also show every plane on a screen inside the vehicle and have some loud alarms if they are on a collision path.

        You could even just display FlightRadar24, still better than nothing.

        You would still get permission for the tower, this would not be an allow system, just a deny system.

  • jonny_eh

    today at 7:18 PM

    > You can't just throw software at this

    Ok, let's not try improving systems, how's that working out?

• bronco21016

  today at 2:53 PM

  > The runway should be essentially 'locked' when in use, if they don't want screens in every ground vehicle that may cross a runway, at least display it at runway entrances.

  It does, the Runway Status Lights System uses radar to identify when the runway is in use and shows a solid bright red bar at every entrance to the runway. I'm curious what the NTSB has to say about it for this incident. From the charts LGA does have RWSLs. I didn't check NOTAM to see if they were out of service though.

  • bombcar

    today at 5:19 PM

    Emergency vehicles almost always can override/ignore warning devices (think firetrucks running red lights) which can cause "fun" for some value of "death/dismemberment/vehicle loss".

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0Xf7aU5Udo

    • red_admiral

      today at 5:49 PM

      Airport emergency services are presumably trained in this, but since a plane cannot stop easily (or not at all on takeoff after V1), I seem to remember the general rule is that even emergency vehicles with lights and sirens on give way to planes, and don't enter runways without permission from the tower.

      In the audio released by the BBC, the fire truck DID get permission from the tower to cross something, I can't tell if it was the runway in question. However, to cross the red runway lights if lit, you normally need that spelled out too something like "truck one, cross four delta, cross red lights". This did not happen on the BBC audio, which could mean one of many things.

      • f1shy

        today at 6:07 PM

        They got clearance, which was overruled by a STOOOP!

        The guy was alone operating 2 frequencies, had an emergency of another aircraft going on… is not so easy as many commenters from the armchair are insinuating

        • _moof

          today at 6:39 PM

          They got clearance and then obviously didn't bother to look outside, which is a dereliction of the basic responsibility of operating any vehicle on an airport surface. Clear left, clear right, then cross the hold short line.

          (See my other comment below if you're tempted to say something about visibility.)

          • f1shy

            today at 7:37 PM

            They could not see, because delta crosses in diagonal to the runway, such that the plane comes from behind (and the right side) so the driver has no chance to see. The truck was moving fast which is ok, because you want to clear the runway as fast as possible.

        • bombcar

          today at 6:14 PM

          From where I'm sitting, it's not really "the fault" of ATC (even though it is) simply because I'm not trusting enough of ATC even when they're on "my side".

          When cleared across a runway I'm still going to be looking in all directions, and proceed as fast as I can. I also look both ways at railway crossings even if the guards are up and silent.

          • __turbobrew__

            today at 6:36 PM

            I wonder if visibility was good enough that looking both ways before crossing the runway would have prevented this.

            • f1shy

              today at 7:38 PM

              No. it wasn't. Delta crosses 04 in diagonal, so basically they should have taken the head out of the window and look behind. They had the clearance, so they just tried to cross. The problem is for some reason they did not hear the "Truck 1 stop" call.

            • bombcar

              today at 6:39 PM

              That'll be one of the things the NTSB investigates.

              I also wonder if you're down to a "one controller" scenario if it would be better for there to be once frequency, not a ground/air split.

    • toast0

      today at 7:33 PM

      All vehicles can override/ignore warning devices. Doesn't make it right. Emergency vehicles should not override/ignore train or plane crossings. Trains and Planes don't care about flashing lights. Crossing an active runway requires clearance for safety.

      In this case, from the available information, the drivers of the fire truck thought they were cleared, and proceeded to cross while a plane was cleared to land. I'm not familiar with ATC ground radio to know if they were actually cleared or not, but it seems clear that that the drivers thought they were cleared.

• thomas_witt

  today at 3:04 PM

  How would you exactly "digitize"? While that sounds like a nice idea in theory it's the same as "digitizing" road traffic.

  In the end the air traffic system is a highly complex but also a highly reliable system, especially when you compare accident rates.

  I am sure the working conditions of ATC staff might be improved - but being both a pilot and a programmer, I know that there is no easy digitalization magic wand for aviation.

  • njovin

    today at 5:10 PM

    The Runway Status Light system already does this via automated monitoring of traffic from multiple systems: https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/rwsl

    I'm sure the NTSB report will cover why this didn't stop the accident. Presumably either the system wasn't working as-expected, or the fire truck proceeded despite the warning lights since they had clearance from the controller.

    The system is only advisory at present, so if the truck did see a warning light and proceeded anyway, they were technically permitted to do so.

  • ApolloFortyNine

    today at 3:22 PM

    >In the end the air traffic system is a highly complex but also a highly reliable system, especially when you compare accident rates.

    1700 incursions a year, and other articles mentioning multiple near misses a week at a single airport [1]. It is safe in practice, likely largely due to the pilots here also being heavily trained and looking for mistakes, but it seems a lot like rolling the dice for a bad day.

    >I am sure the working conditions of ATC staff might be improved - but being both a pilot and a programmer, I know that there is no easy digitalization magic wand for aviation.

    I didn't say it'd be free. Just hard to believe radio voice communication is the best way to go.

    [1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/08/21/business/airl...

    • thomas_witt

      today at 3:37 PM

      [flagged]

      • SpicyLemonZest

        today at 5:22 PM

        The problem with the analogy is that aviation has no equivalent to "maintain a safe following distance" or "pull over and come to a stop". If a plane is on an active runway, or in flight, it's generally compelled by physics to keep moving forward one way or another. An automated system that prevented the truck from entering the runway would have been great, but an automated system that falsely reported a truck on the runway might have caused a disaster by forcing the plane into dangerous maneuvers to avoid it.

      • guzfip

        today at 3:40 PM

        Lmao the one hope I have for this country is that I know for sure that the American people will rise up to put a violent end to techbros once they try to “ ban non self driving cars”

        • thomas_witt

          today at 3:45 PM

          And I suppose people flying an 40 year old Cessna 172 will share the same feeling if someone wants to "digitize" it.

      • ApolloFortyNine

        today at 4:41 PM

        There is a ton of tech in airplanes we don't require in every car, your 'argument' here is nothing more than strawman I refuse to entertain.

        • dpark

          today at 5:37 PM

          What tech do you suppose we’d put in an airplane that would stop a fire truck from driving onto the runway? Gatling guns?

  • coryrc

    today at 5:34 PM

    > While that sounds like a nice idea in theory it's the same as "digitizing" road traffic.

    Traffic lights instead of mad max intersections are better.

    Then there's subway Automatic Train Control.

    I don't know that Air Traffic Control staff don't have computer systems for establishing which plane owns what airspace. They at least did do it manually already following specific processes, so it can be at least augmented and a computer can check for conflicts automatically (if it isn't already). And, sure, ATC could still use radio, but there could be a digital standard for ensuring everybody has access to all local airspace data. Or maybe that wouldn't help.

    Your ground vehicle wanting to cross a runway could have the driver punch "cross runway 5" button (cross-referenced with GPS) and try to grab an immediate 30 second mutex on it. The computer can check that the runway is not allocated in that time (i.e. it could be allocated 2 minutes in the future, and that would be fine).

    But, as pointed out elsewhere, obviously some of this is already present: stop lights are supposed to be present at this intersection.

    • bryan_w

      today at 7:14 PM

      The problem is knowing before today how to handle the case where a ground vehicle isn't across the runway in those 30 seconds.

  • PunchyHamster

    today at 6:20 PM

    It's already digitized, he's clueless. The ATC knows where vehicle was and where the plane is going, it looks as simple case of mistake or maybe not watertight enough procedures

  • throwway120385

    today at 6:12 PM

    I'm sure they've started all of this a few times over the past decade. The problem is in the US if you can't start and finish a project like that in less than 2 years then it's effectively dead in the water. The last time we "modernized" ATC was closer to the 90's than today, when there was still some general political will to make our government agencies modern instead of tearing them to pieces.

    • nradov

      today at 7:10 PM

      The FAA NextGen program has been running for literally decades. They have made some progress but there's a lot of work left to be done.

      https://www.faa.gov/nextgen

• angst_ridden

  today at 6:31 PM

  Ha. My first job in '89 was working for an FFRDC reviewing IBM's Jovial code that was going to "revolutionize ATC" by modernizing everything.

  I'm gonna guess that code never went into production. The problem seems easy until you start looking under the hood.

• PunchyHamster

  today at 6:16 PM

  There are systems for it, just not really integrated into emergencies and ground vehicles. Mistakes also happen even if all info required to avoid is present

• smallerize

  today at 3:10 PM

  The BBB allocated $12B for ATC modernization. https://www.faa.gov/new-atcs

  Money isn't the only reason it's so old. The coordination problems are huge. https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/24/us_air_traffic_contro...

