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Comment by Jdam | Hacker News Reader

If this doesn't apply to the UK as well, it is not enough. I would like to see a flyover ban as well, as PIA flies through the EU to the UK.

I'm following the aviation industry closely and there are plenty of reports every now and then where PIA flights don't respond on radio anymore, triggering fighter intercepts. It is assumed that those pilots are oftentimes either sleeping or just don't bother because of their ego, which was built in their former careers as military pilots.

I don't want to have PIA planes crashing into others or falling on my head.

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Following the EASA’s decision, the UK Civil Aviation Authority said it, too, was withdrawing PIA’s permit to operate from three of its airports, as required under law.

“PIA flights from Birmingham, London Heathrow and Manchester airports are suspended with immediate effect,” a spokesman for the UK authority told Reuters.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pakistan-airlines-eu/eu-s...

> triggering fighter intercepts

Also this costs tax money. Why spend the money on intercepts when you can ban the people causing the problems?

Only on paper. Let's face it if the pilots weren't flying intercepts they'd need to be flying training missions. Anyway, the sunk cost of buying, maintaining and operating fighter jets is so high that the marginal cost of a mission is a bit of a wash.

>Let's face it if the pilots weren't flying intercepts they'd need to be flying training missions

Is this really the case? Are there training missions 24/7? If not, does flying an intercept cause a future training mission to be canceled?

I dont think this nitpicking achieves anything, his overall point stands - we have hundreds of military jets and pilots with fuck all to do (fortunately). How many intercepts are there, one every few months? It makes no material difference against the backdrop of training and eqipment used in a regular business as usual.

> I dont think this nitpicking achieves anything, his overall point stands - we have hundreds of military jets and pilots with fuck all to do (fortunately). How many intercepts are there, one every few months? It makes no material difference against the backdrop of training and eqipment used in a regular business as usual.

Maybe stores should stop hiring security guards in towns where the police don't have much to do. The cops are just sitting around anyway, right?

Cops don't have to make flight hours, fighter pilots do.

This whole line of argument does not make sence - the whole debacle is about safety, not money.

Why do you believe the current training and safety regime is economically optimal? It is possible that having more cheaper airplanes and pilots that crash a little more often would be better for economy!

If police had the same kind of rigorous training and process the military does this mess in the USA probably wouldn't have happened.

I'm not sure how the military work when it comes to currency requirements. For private and commercial pilots it's certainly the case that they sometimes have to conduct flights (or at least, conduct specific procedures) purely for the sake of maintaining currency. I would be surprised if the same concept didn't apply broadly.

It's not quite as strong as because you flew that mission we are cancelling that training session, more because you flew that mission you don't need be booked out on a training session.

No, but if you need to flow so many hours per month to maintain currency, flying a mission still counts towards that. So every hour spent flying a mission is an hour that doesn’t need to be spent flying to maintain currency.

Pretty much. They're on alert 24/7 anyway, and training is mostly to get a specific number of hours. There are likely cases where an intercept adds to monthly flight hours, but it's not a big impact overall.

At least in Germany they tend to do a lunch break which is great if you want to use their airspace to test some research equipment. (You don't get told their schedule, only whether it's in use, but if it is it usually works out to sit on the runway with your plane at ~13h and wait for them to take the break.)

Not to sound too harsh, but I’m pretty sure many country would rather blast those planes with rockets than wait them to do any harm, just talking knowing how it works in my country, Italy, and all the counter rocket facility deployed on our borders. I’m just saying that because i have no info what’s the deal with other countries

>I don't want to have PIA planes crashing into others or falling on my head.

Even with sleeping pilots, you still are order of magnitude more likely to die by a car than by a plane.

I guess that's technically correct, but it seems a little pointless; with sufficient negligence, accidents are a virtual certainty, and those who come to harm in such an event would find little solace in that knowledge.

In that sense, I don't want PIA planes falling on my own or anyone else's head, land, or property, anywhere in the world.

There's no reason to allow pilots and airlines to behave like that, and lots of reasons to sanction them very harshly if they do. After all, who's to believe they're current on their maintenance if they can't even make sure pilots respond when hailed?

I think the real danger is to passengers of the plane. It is very rare for a plane crash to kill anyone on the ground.

Noth of earth surface is not cities, its water/farmland/etc

More common than you'd think as most crashes are on takeoff or landing, which tend to be in more built up areas.

We are discussing high altitude flyovers here.

Scenario: inexperienced/bad pilot misjudges fuel consumption (badly manages energy / height transitions) and requires emergency landing somewhere in EU because it cannot reach London

Exceptionally unlikey a pilot would be able to crash a plane at 30,000 foot. Far more likely that a medical emergency would lead to a pilot landing at an unfamiliar airport and crashing the plane into block of houses.

And it’s regulatory actions like this that ensure that air travel is safe.

And doubly so if your concern is a plane falling on you from the sky.

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