Multiple Planes Cross Runway While Another Is Taking Off [video] | Hacker News Reader

Multiple Planes Cross Runway While Another Is Taking Off [video]

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42 pointshggh46 comments

I know this isn't causing this particular incident, but what is it with the completely un-understandable speech cadence/articulation of virtually every ATC/pilot I've ever heard? Considering that they're already talking over very lossy radio channels and communicating life-or-death information, you'd think they would all be going out of their way to speak very clearly, enunciate slowly, etc.

Instead, these conversations are completely unintelligible, presumably why videos like these require subtitles. It's not because of the jargon, it all makes sense when I see it spelled out. It's just the way they're slurring and mumbling everything. The very first sentence in the video (at ~0:26) when he's saying "Delta 29 Heavy", I cannot for the life of me make out a "nine" in there. It sounds like "twanna heavy". Just picking on this example because it happens to be the very first syllables in the video, but they're all like that. If I gave these audio clips to a completely native English speaker they would probably be able to accurately transcribe about 15% of it.

How do more mistakes not happen in ATC? Why does everyone insist in talking this way? I'm asking non-ironically.

It sounds a lot better in the tower and cockpit. Much better receiving equipment, much closer proximity. The tower doesn't broadcast at high power because it doesn't need to. These ATC recordings are only available for us to listen to because someone volunteered to record and upload them; that someone probably doesn't live in the airport.

That said I still made out Delta 29 Heavy just fine. Maybe it's years of listening to these recordings.

Edit: Notice how the plane inbound and 4 miles out sounded a lot better? They were probably a lot closer to the person recording. That's how it should sound.

> It sounds a lot better in the tower and cockpit. Much better receiving equipment, much closer proximity. The tower doesn't broadcast at high power because it doesn't need to. These ATC recordings are only available for us to listen to because someone volunteered to record and upload them; that someone probably doesn't live in the airport.

This is the main reason, but it's important to note (as others have) that you simply get used to imperfect radio signals - go listen to the VATSIM community, and even some of those can be relatively difficult for a layman to parse. But you quickly get used to it, and it becomes second-nature to pull out the relevant bits of a callout without much thinking, based on what calls you expect at any given point in the takeoff/landing/flight

I was flying into Atlanta international when thousands of planes were relocating from Florida to avoid a hurricane (ie so planes parked on the ground don't get damaged).

I believe at the time it was the busiest day for an airport in history.

That's when it finally made sense to me why they talk that way. Sometimes they need to

Oshkosh the day before Airventure starts is fun to watch and listen. They paint colored dots on the runway so they can leapfrog other planes on the runway. There are special rules in place instructing pilots to not talk back unless requested to do so or it is really needed. They acknowledge transmission by rocking their wings. I have seen 5 planes touch down on two parallel runways within a few seconds.

JFK airport is one of, if not the largest, crossroads of the world. Everything from the barrel of accents on the radio to the line of multi-coloured penises taking a leak in the men's room[1] - the world comes together in these few square miles.

To expect that all the pilots speak English with perfect Siri-like diction is at best silly and at worst offensive.

[1] this is a subtle reference to comedian Louis CK lamenting travel as a single father, being forced to take his daughters into the men's room of an international airport - where the alternative of leaving them outside, alone and unattended, was a far worse option

The (US native, presumably) ATC staff speak worse English than the (presumably) non-native English speaker pilots, at least from all the ATC clips I've heard -- JFK and NY region being about the worst. Combining that with bad recordings and it's often difficult to understand, even as a native English speaker with a fair bit of familiarity with aviation (worked with pilots, although mostly rotary and military, working on a PPL)

Non-native ATC staff speaks better English because they are non-native. They have to mentally "switch" to a different mode, so it is their second nature to stick to standard phraseology. The ATC staff outside NA talks to more non-native pilots than native ones, so even if they wanted to deviate from standard phrasing there's a decent chance the pilot wouldn't even understand them.

On the other hand, ATC staff in the US talks to mostly native pilots in their native language. It's really easy for them to use non-standard phrasing or slang, and most of the time it'll work out okay. With the exception of some key items like "cleared for takeoff" the FAA just doesn't really seem to care about it, so ATC will keep doing it.

Sometimes these videos have worse audio than what was actually heard by the pilots and ATC because they're recorded from somewhere else with worse reception. But it's not only that.