• throw0101d

  today at 6:12 PM

  > That ATC still takes place over radio just seems insane at this point.

  There is digital comms with ATC without voice:

  * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controller–pilot_data_link_com...

  * https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/DataComm

  But in the highly dynamic environment of final approach, landing, and taxiing, I doubt it would be practical. Unless we want to try autonomous 'driving' on taxiways and runways?

• nikanj

  today at 7:27 PM

  I would not trust my life to a government software project (See Phoenix Payroll for a typical case)

• throw0101c

  today at 4:29 PM

  > There's 1700+ runway incursions a year in the US alone, each one should be investigated as if an accident occurred and fixes proposed. Like when an accident occurs.

  How many runways crossings are there in a year? How much is "1700+" a percentage of that total?

  • snitty

    today at 6:31 PM

    A "runway incursion" is a very broad term that includes everything from this accident to a single engine Cessna moving past the hold short line prematurely at a quiet airport.

    FAA defines it as "Any occurrence at an aerodrome involving the incorrect presence of an aircraft, vehicle or person on the protected area of a surface designated for the landing and take off of aircraft." [0]

    Many runway incursions run no risk of any accident, but are still flagged as issues, investigated, and punished if appropriate.

    [0] https://www.faa.gov/airports/runway_safety/resources/runway_...

  • bombcar

    today at 5:21 PM

    The point is that it doesn't matter what percentage of the total they are, it's that 1 is too high without adequate explanation (the Gimli Glider caused vehicles to be guilty of a runway incursion by turning an abandoned runway into an active one, for example).

    And the cost of investigating 1,700 should be within the budget.

    • criddell

      today at 5:52 PM

      Of course it matters. All of these entities have limited budgets and personnel and almost unlimited ways they could apply those resources. They have to choose what to chase and they do that by deciding how big of a problem it is.

      • bombcar

        today at 6:12 PM

        If 1,700 is a huge percentage of runway uses (obviously it isn't but grant it, say at a single airport), then it's mandatory it be investigated because it's so huge.

        If 1,700 is a minuscule fraction of all runway uses (as it likely is) then investigating it should be a proportionally minuscule amount of the budget.

        • throw0101d

          today at 6:29 PM

          There are five categories of incursion, with the top one being where a collision occurs:

          * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runway_incursion#Definition

          * https://www.faa.gov/airports/runway_safety/resources/runway_...

          All incursions (in the US) are tracked:

          * https://www.faa.gov/airports/runway_safety/statistics

          Given there are ~45,000 flights per days in the US (and so aircraft and vehicles would move hither and fro around an airport for each flight), 1700 feels like a small number.

          • bombcar

            today at 6:38 PM

            Exactly - it's a small number and should be investigated, because if we reduce the number of all incursions, we reduce the number of collisions (and fatalities).

            • throw0101d

              today at 7:03 PM

              They are classified as operation/ATC error, pilot error, and vehicle/pedestrian error.

              Human can misspeak or mishear instructions, but if they were communicated and understood correctly (a read back was correct), but the pilot had a 'brain fart' and went forward instead of stopping, how do we eliminate brain farts?

              • bombcar

                today at 7:20 PM

                That's a big part of the story of aviation; the way things are communicated has changed because of brain farts, the way things are lined up, etc.

                See 5-2-5 for an example:

                https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/aim_html...

                NOTE- Previous reviews of air traffic events, involving LUAW instructions, revealed that a significant number of pilots read back LUAW instructions correctly and departed without a takeoff clearance. LUAW instructions are not to be confused with a departure clearance; the outcome could be catastrophic, especially during intersecting runway operations.

                The older term was "hold short runway X" and that was too close to "hold runway X" - the first meant do NOT enter the runway, the second meant enter and line up but do NOT takeoff.

                • lisper

                  today at 7:38 PM

                  The old version of “line up and wait” was “taxi into position and hold”. “Hold short of runway” is still in use but means something different.

      • brewdad

        today at 6:36 PM

        You can't know how big of a problem it is without an investigation. Frequently, the initial "obvious" cause of a collision or incursion turns out to be a multi-layered set of failures. Tightening up procedures or recognizing a previously overlooked defect in the systems makes us all safer and should be prioritized.

        We talk about Vision Zero for streets. Vision Zero is actually achievable in aviation.

  • dpe82

    today at 5:25 PM

    My very fuzzy back of the envelope says easily 10s of thousands per day.

• glitchc

  today at 5:49 PM

  You seem to be giving too much credit to the singleton design pattern. We know exactly how well that works on a modern, multi-tasking, preemptible operating system (hint: not well at all).

• zenoprax

  today at 5:38 PM

  > That ATC still takes place over radio just seems insane at this point.

  Voice communication is insane? I suspect you are ignorant of what it is like to actually fly a large aircraft into a busy airport. Fault-tolerant and highly available hardware must facilitate low-latency, single-threaded communication with high semantic density in order to achieve multi-dimensional consensus in a safety-critical, heterogeneous, adversarial environment.

  There is some interesting research that captures this sentiment and shows how complex a solution might need to be (replace "faulty agent" with "human error"): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00051...

  • lxgr

    today at 5:58 PM

    Listening to some recent close call ATC tapes, yes, it seems absolutely insane to manage current traffic levels with the existing number of controllers over voice.

    I don't doubt that it's a very safe system with enough slack allowing for intentional redundancy. But as it is, some of these controllers seem to be limited by their ability to pronounce instructions, leaving absolutely no margin for error and presumably very little room for conscious thought.

  • ianburrell

    today at 5:52 PM

    Voice communication has the advantage is that it can be used without taking off hands and attention off controls. Digital solution would require using device.

    • lxgr

      today at 6:03 PM

      Voice communication can still be used for anything out of the ordinary despite automating the common case.

      Almost all voice transmissions are routine instructions/clearances from ground to air, with the pilots reading them back to reduce the chance of errors. In fact, this already exists and is in wide use in (at least) the US, EU, and in transoceanic airspace.

      Of course, now you have two systems that can fail, and reducing reliance on the older one can easily cause automation complacency (which is a well-researched source of errors) and require more frequent refresher courses if the skill is not practiced on a continuos basis.

      I suspect that that these are the reasons it's not commonly used for approach and tower operations: There's a lot more spontaneous and/or nonstandard stuff happening in those flight phases, and as you say you don't want a pilot's eyes on a tiny screen/keyboard instead of on their instruments or out the window.

  • jorvi

    today at 6:10 PM

    HN has recently banned AI written / edited comments. Be better.

Captain Steve breakdown: https://youtu.be/Hx-GFeErXD8?si=iND_BkDrtGNapB7Q His videos are pretty insightful and always respectful. Highly recommended. Expect him to have new videos as more information becomes available.

Video of the collision - https://x.com/airmainengineer/status/2036116651167384018

• canucker2016

  today at 6:57 PM

  Another link, video is slightly different (but collision is the same) - user is trying to select a region of the video I think

  https://www.instagram.com/p/DWO75cTju2e/

ATC recording on https://www.liveatc.net/recordings.php Fire truck was cleared to cross and then told to stop. I'm not sure if they were the only controller working at the time, they continued working after the incident which seems unusual; my understanding is normally they'd be relieved by another controller.

• brownieeee

  today at 12:04 PM

  They were indeed the only controller, working both ground and tower frequencies.

  • the_mitsuhiko

    today at 1:55 PM

    Which, as a non informed person but someone who needs to travel by plane, sounds absolutely insane. Was it always possible to staff that with a single person or is that a result of understaffing?

    • ryandrake

      today at 5:29 PM

      As an informed person (PPL flying single engine into smallish towered airports all the time), it is absolutely insane for an airport the size of LGA. Occasionally, you will encounter one guy doing tower and ground at very small class D airports or during not-so-busy shifts.

      • ultrarunner

        today at 5:45 PM

        To play devil's advocate, ASEL into small deltas is significantly different than receiving full-stop IFRs late at night.

        This small mistake (and it is initially small, just catastrophic) is a system breakdown, not necessarily a staffing breakdown. Though staffing is definitely a wider issue in the NAS.

        Edit to add: looking at this incident closer it appears LGA was busy enough to make a single tower/ground controller an obviously bad plan. Still, systemically, there's enough low hanging fruit here, like ADSb in for the airport trucks or hold short line guard lights. I hope the takeaway isn't just "don't have controllers make mistakes".

