Washington DC Plane Crash

[Acey]

Originally Posted by edslunch

In the recording someone asks about the number of souls. I remember in the Swiss air crash off the east coast the air traffic controller asked about souls.

Even in very routine and mundane emergencies that are not remotely life-threatening ATC will ask for souls on board and fuel remaining.

Originally Posted by Voodooman

IYeah, it’s military and it’s DC, but there is no rational reason a training flight needs to cross the guide slope at all.

You would have to assume that will change very quickly.

Non-military aircraft can use the route as well. I agree, it will certainly be assessed.

[Displaced Flames fan]

Sounds like 2 near misses in the last 3 years where airliners had to take evasive action to avoid helicopters at DCA

[Acey]

Originally Posted by Displaced Flames fan

Sounds like 2 near misses in the last 3 years where airliners had to take evasive action to avoid helicopters at DCA

Indeed. And it's not just DCA... multiple major airports in the US. It's been a chronic problem for years and because of a bunch of unrelated political nonsense and blame games I fear the real root issues that caused this accident will not be properly addressed, i.e. the archaic rules that allow a helicopter to be that close to a landing an airliner and the even worse rules that allowed the helicopter pilot to assume responsibility of visual separation from the plane.

[Bigtime]

As usual, I recommend following The Air Current for information. As they provide aviation safety articles free of charge.

"Trump upends decades-old global air safety investigation norms"

https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-s...icao-annex-13/

[BlackArcher101]

The thing that bugs me the most is that we have created systems to prevent this type of thing, usually because of past incidents. We then hand over responsibility to a human/pilot which allows for human error, despite said system saying there's a potential problem. Why not just listen to the system and take the safe route out of caution, like having either aircraft divert. I get that it's more prevalent now due to the amount of traffic and having to decrease the safety margins around busy airports to even handle the amount of load they are having (looking at you SFO), but it's playing with fire and ignoring the rules and systems that have been written in blood.

[Lubicon]

Originally Posted by Acey

Even in very routine and mundane emergencies that are not remotely life-threatening ATC will ask for souls on board and fuel remaining.

.

OT to this incident but the fuel remaining question fascinates me. Listen to almost any ATC recording of an emergency and this question invariably leads to multiple radio transmissions as this is clarified. Some pilots reply in endurance (hours), some in weight (lbs/kilos) and others in volume (litres/gallons). Seems there is either no standard (??) or maybe it's just whatever is easier for them to answer. Regardless it leads to more radio calls than necessary when the aircraft is experiencing an emergency.

[Acey]

Originally Posted by Lubicon

Some pilots reply in endurance (hours), some in weight (lbs/kilos) and others in volume (litres/gallons).

Yeah I think it just comes down to either SOP of a given airline or workload at that moment. In an airliner, volume in litres/gallons is not a metric immediately available to the crew, the easiest is the total mass on board in lbs/kilos. When I controlled, I'm pretty sure we needed it as endurance but that requires a bit of a calculation on the part of the crew, and if the emergency is something that has a big impact on fuel burn like an engine out then it might take a couple minutes to figure out when they could instead be running checklists/troubleshooting.

[Lubicon]

Originally Posted by Acey

Yeah I think it just comes down to either SOP of a given airline or workload at that moment. In an airliner, volume in litres/gallons is not a metric immediately available to the crew, the easiest is the total mass on board in lbs/kilos. When I controlled, I'm pretty sure we needed it as endurance but that requires a bit of a calculation on the part of the crew, and if the emergency is something that has a big impact on fuel burn like an engine out then it might take a couple minutes to figure out when they could instead be running checklists/troubleshooting.

I had actually not thought of that factor, controllers obviously would be concerned with endurance. I had always assumed is was for ARFF as (to me) it seems like the primary concern would be quantity and what they would potentially be dealing with on the ground.

[moncton golden flames]

Originally Posted by edslunch

I remember in the Swiss air crash off the east coast the air traffic controller asked about souls. I don’t know if that’s standard language but I always found it chilling.

My dad's co-worker was the ATC involved in that flight. He has never been the same since.

[Acey]

Originally Posted by Lubicon

I had actually not thought of that factor, controllers obviously would be concerned with endurance. I had always assumed is was for ARFF as (to me) it seems like the primary concern would be quantity and what they would potentially be dealing with on the ground.

