"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message
k.net...

"John Mazor" wrote in message
...

Irrelevant. Taking off and landing safely is the pilot's responsibility.
The presence or absence of a tower, a controller, or even a runway is
irrelevant.

Really? Then why bother having them?

Controllers? For separation.

And the tower? Might they be perching controllers so high up, in windowed
cabs, so they can see what's happening on the ground there? Such as
airplanes deviating from their clearances? If not, you don't need a tower,
any darkened room on the ground will do.

Of course the crew had primary responsibility, although the anomalies in
airport markings and notices and layout will play a role, too.

Airport markings and notices and layout share responsibility with the
crew? What airport markings, notices, or layout indicated that runway 26
was runway 22?

Stephen, I'm not going to get out in front of the investigation. If you're
truly interested in safety and not just in beating up on pilots, please
follow it as it unfolds. Yes, confusing airport layout and markings and
notices can play a role in an accident and may very well do so here.

Meanwhile, ponder the significance of this portion of the probable cause
statement in the 1990 runway collision in Detroit. Part of the accident
chain was one of the crews becoming confused in low viz weather by a taxi
intersection known colloquially to pilots as "spaghetti junction."

CONTRIBUING TO CAUSE OF ACDNT WERE (1) DEFICIENCIES IN ATC SVCS PROVIDED BY
DETROIT TWR, INCLUDING FAILURE OF GND CTLR TO TAKE TIMELY ACTN TO ALERT LCL
CTLR TO PSBL RWY INCURSION, INADQT VIS OBS, FAILURE TO USE PROGRESSIVE TAXI
INSTRNS IN LOW-VIS CONDS, & ISSUANCE OF INAPPROPRIATE & CONFUSING TAXI
INSTRNS COMPOUNDED BY INADQ BACKUP SUPERVISION FOR LEVEL OF EXPERIENCE OF
STAFF ON DUTY; (2) DEFICIENCIES IN SURFACE MARKINGS, SIGNAGE & LGTG AT ARPT
& FAILURE OF FAA SURVEILLANCE TO DETECT OR CORRECT ANY OF THESE
DEFICIENCIES;

Not all of that applies here, but yes, airport and ATC issues can play a
role in an accident. The intersection was closed and the taxiways were
revamped after the accident.

The point about the ATC role goes to redundancy, not the crew's actions.
If the controller had been able to stick to just one of his two jobs, he
might have noticed the errant takeoff and warned the crew. There was a
fairly recent posting in one of the aviation groups of exactly the same
incident - same airport, same runways confused by a regional airliner
crew - 13 years ago. The crew and the controller caught it at about the
same time. This time neither did, but the controller couldn't have
caught it because by then he was engaged in other duties - the job that
should have been performed by the second (required) controller.

The job that should have been performed by the second (required)
controller was radar. Had that requirement been adhered to it wouldn't
have guaranteed a second controller in the tower cab.

And what else, pray tell, would the controller who cleared the accident
aircraft from the gate have been doing? Controlling and monitoring ground
movement was his responsibiity - until he turned away to do another task
that related to movement of aircraft in the air, not ground movement.
There's no guarantee that he would have noticed the erroneous movement if he
hadn't been required to turn to other tasks because of the lack of the
second controller, but it's a pretty sure bet that once he turned from that
area of responsibility (control and monitoring of ground movement), he
wasn't going to notice anything happening on the runway. Thus, his
potential role to provide redundancy and prevent an accident was negated by
FAA's violation of its own staffing rules.

This is not to excuse the crew's oversight, but redundancy is an
essential pillar of our safety system. It's prevented far, far more
accidents than have occurred. Redundancy failures often are part of the
chain of events that has to occur before you actually get an accident.
The secret to airline safety's excellent record is identifying the links
that can make up such a chain, and fixing or preventing them.

Two pilots were on duty in the cockpit, that didn't provide sufficient
redundacy.

That's exactly my point. What's yours?

Care to guess how many times a day that two pilots (never mind just one)
miss something and a warning system or a controller (that's all part of
redundancy, you now) prevents a mishap? Get out your calculator, your
fingers and toes aren't sufficient to the task. The system depends in part
on redundancy to keep us all safe. When it fails, we're all less safe.

You can't deny that the crew missed it, but is that as far as your
understanding of aviation safety goes? "The crew screwed up, end of
discussion"?