        • ryandrake

          today at 6:06 PM

          Yea, if you listen to the ATC audio, you can hear that in addition to the normal high workload of handling both ground and tower, this guy had an emergency aircraft on a taxiway to deal with, too. A lot of holes in the swiss cheese lined up, but one of them clearly is ATC workload.

    • _moof

      today at 6:43 PM

      Speaking very generally, it's not unusual at all. Tower and ground are combined all the time - at smaller airports.

      Should they be combined at LGA when both (crossing) runways are in use, and there's an incident on the field? (The fire trucks were on their way to investigate a smell on the flight deck of another airplane that had to abort takeoff twice.)

      I'd say hell no.

    • wk_end

      today at 5:19 PM

      I fly out of a small-to-medium-sized airport in Canada and I've never seen it happen there. The idea of one person being responsible for both tower and ground in the busiest airspace in the US is absolute insanity.

      • fakedang

        today at 6:39 PM

        Agreed, but isn't O'Hare the busiest airport in the US?

        Edit:- It's Atlanta.

        • rkomorn

          today at 6:48 PM

          Busiest airspace and busiest airport are two different things, technically.

          The airspace that combines JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark, is the busiest airspace in the US.

          • rhcom2

            today at 7:01 PM

            It's a crazy airspace. Add to that Teterboro, 12 miles from NYC and Republic ~20 miles from NYC, along with all the heliports on the Hudson.

            • rkomorn

              today at 7:21 PM

              I don't envy anyone having to work in that airspace in any capacity.

    • cameldrv

      today at 3:20 PM

      That seems unusual to me. It’s common at smaller airports, but for a big one like LaGuardia I’d think tower and ground would be two different controllers, even lateish at night like this was. I know there has been a staffing problem for controllers in the NY area for some time.

    • banannaise

      today at 6:19 PM

      It's not unusual for airports to reduce staff at night, and the incident occurred at 23:36 local time. Even at a very large airport in a very busy traffic area, one controller can probably handle normal operations at this hour.

      The obvious problem is what happens when operations become abnormal. ATC shouldn't be staffed for normal operations, because then abnormal operations lead to catastrophe. Welcome to last night: the weather is bad, which causes a plane to abort two takeoffs, which causes that plane to need emergency services. This increases the controller's workload beyond his capacity, so he accidentally clears the emergency vehicle to cross in front of a landing airplane, and they can't see the airplane because the weather is bad, so they follow the instruction and promptly get hit with an airplane.

      When some bad weather can be the difference between "this is fine, one controller can handle it" and two dead pilots, you need to be staffed for bad weather.

    • johnbarron

      today at 6:24 PM

      Reddit aviation groups are full of professional pilots, saying how terrified they of flying into La Guardia or JFK, recounting close calls, with one saying how he avoided those two for 10 years...

    • f1shy

      today at 6:11 PM

      It IS insane. Specially for LGA

    • today at 2:44 PM

    • crooked-v

      today at 5:24 PM

      It's absolutely understaffing.

      • ryandrake

        today at 5:38 PM

        But think of the money they saved by not having to pay another air traffic controller! A controller's yearly salary is the cost of about 10 seconds of the Iran war, based on the recently-reported figure of $11.3B for six days.

        • ultrarunner

          today at 5:48 PM

          I don't think it's money. I think it's requirements and training pipeline restraints. The system is predicated on being able to throw bodies at the problem, but there is a distinct lack of qualified individuals to back that up. Personally, I didn't realize ATC as a possible career path until I was 36-- imagine my surprise when I found that I had already aged out.

          • throwway120385

            today at 6:16 PM

            Who would want to work that job once they find out what the day-to-day is like? I had an intern who looked at that out of the Air Force but he found out what you get paid and what the expectations are for the job and he figured he'd try his luck on something easier and better-paying like life-preserving medical devices. On a related note, why do you think nobody who you'd actually want teaching public school actually teaches public school in the US?

        • selectodude

          today at 5:51 PM

          It’s not a money thing. It’s a shortage of people who are mentally able to do the job mixed with terrible hours and early forced retirements. ATC school has a failure rate of over 50 percent.

          • wk_end

            today at 5:53 PM

            It's partially a money thing. ATC is under-compensated. They'd get more - and more talented - people interested if the money made up for the stress, hours, and early forced retirement.

          • arrowsmith

            today at 6:34 PM

            Why not both? If it paid better then more people would apply to ATC school.

            • selectodude

              today at 6:36 PM

              ATC positions already have a very low chance of even getting a spot in ATC school. There are tons of applicants for every opening.

    • bilbo0s

      today at 4:16 PM

      [flagged]

      • wk_end

        today at 5:16 PM

        New York State is large. It has lots of airports [0] - although not all of those are towered, you're still dividing that 260 down by quite a lot. And I don't believe it's standard practice to fly some dude in Buffalo down to NYC to cover a shift. There's a huge staffing problem in ATC right now.

        That staffing problem mostly comes down to it being demanding work that's poorly compensated for the amount of skill and education and stress involved; there are high hiring standards, you can't work past 56, and you can't even get started if you're past 31. If you're interested in aviation, you can make far more money as a pilot and it's a much more pleasant job; why would anyone become an ATC?

        [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airports_in_New_York_(...

        • bilbo0s

          today at 5:30 PM

          >you're still dividing that 260 down by quite a lot

          No you're not.

          In the state of New York, the most it could possibly be divided down is by 32.

          And that only in the case that ATC are distributed to towered facilities equally whether commercial or simple public-use. Which we both know they are not.

          And I'll do you a really big favor and not even mention the fact that there are wayyy more than 260 ATC in New York state. Again, I was just being friendly to your view. I strongly suspect that you are also aware that there are well over 1000.

          • wk_end

            today at 5:46 PM

            260/32 is around 8. "A lot" is subjective but I think that fits the bill?

            LGA is open 16 hours a day, seven days a week. Of course this is an extreme over-simplification, but if LGA only had eight ATC at their disposal total it's easy to see - or at least, much easier to see than if your working number is 260 - how they might have only one guy available to work Tower/Ground on a night shift. Please bear in mind that there's more to ATC in an airspace like NYC's than just Tower/Ground, and that ATC need regular breaks. Maybe they had two people but no redundancy, so one guy was covering both tasks during a break?

            • bilbo0s

              today at 6:06 PM

              >so one guy was covering both tasks during a break

              Which is exactly the practice that needs to stop.

              You and I both know there are far more than 8 ATC controllers that work LGA. Please don't try to assert that there was no way to even have a relief available. (As appears to be the case in this instance.)

              Whatever caused the lack of availability that night needs to be urgently addressed. Please don't try to tell me we would have needed to train more ATC controllers to provide even a single relief at that tower last night. We both know how many ATC work LGA so we both know that's not true.

              • wk_end

                today at 6:29 PM

                As it's not SOP to have one guy working both tower and ground at an airport the size of LGA, I'm going to assert that the most likely scenario is that, yes, there was no way to even have a relief available.

                What caused the lack of availability is the well-documented understaffing. Everyone in aviation knows that ATC is understaffed right now, and the reasons for the understaffing are well-understood. To come in and instead say, "well, I'm a mathematician, I'm going to make some simplifying assumptions - the only simplifying assumptions permitted - and do some basic arithmetic to show that there were hundreds of controllers available, clearly the guys responsible for ATC at LaGuardia don't know as much about running an airport safely as me" is beyond silly.

      • kube-system

        today at 5:11 PM

        Are you under the impression that air traffic controllers only work at towers in commercial airports?

        Your math is based on incorrect assumptions -- the well-documented ATC shortage actually exists.

        • bilbo0s

          today at 5:25 PM

          Do you know how many towered facilities there are in New York state?

          32.

          Let's assume only 260 ATC for 32 towers. (Not true, but again, we're being friendly to the conspiracy nuts.) We'll further assume every tower is staffed equally. (Also not true, but again, friendly to the nuts.)

          8 Controllers for each tower if those assumptions were true. Which they are not.

          Why is one controller on duty in a commercial airport? Not a public-use airport, a commercial airport?

          Please stop with the BS.

          • kube-system

            today at 5:41 PM

            And for my next question: are you under the impression that air traffic controllers only work at towers?

            • bilbo0s

              today at 5:53 PM

              Not at all.

              But now that I know that you know a bit about ATC. Let's drop the pretense.

              We're both fully aware that there are right around 1250 ATC controllers in New York state. I further suspect that both of us know exactly how many work LGA. So there's no need to speak in generalities any longer.

              It's time to get serious about determining what happened in this instance. It appears, from the initial available information, that there was not even a relief on site.

              That practice needs to stop, and please don't try to tell me we don't have the available staff to bring it to an end. You and I both know that's horse manure.