It's amazing how much we've stretched this way of communicating into a very safe industry by the numbers. Maybe the remaining failure modes are now showing up. There's an almost accident where the plane reached only a few feet of altitude on approach to Paris well before the airport because the controller gave bad information and the read backs were not enough of a check. There's another almost accident where the controller didn't receive the communication that a plane had aborted takeoff because another plane talked on the same frequency at the same time. Maybe there is now value in having a more standardized digital messaging setup for key moments that augments the normal audio conversation. There is so much that is tipified that it seems that could actually reduce the workload if done with good UX.

Air traffic communication is structured and a very limited subset of English. It makes more sense if you remember that that first call in the video isn't coming out of the blue - the pilot of Delta 29 Heavy would have already been in contact to start taxiing etc and is expecting a pending authorization call, knows the format it will take ('call sign - command - modifiers/watch-for'), and then it's all read-back anyway to make sure there's no misunderstanding.

The communication gets much clearer and less staccato when something is going on that's not regular - my favourite example is an incident at JFK where a taxiway was unexpectedly blocked and you can watch the Russian pilots struggle a bit to explain[1], presumably because 'cones' isn't in the normal ATC glossary[2]

[1] https://youtu.be/YmywjMQDbos?feature=shared&t=77 [2] https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/media/pcg_4-03-...

I could understand the delta two nine heavy quite well in this example.

But I think it’s also something you get (and have to get) used to.

Also the spoken word does not correspond 1-to-1 to the subtitles, in the sense that 4L is „four left“ for example, and K4 is „kilo four“.

These people are sending and receiving these messages all day every day their whole professional lives, I think it just comes naturally that they would end up communicating like this. The jargon may make sense to you when you read it but you're still not used to hearing it spoken which is why I think it's harder to comprehend (I feel the same way). Professionals can probably comprehend it quite well.

There may be advantages to making everyone speak more slowly and clearly but given the amount of messages passed back and forth over these channels I suspect it would also have a significant cumulative impact on throughput.

As a private pilot with a level of experience not even in the ballpark of these professional pilots, I can say you get used to it. The “trick” is that most of these phrases are expected, and they come in a certain order, at certain times. It’s a bit like running a decision tree in your head. So e.g. you as the pilot would know that, as you’re taxiing up to the runway for instance, they’re probably gonna tell you to hold short, or to line up and wait. If it’s mumbled that’s fine, you get it.

Note that “9” is pronounced “niner” on the radio.

> when he's saying "Delta 29 Heavy", I cannot for the life of me make out a "nine" in there

Delta two niner heavy.

In "The Right Stuff" Tom Wolfe claimed that pilots talk like this because they are (unconsciously, due to cultural reasons) imitating a famous/high-status fighter pilot from many years ago called Chuck Yeager, who had a West-Virginia drawl.

Every reply is saying the radio’s clearer for them, they’re used to it, etc., but I’ve also heard pilots complain that talking fast like this is a problem because as always some people take it to extremes. The fast mumbling seems to be a kind of symbol of experience in aviation culture: https://youtu.be/picf7sPEhi8

The mumbling blows my mind. I flew with a former coworker a few years ago, my first private flight in decades. While very cool, and knowing a lot of information is pretty rote or trivial for them, I was astounded how much they (ATC, other pilots, and my pilot… mostly the latter two) mumbled, trailed off, or mixed things up because they were talking too fast. I do realize that speed is paramount to clear the channel and that nothing was actually wrong but it was still jarring to witness.

I wonder why airports don’t have actual signal lights or the equivalent. Train tracks have them, and there are fairly strict interlocks to prevent multiple conflicting uses of the same track segment at the same time.

They do. Towers can use light flashes to transmit a set of different messages both to ground and incoming planes

Cost.

Some airports already have "stop bar" lights (green to enter runway, red to stop), or "follow-me" lights (follow the trail of green dots to your destination). But these aren't exactly cheap (nothing in aviation is), and installing them requires shutting down runways.

They'll probably become more common at larger airports over the next decade or so.

A lot of airports do have stop bar lights at the entrance to runways, and some have even installed "follow the greens" systems. They're not common in the US though.

The issue here is we had two separate controllers giving clearances to the same runway at the same time. One told an aircraft to take off while another told multiple aircraft to cross.

Might better technology have prevented this incident? Maybe. It would have been obvious that the runway is in use, so the aircraft crossing would likely have asked the controller to confirm instead of trusting the controller.

Video title is clickbait. Stuff like this happens every day, you just never hear about it. The amount of traffic at these large airports is insane. Professional pilots handled it...professionally.

When was the last time you saw someone run a red light on the road? Mine was ... yesterday.

The bigger discussion here is why we will continue to see humans in charge of aircraft (vs AI).

Given the reporting requirements, how sure are you that these incidents happy every day?

