Federal Aviation Administration to cut more air traffic controllers

John Mazor wrote:



Bz-z-z-z-t! Buy a vowel, get a clue, take a course in reading
comprehension, and then let us know when you've read and fully compehended
all my statements and position here.



You and Steve are cut of the same cloth! ;-)

John Mazor wrote:

"Newps" wrote in message
. ..


John Mazor wrote:


I'm not a controller, but I suspect that monitoring the progress of
ground traffic is one of those "do as workload permits" chores.

No, it's required.


Thanks.



That is his opionion, John.

"John Mazor" wrote in message
...

Bull****, and Stephen, you've just lost whatever respect I may have had
for you as an informed poster here. You obviously have no idea what these
discussions are all about, or you would have taken note of my repeated
declarations here that "the crew screwed up".

I know that will hardly keep you awake tonight, but then, my
disappointment in your self-evident, self-important ignorance doesn't
cause me to lose any sleep either. You're just another wannabe aviation
safety ******.


Jon, who are you trying to fool?

"John Mazor" wrote in message
...

And there was no need for the controller to do so in the incident report
from 13 years ago - but he/she did it anyway, saw the aircraft lining up
on the exact same wrong runway at the exact same airport, and if the crew
hadn't caught it simultaneously, the controller would have been the one
responsible for preventing the exact same accident.

Instead of all these hair-splitting armchair critiques of exactly what the
controller might or might not have been *required* to do, we ought to
admit the possibilty of what the controller *might actually have done*.
He/she might have gone for a potty break, done some other chore... or seen
the Comair plane and warned the crew. We know that's possible because it
actually happened before.


See previous.



Stephen, you very well know that I have not once tried to excuse the
actions of the crew. They screwed up.


Yes, Jon, you said the crew screwed up. But you also imply the controller
screwed up. Based on what has been reported to date the controller met all
of his responsibilities without error. Your interest here is not advancing
aviation safety, it's relief of at least part of the Comair crew's
responsibility for this crash.



Because human beings are not automatons who can be relied upon to
perfectly and always repeat the same performance every time under all
conditions. That's why we have redundancy and why it is important to
reognize when it fails. If all three electrical systems on an aircraft
fail, do we just say "Oh, well, the electrics failed, too bad" or do we
want to find out why the redundancy of three systems was not adequate in
this case? Why should it be any different when it's a human rather than a
mechanical failure?


Jon, that doesn't answer my question and I'm confident you know that it does
not.


Then you should be showing a little more informed and enlightened attitude
in this discussion.


My attitude is a result of my efforts to be highly informed. I hope our
discussion has left you a bit better informed.

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote:

That's true, there could have been a dozen other controllers in the tower
cab, and that still wouldn't have guaranteed that the error would have been
caught, but no one can show that it wouldn't have been caught, either. But
what anyone can show is that if there had been just one person aboard that
airplane performing the duties of pilot this crash would not have happened.
Why wasn't there a functioning pilot aboard that airplane? What was the
crew doing that took them away from their assigned tasks and
responsibilities?

Exactly. Did not other large aircraft depart earlier from the proper
runway? All this discussion of FAA/controller responsibility is
misplaced. Perhaps the investigation will reveal that someone
mismarked all the ground signage and biased the aircraft heading
indicators in which case that sounds like a criminal investigation.

Until then, the most likely reason is that the pilots screwed up
royally.

Ron Lee

TheNPC wrote:

Looking at all the comments and chatter regarding the
subject of the Lexington crash this paragraph best hits the
nail on the head. We will never know the hypothetical out
come because the FAA violated their own staffing orders at
Lexington that night. The hypothetical scenario of two
controllers on duty and the related safety matrix was made
impossible by the FAA's refusal to staff their ATCT IAW
their own orders.

Irrelevant. The two pilots on the aircraft were responsible for the
runway they used.

Ron Lee

John Mazor wrote:

The NTSB is not the district attorney.


Which case do you want to argue here, the technical investigation or the
tort liability one?

Neither. The district attorney does not handle tort liability cases.~

You argue that the crew "screwed up," as in they made a mistake.
Failing to set the flaps, for example, is a mistake/screw-up.

Taking off on an unlighted runway some 55 minutes before sunrise is not
a mistake.

Mr. Webster's definition of "mistake" in this context reade:

1. incorrect act or decision: an incorrect, unwise, or unfortunate act
or decision caused by bad judgment or a lack of information or care.

Then, there is "gross negligence," which is deliberate misconduct as
opposed to a careless mistake. The generally accepted definition of
gross negligence is:

"Failure to use even the slightest amount of care in a way that shows
recklessness or willful disregard for the safety of others."