      • CrossVR

        today at 5:17 PM

        The problem is that you're comparing numbers from before Trump's presidency, but the understaffing of FAA ATCs goes all the way back to when the Reagan administration fired all ATCs to break up the union and forbade the FAA from rehiring any former union members.

        The FAA has been playing catch up with training enough ATCs to meet demand ever since, which isn't helped by a sequence of bad decisions made regarding ATC training schools.

    • buckle8017

      today at 2:03 PM

      [flagged]

      • jdlshore

        today at 2:08 PM

        This sounds like a right-wing conspiracy theory. Are you saying that, in order to hire more black people, the FAA deliberately created a test only black people could pass? Do you have any evidence of this assertion?

        • jdlshore

          today at 6:52 PM

          Note: SideburnsOfDoom looks into the claim below and says, “In summary, spending 5 minutes digging into it gives every impression of it being culture war nonsense.”

        • appreciatorBus

          today at 2:15 PM

          Unfortunately, it is not a conspiracy theory, right wing or otherwise.

          Lots of people have written about it, here’s a few:

          https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-full-story-of-the-fa...

          https://simpleflying.com/faa-air-traffic-controller-applican...

          https://www.blockedandreported.org/p/premium-the-faas-bizarr...

          https://www.newsweek.com/faa-reject-air-traffic-controllers-...

          https://highsierrapilots.club/faa-hiring-scandal/

          • jdlshore

            today at 3:51 PM

            The only domain I recognize is Newsweek, and given the nature of astroturfing, I’m not going to trust domains I don’t recognize.

            All the Newsweek article says is that a lawsuit was filed. It doesn’t support GP’s claim that the FAA made “an impossible test, and gave black people the answers.” A lawsuit isn’t evidence of wrongdoing; it’s only evidence of an accusation of wrongdoing.

            • tptacek

              today at 5:09 PM

              Worth noting that Newsweek went out of business over a decade ago and their domain and branding was bought by a cult and used to run an SEO business.

            • SideburnsOfDoom

              today at 5:30 PM

              You're correct to be suspicious.

              Looking at the front page of 2 of those domains ( tracingwoodgrains, blockedandreported ) they are ... ah .. not exactly impartial. Sample headlines: "How Wikipedia Whitewashes Mao - The Anatomy of Ideological Capture" and "The Politics of Misery - Why are young liberals so depressed".

              The simpleflying link reports merely that a lawsuit was filed. It gives the name of the person filing the lawsuit as this character: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Laxalt who is also ... not exactly impartial, seeing as he "was the Republican party nominee for governor of Nevada in the 2018 election". And as other searches suggest, no stranger to frivolous litigation or false claims.

              In summary, spending 5 minutes digging into it gives every impression of it being confected culture war nonsense.

          • cjrp

            today at 2:21 PM

            I don't think this explains understaffing though.

            "The lawsuit doesn’t allege incompetent controllers were hired instead of CTI graduates. Instead, it states that the CTI graduates weren’t given the opportunity to demonstrate their competency."

            It sounds like they hired different people, rather than fewer.

            • appreciatorBus

              today at 2:38 PM

              Not a pilot or a controller, just a nerd. My take from reading about it was that a large number of high performing potential ATC controllers who had followed the traditional pipeline were ditched. Ofc it's possible they hired exactly as many ppl as they would have otherwise, but in any job with a long lead time for training, a sudden change in the pipeline is going to cause ripples further on for years to come. Maybe the ppl they did hire had a higher attrition rate so that while they had the same # of ppl in the short term, in the long term, they faced shortages. Maybe some % of those they did hire required some % of extra supervision or training. Ofc not insurmountable or fatal, it just means extra pressure that will exert itself in some fashion for years to come after the initial disruption. I have no idea of last night's incident could be considered downstream of the testing change, I was just responding to the allegation that it was a conspiracy theory, however I also don't think it's implausible that it contributed to it in some indirect way.

              • jmalicki

                today at 3:06 PM

                Maybe the ppl they hired had a lower attrition rate! Maybe the people hired required less supervision and training than the CTI graduates would have! Maybe this had rippling effects on increasing their hiring pipeline as people of color were more likely to see opportunities here.

                Your comment presuming it was at best neutral, and any likely change was for the worse is exactly what racism looks like.

                • buckle8017

                  today at 5:43 PM

                  Except they had a much higher attrition rate because ATC is a terrible job.

                  • jmalicki

                    today at 6:36 PM

                    Did they? If there's evidence great!

• embedding-shape

  today at 1:52 PM

  > I'm not sure if they were the only controller working at the time, they continued working after the incident which seems unusual; my understanding is normally they'd be relieved by another controller

  I remember late last year, couple of months ago, US ATC controllers were without pay but forced to work anyways (similar to TSA I suppose, although I don't think they were forced, but volunteered to work without salary), is that still the situation? Couldn't find any updates about that the situation been resolved, nor any updates that it's ongoing, if so though it feels like it'd be related to the amount of available controllers.

  • FuriouslyAdrift

    today at 7:31 PM

    The budget was signed Feb 3 this year to fund most of the govt (excepting DHS) through September 2026. ATC were not paid from Sept 30, 2025 until Feb 4, 2026. They receive back pay. They are also supposed to get a raise and funds set aside to hire 2500 more ATC but that is currently held up in the DHS funding fight.

    It's a mess.

  • nradov

    today at 4:50 PM

    ATCs weren't exactly forced to work: they aren't slaves and are free to quit any time. But if they didn't show up for assigned shifts even though they weren't getting paid then they were subject to disciplinary action including termination. Some of them called in sick, or took on temporary second jobs to bring in some cash (obviously a bad thing from a fatigue management standpoint). After the government shutdown they were paid in arrears for all of the hours they worked. It's crazy that Congress plays political games with essential services like ATC.

  • tialaramex

    today at 2:21 PM

    The US has had trouble keeping enough controllers. It's a skilled but extremely stressful job, and so retention would always be difficult but the US also works hard to make it suck more than it should, and of course the over-work from not having enough people makes that even worse.

    But no, AIUI only things that were somehow deemed part of "Homeland Security" are frozen, the TSA are part of Homeland Security but the ATC are under the FAA. So this particular partial government funding lapse wasn't causal, at least directly.

    • mrguyorama

      today at 6:42 PM

      Specifically, Reagan made a point to cut our nose to spite our face just to not pay ATC workers more money. For political and Ideological reasons.

      So why the fuck would any talented individual choose to go work for the "Get an example made out of you" department, on top of the horrific stress of the actual job!?

      The idea of a union that "isn't allowed" to strike is a joke. Next will be a union that has a max membership of 1!

• floatrock

  today at 3:16 PM

  Utterly unqualified to suggest any causes (wait for the NTSB report on that), but couple compounding factors I've read elsewhere to begin to understand the situation and context:

  - Another plane was out of position, grabbing some attention of the controller

  - Stop communication was ambiguous about whether talking to previous plane or firetruck

  - The colliding plane didn't have "explicit" landing clearance, but a "follow previous plane and land the same way unless told otherwise" implicit landing clearance. In Europe, planes need an explicit landing clearance, the act of granting it may have brought attention to the runway contention. US implicit system (arguably) is a bit more efficient, debate will now be is it worth it (pilots are now required to read back instructions because of past blood... will this result in same thing?)

  - This was around midnight and apparently a little foggy, making visual contacts harder

  Remember folks, disasters like this are rarely caused by a single factor. NTSB reports are excellent post-mortems that look at all contributing factors and analyze how they compounded into failure. Be human here.

  • nradov

    today at 4:38 PM

    In the USA at controlled airports, aircraft also need explicit landing clearance.

    "Jazz 646, number 2, cleared to land 4."

    https://youtu.be/Pbm-QJAAzNY?si=h3VEuVNLMf9Z8D1c&t=126

  • HDThoreaun

    today at 7:42 PM

    > Stop communication was ambiguous about whether talking to previous plane or firetruck

    "stop stop stop, truck 1 stop stop stop" I mean maybe it was ambiguous for half a second but he pretty quickly said "truck 1 stop". I guess we'll have to wait for the sync up to see if it was too late to stop by then

  • f1shy

    today at 6:22 PM

    They did have a very explicit clearance.

    The controller said “truck 1 stop” that is not ambiguous.

• oncallthrow

  today at 2:28 PM

  I’m always staggered by how stressed and tbh (not necessarily their fault given the circumstances) unprofessional US ATCs sound.

  Sharp contrast with Europeans

  • f1shy

    today at 6:27 PM

    In Europe is illegal to capture and publish ATC. I don't understand why. Anyway I do not know what are you comparing.