Yeah ARFF is definitely a factor; something I definitely don't know is exactly how they would change their approach to firefighting a crash landing based on the amount of fuel they are told on board. To me, the fuel distribution within the airplane is perhaps even more critical information.

Airliners generally have one fuel tank in each wing that runs mostly the entire length of the wings, and then a big centre tank down between the main landing gear. The centre tank fuel is burned first. So if I'm the ARFF team at that Korean airport with a 737 inbound for a belly landing (not that they had time for this in this accident, but just hypothetically) I would immediately want to know if they have more than 7.8t of fuel on board, because that would mean there is fuel in the centre tank which could potentially increase the likelihood of a post landing fire. I can't imgaine airport fire crews know the tank capacity of various airliners.

Another thing I've heard in recordings being passed onto ARFF is whether or not there are dangerous goods on board, which obviously makes sense.

[Delthefunky]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

Something that stands out to me listening to all that is just how fast paced and non-stop air traffic controlling is. Like I always knew it is considered a very difficult and high stress job, but it's just non-stop and intense. The amount of focus, attention to details, awareness, and memorization it must take especially when the stakes are so high.

I am really curious about how the structure works. Do they get to take frequent breaks, and how do you hand over during breaks and shift changes. I imagine they must have constant overlap and not abrupt handovers? I don't know... I find it interesting and unsettling at the same time.

You might like some of the ATC games. This is my favorite, and it's free.

https://www.openscope.co/

[Acey]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

I am really curious about how the structure works. Do they get to take frequent breaks, and how do you hand over during breaks and shift changes. I imagine they must have constant overlap and not abrupt handovers? I don't know... I find it interesting and unsettling at the same time.

I controlled at Edmonton Centre, they do from the Montana border to the north pole, west to Alaska and east to basically Hudson Bay.

Normally it was one hour on, one hour off. When you came back to the ops floor to takeover a position, you sat and observed for a couple minutes, then you plugged in and got a briefing from the guy leaving; when you're satisfied he unplugs and goes for break.

Sometimes you would sit for 90 minutes. I couldn't imagine doing something like DCA or LGA tower for more than an hour, I sure hope those guys don't have to do 90 min.

The high pace thing is very true, but there's certain things you're always listening for and the transmissions are generally in the same sequence so it's far easier than it seems. On a busy frequency, there simply isn't time for everyone to be talking at a normal conversational pace. This doesn't apply at a control tower, but for us at Edmonton the airspace is so large that you'd be working combined sectors and 6 different frequencies at once, so 2 guys would be talking to me at the same time but they can't hear each other because they're so far apart.

If I was saying "Air Canada 851 heavy, when ready descend flight level 290" the first portion of that I'm saying at the warp speed you describe, then I would slow way down to say "two niner zero" to the point that those three numbers take the same amount of time as the entire first part... but everybody has their own cadence.

[Reggie28]

I wonder if it’s because helicopter pilots think they are gods gift to aviation and are sometimes dicks. I was on a chopper at a small airport in west Africa, we had to wait 5 minutes for a passenger airliner to land, the French pilots were upset ATC told them to wait. I was like chill out, it’s only 5 minutes.

The times I have been listening in to Calgary ATC, when Hawks would call in, the tone was different than other pilots. More of “I’m telling you what I’m doing” rather than “asking for permission”.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by Reggie28

I wonder if it’s because helicopter pilots think they are gods gift to aviation and are sometimes dicks. I was on a chopper at a small airport in west Africa, we had to wait 5 minutes for a passenger airliner to land, the French pilots were upset ATC told them to wait. I was like chill out, it’s only 5 minutes.

The times I have been listening in to Calgary ATC, when Hawks would call in, the tone was different than other pilots. More of “I’m telling you what I’m doing” rather than “asking for permission”.

I don't know how things work but I would assume that pilots for HAWCS and Stars would definitely be a bit more anxious and demanding because they might be trying to respond to an emergency situation.

[Acey]

HAWCS and Calgary terminal seem to have a pretty good working relationship. Sounds like they have areas defined around the city, so then when they call it's like "hey terminal HAWC1 can we get area 1" and they either say yes, no, or in a little bit. It's very much still HAWCS abiding by ATC, period.

The one thing I do remember though is when police were doing aerial searches for that missing boy/evidence in the Airdrie area like 10 years ago? For a couple hours YYC actually changed the operation (and reduced capacity) to keep planes clear of Airdrie.