Federal Aviation Administration to cut more air traffic controllers

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

"John Mazor" wrote in message
...

No, it was your implication that the controller failed to prevent this
accident that was a not-so-clever attempt to deflect attention away from
the crew.

The controller was otherwise occupied,...

"Otherwise occupied"? What does that mean? He wasn't playing a video
game or reading a comic book, he was counting strips. An administrative
task, but still part of his job.

Yes, as in he wasn't looking out on the airport runways and taxiways.
"Otherwise occupied."

This is yet another example of you taking a neutral statement and trying to
make it mean that I was implying controller error. How you can leap the
vast chasm necessary to inject terms like "playing a video game" or "reading
a comic book" is beyond me, but then, I'm not paranoid.

...and I never stated or implied that
if he had not been otherwise occupied, the controller *would* have
prevented the accident. Furthermore, I have made clear that even if
there
had been the two controllers there and the lone controller had not been
responsible for working both positions, he would not have committed any
error if he had failed to notice the pilot error and warn them.

He *might* have, yes, but that goes to redundancy, one of the safety
concepts that I have contributed to these discussions and which you have
ignored in your determined but unneccesary obsession with ensuring that
no
one attributes any controller error to this accident.

You didn't? Never? On 9/24/2006, 3:27 PM, John Mazor posted:

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?"

Jon, those words imply the controller has that responsibility. Did you
post them, or is someone else using your system?

You failed to include my subsequent comment:

"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."

This, as well as the comment you cited and others in my post, goes to
redundancy, and redundancy includes things that might happen to prevent an
accident even though the failure for them to happen does not necessarily
involve a mistake or rule violation. For example, a jumpseating pilot might
spot an oncoming aircraft and warn the crew. That's redundancy. If the
crew failed to "see and avoid" and there was a collision, they might well be
cited, but no one is going to violate the jumpseater or accuse him of making
a mistake for failing in his role of redundancy because he didn't see the
airplane.

You still are stretching to make my words mean something that they do not.
You also are ignoring the many, many times that I have stated in clear,
unmistakeable language that the controller made no error.

On 9/25/2006, 12:58 AM, John Mazor posted:

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."

Jon, those words imply a purpose of tower controllers is to see airplanes
deviating from their clearances. Did you post them, or is someone else
using your system?

Explain why one of the purposes of control towers CANNOT POSSIBLY be to
watch aircraft ground movements, including the possibilty that an aircraft
might deviate from its cleared route.

The operative phrase there was "such as" - of course that's not the only
reason.

Jon, do you have any background at all in aviation? What makes you
think
you have any understanding of how aviation safety works?

My many explanations here of how the investigation process and safety
system work, none of which you have acknowledged, let alone refuted.

I'll have to assume the answer to the first question is, "No." What makes
you think you understand how the investigation process and safety system
work?

If I told you that I was a corn farmer from Iowa who never got closer to an
aeroplane than my crop duster's flight patterns, would that alter in the
least the validity of anything I've said here?