    From pilot friends, in best case I would say a big “depends” in some countries are very unprofessional, in others very professional (anyway total unfair generalization). There were already accidents because of that, for example because the twr communicated with locals in non english, so not everybody was at the same page.

Emergency vehicles were en route to another emergency in progress on the other runway. Sadly it sounds like a fire truck was cleared to cross the active runway moments before the CRJ landed. By the time the controller realized that mistake it was too late.

• _moof

  today at 11:28 AM

  I'm very, very curious about whether the ARFF crew visually cleared the runway and final before crossing the hold short line. It's standard procedure for flight crew to do this, specifically to mitigate the risk of ATC errors.

  • gortok

    today at 1:10 PM

    Reports are there were fog and rain at La Guardia at the time of the incident. They were on a short final, and it’s entirely possible they were not visible to the fire truck’s crew.

    • _moof

      today at 6:47 PM

      I have over 1,000 hours as PIC in the NY area alone, in all seasons and all weather, and I was in the region last night, awake when the accident happened. LGA was reporting 4SM -RA BR FEW045 BKN090 OVC110 at the time of the accident. The weather wasn't anywhere close to what I'd call "bad" here. Sprinkles and some high clouds.

      I can almost guarantee you the airplane was visible from taxiway D.

  • bombcar

    today at 12:30 PM

    At night with multiple runways it can be very hard to see a plane on final.

    Still, I'm always hesitant to cross an active runway.

  • cmiles8

    today at 2:00 PM

    Yes ARFF should still look before crossing, but the weather wasn’t great with limited visibility and thus even if they looked it’s possible they didn’t see anything.

  • PierceJoy

    today at 12:13 PM

    I mean, isn't it obvious that they didn't?

    • wat10000

      today at 12:34 PM

      It’s obvious that either they didn’t, or they did but they didn’t see the plane. We don’t know which.

• arrowsmith

  today at 6:35 PM

  Do we know what the other emergency was? All the reporting I've seen has been very vague on this.

  • kayodelycaon

    today at 6:45 PM

    United aircraft did a high speed abort (80+ knots) and afterwards, fumes from hot brakes were entering the back of the cabin. (Not uncommon.)

    Source: Mentour Pilot. https://www.youtube.com/live/Bb4CcoK0KLM

  • ms7m

    today at 6:40 PM

    Unrelated United aborted takeoff, as well as reported some odors in the cabin from the flight attendants.

Was curious if ground vehicles at airports also use transponders to communicate position to the radio tower, and it turns out the FAA put out a report last year on potential solutions to avoid this exact situation:

https://www.faa.gov/airports/airport_safety/certalerts/part_...

• fsh

  today at 10:01 AM

  Many airports have ADS-B transponders in their ground vehicles. You can see them on flightradar or adsbexchange.

• throw0101c

  today at 11:02 AM

  > Was curious if ground vehicles at airports also use transponders to communicate position […]

  They do at CYYZ (Toronto Pearson):

  * https://www.flightradar24.com/43.68,-79.63/13 (zoomed in)

  * https://www.flightradar24.com/airport/yyz

  Also at CYUL (Montreal Trudeau) and CYVR (Vancouver International).

• zX41ZdbW

  today at 10:40 AM

  Ground vehicles with transponders: https://adsb.exposed/?dataset=Planes&zoom=7&lat=42.1262&lng=...

• ViewTrick1002

  today at 10:56 AM

  Or just do like the rest of the world. No anticipated clearences to land, you only ever get a clerance when the runway is empty and yours.

  • naberhausj

    today at 4:10 PM

    I think this is a good idea.

    The only negative I can think of is that it will generally involve accepting and responding to clearances on short final. I think adding more tasks to that critical stage of flight probably increases danger a little. Especially for low time student pilots like myself. That's particularly relevant in the U.S. because we have a higher percentage of student and private pilots than most of the world.

    Overall, though, I'm fully convinced this would be safer.

  • bombcar

    today at 5:25 PM

    Even without anticipated clearance to land you have to define what "the runway is empty and yours" means.

  • mememememememo

    today at 11:02 AM

    Yeah that gut wrenched ATC had to stay on point and ensure the next plane to land did a go around. Scary stuff.

    Us lot have more people doing SRE ensuring p99 10ms for something frankly way less important. It is a nuts world.

• altmanaltman

  today at 9:28 AM

  LaGuardia has that system, it still failed to prevent this

  • cucumber3732842

    today at 10:05 AM

    Transponder doesn't alter the laws of physics for the landing plane you just cut off. I guess it gives ATC a ~5sec jump on telling some other flight to go around.

    I'd bet a lot of money that however the system is implemented the police and fire get special treatment when it comes to process (i.e. asking permission before they go somewhere planes might be) and that is part of what lead to this.

    • organsnyder

      today at 5:19 PM

      > I'd bet a lot of money that however the system is implemented the police and fire get special treatment when it comes to process (i.e. asking permission before they go somewhere planes might be) and that is part of what lead to this.

      I highly doubt that any system would intentionally give ground vehicles of any kind special treatment on an active runway.

    • PunchyHamster

      today at 6:22 PM

      The trajectory of the plane is obvious enough that it should be able to predict where it will likely be in 30 seconds or a minute. You can't cheat physics, if it is going down in direction of runway, it is landing or at worst will do go-around, so the services should be alterted runway is no-go automatically

https://www.avherald.com/h?article=536bb98e

> Captain and first officer are reported to have died in the accident, two fire fighters on board of the truck received serious injuries, 13 passengers received injuries.

https://x.com/thenewarea51/status/2035926457394876837

ATC audio

make a mistake, recognize it, and then have to continue on your job, knowing you likely just killed people, because if you don't others will die.

The weight of some jobs is immense, and our civilization relies upon workers to shoulder the burden everyday.

• OsrsNeedsf2P

  today at 7:09 PM

  He asked the truck to stop multiple times. That's got to be so stressful and annoying - knowing you asked the truck to stop, but for whatever reason the command wasn't received.

• wat10000

  today at 12:36 PM

  And these guys are tremendously overworked because the government can’t get its shit together to hire enough people to staff at appropriate levels.

  • callmeal

    today at 12:48 PM

    "Government"? Let's call it what it is. ITYM "Republicans".

    • tatersolid

      today at 1:03 PM

      The shortage of ATC staff dates back to the Clinton Administration. It’s just hard to attract people into a 5+ year training program for a very stressful job where you might get bounced near the end with no payout and no transferrable job skills.

      • achr2

        today at 1:11 PM

        No the shortage goes back to Regan when their justified strike was busted. It ended the PATCO “union” and was a negative turning point for labour unions in general.

      • lesuorac

        today at 1:07 PM

        I think you mean Reagan. He removed the union for the ATC not Clinton.

        Honestly, you can generally just blame Reagan for about anything. A presidency about weaking labor, strengthening Iran, and ballooning the deficit is uh never going to leave good traces.

        • nradov

          today at 2:28 PM

          Reagan did the right thing in that case. Government employees should never have collective bargaining rights. Public employee unions are contrary to the interests of taxpayers.

          • superxpro12

            today at 5:53 PM

            Centralization of all power in the government is also contrary to the interests of the taxpayers.

            Every time i see an anti-union article, its usually about unions that do good union things...

            But noone ever complains about the police union. It's always the public goods people like ATC or teachers.

            • InitialLastName

              today at 7:11 PM

              People complain about police unions all the time, it's just their complainants don't overlap much with the people who complain about private sector unions.

          • kube-system

            today at 5:39 PM

            Over the course of the past year, I think we've seen more evidence that the federal workforce's collective bargaining rights aren't strong enough. Workers' employment contracts are being ignored, employees are being threatened, constructively terminated, all in an attempt to enact RIFs without following the law.

            Things are happening to the federal workforce right now that aren't even legal in the private sector.

            • nradov

              today at 6:06 PM

              If contracts are violated then the impacted parties can seek redress through the courts. Government employee unions aren't needed for that.

              • throwway120385

                today at 6:24 PM

                You have to have your contract violated for a significant amount before you can notionally afford to hire a lawyer to fight it out. Below 5 figures it doesn't make much financial sense to do that for most people, so they just eat it instead. It's how a lot of "theft of wages" and other mistreatment happens so often. Lawyers don't take those cases for free, and court isn't free either. And you're not going to instantly appear at the top of the docket for something small like that especially if the government buries you in procedure. They can do that for years.

                But sure, yeah you can seek redress through the courts.

              • kube-system

                today at 6:18 PM

                Suing the federal government solo is an insurmountable task for most people -- even more so while they're being constructively terminated. Employee unions have been suing on their workers behalf over the past year, but the executive branch can drag out federal trials for a lot longer than people can stay without a job.