The NTSB probably won't go there, although they should. So should the
FAA and the local D.A.

"Ron Lee" wrote in message
...

Exactly. Did not other large aircraft depart earlier from the proper
runway? All this discussion of FAA/controller responsibility is
misplaced. Perhaps the investigation will reveal that someone
mismarked all the ground signage and biased the aircraft heading
indicators in which case that sounds like a criminal investigation.


Perhaps, but that still wouldn't explain why the crew didn't question the
tower about the lack of runway lights.



Until then, the most likely reason is that the pilots screwed up
royally.


They certainly did, the only question is WHY they screwed up so royally.

The attempt to transfer some responsibility to the controller is absurd.
Sure, he might have caught the error if he had continued to watch the
airplane after he issued the takeoff clearance, but he had no responsibility
to do so. Requiring controllers to bear that responsibility is one possible
fix, but it's a fix that will only work at towered fields, and there are a
lot of untowered fields with commercial passenger traffic. If it's
determined that a fix is needed it must be a fix that will work everywhere.

"Sam Spade" wrote in message
...
John Mazor wrote:

"Newps" wrote in message
. ..

John Mazor wrote:

I'm not a controller, but I suspect that monitoring the progress of
ground traffic is one of those "do as workload permits" chores.

No, it's required.

Thanks.

That is his opionion, John.

I'm not a controller, so I have to take his assertion on faith, which means
that your observation was implied in my response. But, for the record, so
noted.

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

"John Mazor" wrote in message
...

Stephen, you very well know that I have not once tried to excuse the
actions of the crew. They screwed up.

Yes, Jon, you said the crew screwed up. But you also imply the controller
screwed up.

Nonsense. He was properly performing an unrelated but necessary duty.
There's not even a hint of a "screw-up" there.

Based on what has been reported to date the controller met all of his
responsibilities without error.

See previous. Nothing I have said here can reasonably be construed to be an
accusation that the controller did anything wrong. (And given how you far
you had to stretch to reach that erroneous conclusion about my statements
raises the question that if anyone here is being defensive about human
performance, it's you regarding the controller.)

Your interest here is not advancing aviation safety, it's relief of at
least part of the Comair crew's responsibility for this crash.

Let's see... I've lost count of how many times I've said here that "The crew
screwed up."

If I'm trying to relieve the crew of any responsibility for the crash, I'd
say I'm doing a pretty ****-poor job of it.

The only thing I'm trying to do here is educate people to the fact that if
you only focus on "The crew screwed up, end of discussion" then you are
doing a ****-poor job of accident investigation.

Because human beings are not automatons who can be relied upon to
perfectly and always repeat the same performance every time under all
conditions. That's why we have redundancy and why it is important to
reognize when it fails. If all three electrical systems on an aircraft
fail, do we just say "Oh, well, the electrics failed, too bad" or do we
want to find out why the redundancy of three systems was not adequate in
this case? Why should it be any different when it's a human rather than
a mechanical failure?

Jon, that doesn't answer my question and I'm confident you know that it
does not.

If the question was "why did this crew attempt a takeoff when there were so
many indicators that they were on the wrong runway?" then no one, including
the surviving crewmember, can accurately and totally answer it. All you can
do is look at what was happening at the time, plus other possibly related
circumstances, and say "here are some conditions surrounding the accident
that are known to be conducive to human error, and therefore, quite possibly
affected the crew's performance." Since I don't know all those yet, my
answer was a generalized observation that human beings make mistakes.

If that's not satisfactory for you, then let me pose another version of the
same question for you: Why did the LAX controller clear a US Air flight to
land on a runway where she had just parked another aircraft on it in a
"position and hold" thereby "causing" a horrific runway collision with
numerous fatalities?

The NTSB report cited several human factors conditions that were conducive
to such an error by the controller. Was the NTSB's intent in citing those
conditions to absolve the controller of *any* responsibility for the initial
error? Of course not. And ditto for every other accident where "the
controller screwed up." Not only do I not have any problem with that, the
NTSB would be remiss if it didn't include those factors in its findings in
those accidents.

Don't you get it? Yes, in any accident there will be some big, fat smoking
gun that anyone can see - usually a human or mechanical failure. But
before, during, and after the main event, there are other links in the
chain, all of which are not only sufficient, but *necessary* for this chain
to continue unbroken until the accident actually occurs.

Every one of those links is a failure point in the complex, interlocking
array of safety protections that have been built into the system. Each and
every one of those failures contributed to the accident. Each and every one
of them has to be identified and fixed if we want to avoid a repeat of a
similar accident scenario. If you think that this part of the investigation
is some attempt to cover up or absolve any human error by anyone, you just
don't understand the principles of aviation safety.