Well the last time it happened - and widely enough reported that the Aviation Herald picked up on it - was two days ago. I'm not playing the pedantic Hacker News game.

https://avherald.com/h?article=51791758&opt=0

Runway incursions happen with extreme regularity, if perhaps not every day.

> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Unauthorized crossing or mistaken clearance to cross an active runway is definitely a big deal. It's a reportable incident, that will be investigated, not something that "happens every day." It's something that could result in the loss of hundreds of lives, not to mention the loss of the aircraft and closure of the airport while they clean up and investigate.

>When was the last time you saw someone run a red light on the road? Mine was ... yesterday.

Are the drivers really that bad in your area, or was the last incident really well timed for this comment? I'm not a M-F commuter, but still drive multiple times per week, and the last time I saw someone obviously running a red light (ie. not someone who's 1s late crossing on a yellow) must have been 2-3 years ago.

I witness it or some other traffic incursion (like entering/exiting the limited-access HOV where access should be prohibited) nearly every day. No hyperbole. Had a few white-knuckle near-misses. Life goes on.

The analogy being you need to be on your A-game, alert and defensive at all times. Which professional pilots are.

As a data point, if I’m out for any non-trivial amount of time I’ll see someone run a red light at least daily in DC.

I live in Cambridge MA near a busy arterial road that is 100% residential, with heavy of walking, bike, etc traffic near the Charles River. The speed limit is 25mph. I can sit at the intersection linked to below and watch at least 3-5 cars per light cycle run red lights. The light cycle is short and every one who commutes it daily knows that. They speed up to 40mph about 1 block to try and make the light. For every light cycle, I can count at least 1 red light run, usually 2-5. Sometimes 10+.

At this intersection: https://www.google.com/maps/place/42%C2%B021'51.6%22N+71%C2%...

>For every light cycle, I can count at least 1 red light run, usually 2-5. Sometimes 10+.

To be clear, are you using the strict definition of "red light run" (ie. entering an intersection when the light is red), or the somewhat looser definition of "entering an intersection when it shows as green for the other direction"? I agree in the former case it's technically breaking the law, but in practice it's hard to spot unless your eyes are glued to the other direction's lights and/or you're very good at judging the time difference between when the car entered the intersection and when the lights turns green for you. It's not great, but also not too egregious. On the other hand if the light is green for you but you're still seeing cars enter the intersection then yeah, that's pretty bad but I very rarely see it happening, or maybe I'm not observant enough. People outright blowing through a red (ie. not near a signal change) is even rarer.

>To be clear, are you using the strict definition of "red light run" (ie. entering an intersection when the light is red), or the somewhat looser definition of "entering an intersection when it shows as green for the other direction"?

What do you think? Use the context clues from the previous post. Short light cycle. Cars speeding 40mph to make the light 10+ cars running reds. Does it really need to be more explicit?

Maybe you’re not from the U.S or maybe you’re from a very kind area but I see some serious traffic violation several times a day on most days in my normal commute. This has been across three major cities the last few months.

I think the key here is major city. I too was aghast by the implication that red light running is a common observation. I live in a well populated suburb with lots of traffic, but not a dense urban area.

It’s not an equivalent of running a red light. It’s an intersection showing green lights to everyone.

> The bigger discussion here is why we will continue to see humans in charge of aircraft (vs AI).

AI is not ready. Really. Airports are a messy environment.

But humans verified by AI would be a huge improvement.

Can anyone recommend a good primer on ATC jargon? Or maybe a good ATC game that would expose you to some of it?

You could always log onto VATSIM as an observer

Even just watching VATSIM YouTubers will expose you to plenty of ATC jargon

Have the frequency of atc mistakes been increasing or do i just see it more now

I have the same question in my mind... seems like there is one of these reported every month or two and it's just asking for a more serious mistake to be made.

I don't know the answer, but there has definitely been a proliferation of YouTube channels that feature every single aviation anomaly. So, I suspect that it's at least somewhat the fact that a lot more attention is being called to these incidents than would have been in the recent past.

They are not increasing to the best of my knowledge. Recent events in aviation (Boeing, the accident in Japan) have resulted in more eyes, interest, and reporting of the going ons in aviation however.

Which of course results in the casual observer being made aware of happenings that may have otherwise flown (punny) under their radar.

For those curious I like to recommend the excellent avherald.com whose owner catalogs flight safety reports from around the world.

Given that the rate of aircraft crashes is falling, and many of the remaining crashes are due mechanical issues like the 373 Max, I am inclined to think it’s a monitoring issue.

If I was a pilot on one of those planes I would immediately get off the runway because clearly the air controllers are confused/incompetent. They can tow the plane back.

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