          • callmeal

            today at 3:53 PM

            Does your comment also include the police union(s)?

            • cake_robot

              today at 5:08 PM

              Yes absolutely. They're a perfect example of the unique issues w/ collective bargaining for public services.

            • nradov

              today at 4:25 PM

              Yes, absolutely. No government employees should ever have collective bargaining rights. If they want better wages and working conditions then they can advocate for those through the political process, the same as any other citizen.

              • rounce

                today at 7:42 PM

                In your suggestion any other citizen has collective bargaining at their disposal, do they not?

              • wat10000

                today at 6:20 PM

                Collective bargaining rights shouldn’t even be a separate thing. They’re just a natural consequence of the fact that free speech is protected and slavery is illegal. The idea of an illegal strike is bizarre.

          • RC_ITR

            today at 7:06 PM

            This is a discussion with nearly unanimous agreement that poor ATC working conditions are causing Americans to die in preventable aviation accidents.

            Maybe this is the one evidence-driven case where you can be open minded about the value of a public employee union?

          • fatbird

            today at 6:17 PM

            Public employee unions are contrary to the interests of taxpayers

            This is not obvious on its face, but also, paying taxes is not my only concern wrt the civil society in which I live.

      • xboxnolifes

        today at 7:13 PM

        Not just attract, it also has very high standards. And many people fail out.

      • rwyinuse

        today at 6:09 PM

        Somehow Europe manages to do that well enough.

      • MaxfordAndSons

        today at 4:00 PM

        ATC/GTC seems like a really strong candidate for partial automation with recent advances in AI. Obviously we'd still want some expert humans in the loop for exceptional situations, but I have to imagine there's a way to significantly reduce the cognitive burden/stress for these folks.

        • nradov

          today at 4:43 PM

          Recent advances in AI aren't useful for routine operations in safety critical domains such as aviation because we don't know how to verify and test them. An LLM is effectively an unpredictable black box with unknown failure modes. There is opportunity for greater automation but probably based on classical deterministic programming.

          • matthewkayin

            today at 6:30 PM

            In addition to this, LLMs are also simply too slow right now to deliver the results ATC would need.

            Ridiculous to see people acting like LLMs are a silver bullet for every problem without putting any thought into what that would actually look like.

    • jasonlotito

      today at 1:20 PM

      Yes. Reagan was a Republican.

    • wat10000

      today at 2:51 PM

      No, I mean government. This has been a problem for a long time and there hasn't been any serious effort to improve the situation by anyone.

      • callmeal

        today at 3:55 PM

        Yup, it's been a problem ever since Regan (a Republican) fired over 11,000 ATC employees. And by "anyone" ITYM "republicans" again, because Democrats have been trying for years.

        See this article from 2017: https://www.govexec.com/oversight/2017/06/house-democrats-in...

        • wat10000

          today at 6:36 PM

          How many years since Reagan have Democrats held both chambers of Congress and the White House? It’s a few. And yet we’re still here.

          • pjmorris

            today at 6:49 PM

            That's because all the Democrats are Republicans.

            "”The truth of the matter is that my policies are so mainstream that if I had set the same policies that I had back in the 1980s, I would be considered a moderate Republican,” - Barack Obama [0]

            [0] https://thehill.com/policy/finance/137156-obama-says-hed-be-...

            • j_w

              today at 7:12 PM

              This is not a statement of Republicans and Democrats being the same, but a statement of Republicans going off the deep end in during and after Reagan.

              Obama was a very moderate Democrat for his time. If you go back in time a moderate Democrat and Republican were similar because the "center" was more reasonable. Now the "center" is just people that are ashamed that they vote Republican.

            • wat10000

              today at 7:39 PM

              If we accept that, then "government" and "Republicans" would be pretty much synonymous, so my original point stands. (Not that I accept it, but even if I did.)

  • exabrial

    today at 6:07 PM

    Another option: they shouldn't be government employees at all. It would be much better for them to work for the actual airports themselves and be certified by the government or a private testing organization instead.

    • slg

      today at 6:14 PM

      LaGuardia, like many (most?) airports, is run by the government. This is a distinction without a difference, at least in this case.

      • throwway120385

        today at 6:21 PM

        Which government? State, Federal, City, or a Port Commission? There is in fact a significant distinction between the responsibilities and capabilities of each of these levels of government and you can't lump them all together. My home airport is operated by a port commission, which is government, but the port commission's task is to operate the ports.

        • slg

          today at 6:43 PM

          >There is in fact a significant distinction between the responsibilities and capabilities of each of these levels of government and you can't lump them all together.

          But all private businesses have the same responsibilities and capabilities and therefore can be lumped together as one entity? The asymmetry in how you're critiquing the way this is discussed ends up revealing your bias.

      • exabrial

        today at 7:30 PM

        LaGuardia is not ran by a local government, not the Federal Government.

    • wat10000

      today at 6:14 PM

      There’s a lot of ATC that isn’t specific to a single airport. And lots of airports are owned by a government anyway.

• curiousgal

  today at 7:02 PM

  > our civilization relies upon workers to shoulder the burden everyday.

  Our civilization? Nah. Just that one shithole country. Greatest country in the world and they schedule a single guy to work both tower and ground frequencies at a major airport, it's almost like they're asking for this shit to happen.

  And before anyone mentions understaffing, this literally one of the plethora of problems that the rest of the world figured out while the U.S. continues to act special.

I'm curious about what kind of visualization does the ATC have at the disposal about the current occupancy of the individual tarmac segments? I'd assume if an airplane is approaching for landing on a specific runway, that runway should have been clearly marked as restricted for access until the plane would actually land and clear it?

• cjrp

  today at 2:10 PM

  In the US, airplanes can be cleared for landing while the runway is occupied (you can be number two, three, etc. for landing and still be cleared). It's different in other countries, where you can only be issued a landing clearance if the runway is clear or anticipated to be clear before you land (e.g. the plane before you is already exiting the runway).

  • shrx

    today at 2:21 PM

    Still, the runway could be reserved for landing aircrafts only, still preventing access to all other types of vehicles.

    • danso

      today at 2:48 PM

      How are fire trucks supposed to respond to incidents involving airplanes, as it appears this case involves, if the runway is off limits to them?

      • nradov

        today at 4:41 PM

        The way it's supposed to work, the ground controller first verifies that there are no traffic conflicts before clearing vehicles to cross an active runway.

        • bombcar

          today at 5:27 PM

          Which is exactly what failed here, so saying "it shouldn't fail by not failing" doesn't help terribly much.

          Having grade-separate crossings for vehicles might, but that introduces new issues (plane skidding off runway could hit the incline and break up).

          • selectodude

            today at 5:53 PM

            O’Hare has those but it’s not helpful for emergencies that happen on the runway itself.

How did it end up like that with the nose up: what is holding it up?

• Reason077

  today at 8:23 AM

  Gravity. The aircraft is heavier at the back, where the engines are. With the nose severely damaged/missing, the centre of gravity has shifted aft, so what’s left of the nose is sticking up in the air.

• _moof

  today at 6:51 PM

  Google "weight and balance" if you'd like an in-depth answer.

• cschmatzler

  today at 8:21 AM

  Front fell off, people deplaned (while still horizontal) which shifted the balance backwards. It’s sitting on the rear bulkhead,

  • weird-eye-issue

    today at 8:25 AM

    I guess there is more weight in the relatively small section of the front that came off than I expected

    • ambicapter

      today at 6:11 PM

      It's balance, you don't need a large difference in weight for it to tilt backwards.

    • fredoralive

      today at 9:51 AM

      I’d guess the front landing gear assembly is going to be fairly heavy, and appears to be missing. This model of plane also has its engines at the rear, not under the wing, which will move the balance to the back.

      • weird-eye-issue

        today at 11:53 AM

        Oh yeah that definitely makes sense

    • wat10000

      today at 1:36 PM

      Planes typically have their center of gravity just forward of the rear wheels. This makes it easier to rotate on takeoff.

      The margins are thin enough that certain planes will sometimes have people in the back get off first, before the people on the front, to avoid tipping onto the tail like this.

According to other news sources, the pilots lost their lives here, too.

• azalemeth

  today at 8:24 AM

  The entire cockpit, front toilet and galley area, and probably a front row seat have all been utterly destroyed. Unfortunately I'd be amazed if the death toll stays at two.

Are the increased number of air incidents since Dec 2024 reflective of anything real or is it more attention on something? Brigida v. USDOT comes to mind but doesn't seem relevant. I'm sure we could all construct a chain of "this thing happened that caused that which caused this" and so on, but I'm curious if someone has done the effort to see whether such a chain is defensible.

Also, did the pilots die in the collision or in some sort of aftermath? The cockpit looks absolutely smashed.

• ryandrake

  today at 5:45 PM

  You can probably construct a realistic chain of failure that goes all the way back to political tomfoolery and bad air traffic control leadership/staffing decisions, but that makes the wrong people look bad, so they'll probably blame individuals further down the totem pole like the controller or pilot and call it a day.

Yet another blow to the confidence of flying in this country.

• trvz

  today at 8:44 AM

  More accurately, the risk has increased by at least one order of magnitude, but the confidence of the public has largely stayed the same.

• calf

  today at 9:51 AM

  This comes to mind how during the Boeing news scandals, commenters would confidently argue "Flying is still ridiculously safe, statistically speaking", "these things happen every day, just underreported", and "you/people are irrational for not flying Boeing". It's a very curious argument to me. Is the ATC infrastructure issue analogous or not, etc.

  • LaffertyDev

    today at 6:02 PM

    You can view the actual data and control for your own recency bias one way or the other. I see data from 2005 - 2024 trivially accessible.

    https://www.ntsb.gov/safety/Pages/research.aspx

  • kakacik

    today at 5:36 PM

    Maybe US media, hardly an unbiased news source about US events, especially when hundreds of billions are flying around about incompetent massive employer and lobbyist.

    Nowhere else in the world you would hear such statements. Boeings simply disappeared from Europe, those few that were here before. I am sure they are still used somewhere but I haven't flown any in past 7-8 years. Heck, I haven't seen any in South east Asia neither (but that may be due to luck).

    I check this with all bookings, no way I am flying that piece of shit if I can anyhow avoid that, not alone and quadruple that with family.

    • krisoft

      today at 6:53 PM

      > Boeings simply disappeared from Europe

      That is just simply false. There are many boeings flying in europe. Just by randomly clicking around on flightradar24 I found multiple right now in the air.

  • actionfromafar

    today at 10:24 AM

    It is strange. What is importa t is, are things getting better or getting worse? As they say, it’s not the fall that kills, bit the impact. Are we falling?

It should be noted that aircraft and all other vehicle and personel movements on an airport are controlled from the airtraffic control tower by air traffic controllers or directly by individual flaggers, as directed from the tower. Or at least thats the way it is supposed to work, and of course the operation at a place like LaGuardia is more complex, and will have specialists and multiple zones. What will put an extra edge on this is the whole ICE thing, and airport chaos pulling the roof down.

• rdtsc

  today at 1:10 PM

  > What will put an extra edge on this is the whole ICE thing, and airport chaos pulling the roof down.

  How would the ICE thing cause more ground traffic collisions. Are you thinking ATC controllers are illegal immigrants and they’re going to run away during their shift? I just don’t see a connection there…

  • wat10000

    today at 1:43 PM

    Not the crash, but the aftermath. Passengers will be showing up for flights today, nervous with the crash on their minds, and many will then encounter untrained goons cosplaying as airport security.

    • rdtsc

      today at 4:08 PM

      I could see that, yeah.

  • tencentshill

    today at 5:44 PM

    This incident caused delays and cancellations that ripple throughout an already understaffed network of TSA checkpoints. ICE presence will make airport security somehow an even worse experience for brown people.

• lotsofpulp

  today at 9:17 AM

  The comments in /r/aviation see to think it’s a one (tired) man show at night.

  https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1s16x61/comment/o...

> "I visited them both in the hospital, as has the chairman, and they were able to speak and we're notifying their families," said Garcia.

Let's get the important parts out of the way first: We in charge have taken care of optics, with regard to our offices.

Oh, and we're going to contact families eventually.

That's a huge amount of damage even at 24mph. It's crazy how that could happen though. Will be interesting to see the full report.

• masklinn

  today at 9:34 AM

  The fire truck was flipped and moved to the side of the runway, this was not 24mph. 24mph is the final groundspeed recorded after the aircraft skidded off of the runway.

  Per the ADSBx track the plane was at 101kts (115 mph / 185kph) just before crossing taxiway D, which would be where it hit the firetruck. It still had enough energy afterwards to reach taxiway E, 600ft away.

  • bilekas

    today at 9:54 AM

    Okay that makes far more sense the article didn’t really make that clear to me.

  • cucumber3732842

    today at 10:07 AM

    The results seem on the high end but they check out at first glance.

    A plane is basically a flimsy tube. A firetruck is a solid brick comparatively. The plane out weighs the fire truck by a lot and out speeds it by a lot. So yeah, destroying the whole front of the plane to punt the truck it sounds about right for a 25 on 5 or 35 on 10/15 type rear ending to me. Flipping doesn't really sound that unreasonable considering that the plane made contact with the top of the truck (just by virtue of comparative height) and contact may not have been straight on. Even if it left the pavement on it's wheels airport firefighters aren't exactly who I'd bet on (they're middle of the pack) to keep the truck on it's wheels if they got surprise kicked off the road especially if there's an embankment involved.

    • masklinn

      today at 10:14 AM

      A CRJ 9000 is 70000 lbs empty, 84500 lbs MTOW.

      An Oshkosh 1500 4x4 is 62000 lbs GVWR (wiki says kerb weight but it’s incorrect).

      The plane was landing and the truck was heading to an intervention, so they were likely close to empty and to GVWR respectively.

      And again, 25mph is the final ground speed, after the plane punted the truck and kept on going for 600ft.

      • moralestapia

        today at 5:06 PM

        >25mph is the final ground speed

        Wouldn't final ground speed be zero?

        • organsnyder

          today at 5:20 PM

          Final ground speed reported.

      • cucumber3732842

        today at 10:36 AM

        Pause the video at 13 sec. That firetruck is awfully intact for something that allegedly got hit at high speed. Basically just a bunch of top side sheetmetal damage (concentrated to the rear, obviously). In any case it didn't even get sent hard enough to screw up the cab exterior. And on the flip side, if you keep cranking the speed up you start getting to where the plane starts looking too suspiciously intact. There's just not much room to work backwards from the apparent results and get a high difference in speed or get very high initial speeds (100 onto 75 or whatever). If the plane was going fast the truck had to be going fast too or there'd be more carnage. But if they were both going fast you'd expect more damage from the after the fact barrel roll and the plane and truck to be a little farther apart in distance.

        • PunchyHamster

          today at 6:23 PM

          Fire truck is filled to brim with gear and doesn't care all that much about weight, plane is the opposite of that, lightness is money, so it makes sense fire truck looks better after crash than plane

        • whycome

          today at 10:50 AM

          Where’s the video you’re referring to?

          https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HEFF17eaYAA_sgq?format=jpg

          I can’t tell what’s the truck and what’s the remains of the plane in this pic.

          Another wider angle:

          https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HEFDcS4bwAA8uu7?format=png&name=...

          There’s no way this scene happens from a plane colliding with a truck at 24mph.

          • cucumber3732842

            today at 11:18 AM

            I'm talking about the headline video from TFA.

            The back of a firetruck is not a working implement like a dump truck is nor is it sufficiently strong for mounting a crane or man bucket like utility bodies often are It's a bunch of sheetmetal boxes to hold stuff and cover stuff and there's a water tank back there somewhere. In the middle down low some pumps are buried. Basically don't think of it as being any more structural than a box truck body because it's not. All that stuff got shredded, obviously, since they're only really meant to bear their own weight and were subject to all the truck tossing forces here. Beyond that the truck is in pretty good shape. It's not uncommon for a good "off the highway and into the ditch" crash to rip tandems off, twist frames, etc. None of that has happened here. The plane is pretty rough, but that's expected. They are 100% tin cans. Ground equipment moving at idle speeds will absolutely shred them before the operator even feels resistance. A goose hit square on the leading edge of a small jet's wing will put a massive dent in (and apply red paint, lol).

            24 sounds about right for a closing speed for plane onto truck. Whatever the baseline speed of the truck was cannot have been that high or the truck would be absolutely shredded from the barrel roll and as it stand the cab is barely pushed in.

            • whycome

              today at 11:46 AM

              The article dropped the speed claim.

              The last recorded ground speed data of 24mph also shows a wildly different heading (going from 30deg ish to 170ish). So it probably happened after the collision and was part of its deceleration. As far as I know, the truck would have been crossing the runway so the effective speed perpendicular to the plane would be zero except for directional shear I guess.

• throw0101c

  today at 11:11 AM

  > That's a huge amount of damage even at 24mph.

  The speed was much higher per sibling comment, but also remember that kinetic energy also involves mass (planes are heavy) and the square of the velocity.

  * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_energy

  The latter is why (e.g.) going 100 units/hour has twice the KE of going 70 units/hour in a car.

• hiddendoom45

  today at 8:46 AM

  It looks like that is based on the last recorded speed from flightradar24[1] which was 21kts(24mph). The previous data points were 11kts, and 58 kts(the last point before the track deviates off the runway). I do think it is likely that the collision occurred at a speed faster than 24mph.

  edit: Looking into this a bit more it looks like the plane came to a stop around crossing E while the emergency vehicle was crossing at D(based on ATC recordings). Using the following map as reference[2], the 58kts point was around E, while the previous recorded point which was just before D was 114kts.

  [1] https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/ac8646#3ede6c39

  [2] https://www.flightaware.com/resources/airport/LGA/APD/AIRPOR...

• whycome

  today at 8:42 AM

  Very unlikely it was 24mph…The entire cockpit is gone.

  (Though some of the major damage may have happened while deplaning the passengers)

  • Ekaros

    today at 8:48 AM

    On other hand planes are really not designed to be crashed into things. Only for limited impacts. So we might not have right comparison for relatively thin and aimed to be light structure being impacted by bulkier object.

• today at 8:31 AM

• today at 8:45 AM

• globular-toast

  today at 10:19 AM

  Speed doesn't cause damage. Momentum causes damage. We understand speed, we do not understand momentum. It makes sense given our evolution.

  People into boats need to understand this. Even a boat that travels no more than 4mph can crush you easily. This is why you never get on to moving boat from the front. Many people have made a mistake because speed is not high.

  • cucumber3732842

    today at 11:04 AM

    Tugboats bump other boats all day. Hundred thousand pound pieces of machinery bury themselves into the dirt. All this as part of normal operation. It's not that simple.

    Speed, kinetic energy and acceleration are all interrelated and at the end of the day it's all forces (to some extent) and no amount of hand wringing commentary is going to replace genuine understanding of them.

Avoidable catastrophes indiced as a measurement of cultural decline?

I saw the first post about this on /r/flying and /r/aviation 5 hours ago and legacy media is only started reporting it in the last hour or so

• mememememememo

  today at 11:09 AM

  /r/xyz doesnt need to fact check. Sure those are excellent subs but just being watering holes and not legal entities they can move faster. There were some wrong facts on r/aviation although it got viral so people just ploughed in with whatever news outlet they read it on.

• tchalla

  today at 8:41 AM

  I have seen a lot of first posts on social media which have been wrong

• donohoe

  today at 11:25 AM

  Nope.

  CNN, CNBC, NYPost, Guardian all had stories up quickly, or around an hour. There are others too.

  UPDATED:

  Down-votes happen but disappointing since I'm stating facts. Heres some backup:

  The user haunter said media started reporting around ~4 AM EST (based on timestamps).

  The accident happened at 11:40 PM EST. Story publish times across a sample of various legacy/mainstream media orgs:

    CNN - 12:47 AM
    NYPost - 12:47 AM
    The Guardian - 12:50 AM
    Associated Press (AP) - 1:31 AM
    Fox News - 1:47 AM
    Newsweek - 2:24 AM
  

  There are others.

• chris_money202

  today at 10:24 AM

  Is this a dig on legacy media? Do we expect people to be up all hours of the day reporting the news?

  • organsnyder

    today at 5:22 PM

    I got a NYT alert about this around 3:30am EDT.

  • AnimalMuppet

    today at 12:53 PM

    Yes. Yes, we do. I expect a competent news agency to have a night desk.

    • chris_money202

      today at 12:56 PM

      Why though? To report to the people who are asleep?

• 3842056935870

  today at 6:09 PM

  [dead]

• whycome

  today at 8:39 AM

  And so much of the legacy media info is wrong. It’s strange because a lot of the primary sources are public.

  This is a good overview so far:

  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8vokLcNNGCM

  • raphlinus

    today at 9:30 AM

    Very informative, thanks for the link!

    ATC audio is https://archive.liveatc.net/klga/KLGA-Twr-Mar-23-2026-0330Z....

    The clearance for AC8646 to land on runway 4 is given in a sequence starting at 4:58. "Vehicle needs to cross the runway" at 6:43. Truck 1 and company asks for clearance to cross 4 at 6:53. Clearance is granted at 7:00. Then ATC asks both a Frontier and Truck 1 to stop, voice is hurried and it's confusing.

  • Symbiote

    today at 9:23 AM

    > And so much of the legacy media info is wrong. It’s strange because a lot of the primary sources are public.

    You should provide sources for a claim like that. For example, what in the BBC article is wrong?

    • whycome

      today at 10:16 AM

      If only we could diff the BBC article (it currently says it was posted 21 mins ago which is younger than your comment…). It’s changed multiple times now without any kind of changelog or acknowledgement.

      > Video footage on social media showed the aircraft, which is operated by Air Canada's regional partner Jazz aviation, coming to a rest with its nose upturned.

      This just isn’t true. There’s no video of the plane coming to a rest with its nose upturned (which implies motion). The upturned nose happened only after passengers deplaned and the balance shifted.

      > It had slowed to about 24mph when it collided with a vehicle from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the airport.

      This is the next part that will change. Just because some of the last broadcast data said 24mph doesn’t mean that’s the speed it was when it collided with the truck. The truck is on its side and those passengers are in hospital. The pilots are dead. The plane sustained enough structural damage to have the entire nose collapse. If the sentence is based on that broadcast data, SAY THAT instead of printing it as fact.

      And with all the quotes from social media posts from key groups, link to them instead of just vaguely quoting.

      EDIT:

      As expected, they got rid of the above paragraph claiming the speed. It now says:

      “The plane was arriving from Montreal and had landed, before colliding with the vehicle from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the airport.”

      • smcin

        today at 10:28 AM

        Any of us can help log the changes by submitting revisions of the article to web.archive.org

        With a fast-changing news story where vague/incomplete/conflicting details emerge in the first few hours it's not unreasonable for the first few revisions to be like that, and eventually gets fixed hours or a day later.

        • whycome

          today at 10:53 AM

          I think that’s what’s critical here. Post details and their sources to show that they are in flux. Don't write them as fact and then make secret edits.

  • donohoe

    today at 1:12 PM

    Typically most primary sources are public.

  • quotemstr

    today at 9:09 AM

    It's hardly worth checking with the legacy media anymore. Really, why bother?

    • bregma

      today at 11:04 AM

      Why bother with the facts when you're already heard all the gossip?

      • 3842056935870

        today at 6:10 PM

        [dead]

    • keiferski

      today at 10:20 AM

      At the very least it’s worth reading to see what most people / the people in power are reading or want others to read.

      The NYT is biased, but it’s still basically the most official newspaper of the American ruling class.

    • sofixa

      today at 10:00 AM

      Because some of them still have standards. They will correct themselves if something was wrong.

      Everyone can write a comment on Reddit / make a podcast / video / whatever claiming whatever they want. Unless you already know and trust them (which requires you to be able to cross-check their information), it's potentially as useful as a random LLM hallucination. Could be brilliantly spot on, or could be completely nonsense. No way of knowing unless you already know enough. (Because even cross-checking won't necessarily save you, if you cross-check multiple bullshit sources).

      Media with standards (like the BBC, Guardian, Liberation, etc.) will do their best to report truthfully (even if sometimes with some bias), and will fix their mistakes if they're caught later on or the story evolves. Independent media checking organisations have shown time and time again that there is trustworthy media, you just need to know which it is, and always take a pinch of salt. It's wild to me that people will just dismiss rags such as Fox News and relatively quality media like Guardian in the same breath.

Introduce a foreign object onto the runway and it will inevitably collide with an aircraft. The fire trucks aren't part of the airport traffic management system, their sudden presence is bound to lead to problems eventually.

It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if the truck has a single radio (airplanes always have two) and was constantly switching between ATC and fire house frequencies. The probably never heard the "stop, stop, stop stop.."

It would also not surprise me if airports previously had dedicated fire services, which have since been outsourced for cost reasons.

• banannaise

  today at 5:56 PM

  This is an airport-specific vehicle that was on radio with ATC at the time and had clearance to cross the runway. Nothing in your comment is correct.

  • glitchc

    today at 6:56 PM

    And yet you chose to respond! Indeed I stand corrected on the onsite firehouse, LaGuardia does have one but many airports do not.

    • nradov

      today at 7:23 PM

      Bullshit. Pretty much every airport that handles FAA Part 121 flights has dedicated firefighting apparatus and crews.

• davey48016

  today at 5:57 PM

  According to this article, the air traffic controller gave the fire truck permission to cross the runway. So, it seems like they are part of the air traffic management system?