Slashdot Mirror
NASA Releases Cryptic Airline Safety Data
An anonymous reader writes "NASA released part of a controversial study about air traffic safety Monday. The space agency spent $11 million on a survey of airline pilots. Agency officials were so disturbed by the findings that they intended to destroy the information rather than release it. But at an October congressional hearing, NASA administrator Michael Griffin changed tack and said the agency would release its findings. The research shows that safety problems occur far more often than previously recognized. NASA has been criticized however for not providing 'documentation on how to use its data, nor did it provide keys to unlock the cryptic codes used in the dataset.'"
Two aircraft close to within 4.5 miles of one another when the safety zone is 5 miles. It gets logged as a near miss. The planes divert because secondary safety systems send alerts to pilots and traffic controllers who take appropriate action.
Is this proof that that the system is unsafe? Seems to me that something went wrong, safety systems kicked in, people took action as trained, and a problem was mitigated. So, the safety zone being 5 miles paid off. All went well. That's why we have a 5 mile safety zone and not a 4 mile one (or two, or whatever).
Congratulations to the safety engineers, the pilots, and traffic controllers. Through their training, planning, and risk assessment the practices and procedures were in place to handle a mishap and not result in a tragedy.
I recall the last few years of service of the Maine Yankee power plant not far from here. One day there was some kind of problem. Safety systems came in to play. The plant was shut down. Nobody was hurt. Nothing dangerous was released. All was well. Some people screamed at the danger of having the plant around. To me, this made no sense. I say the engineers and operators should have been celebrated for having built something that continued to be safe even as its lifespan was drawing to and end. All the safety systems still worked and everyone went home that night to their families.
Does the system need overhaul? Surely it does. I happen to know a few people who work for the FAA. One is a controller and the other some kind of inspector who flies around a lot and is in charge of some things. I hear stories from them -- though nothing specific -- and I know the stress they're under. We all know the stories off the equipment in use in those towers being insanely antiquated.
Still and all, these things only prove that to keep thing safe, we're losing efficiency. There is no evidence that we're sacrificing safety. Thousands of these massive things scream down runways at hundreds of miles and hour then leap into the sky propelled by unimaginable forces --all in close quarters to one another -- day in and day out. What a marvel of safety and a triumph of engineering.
I'm looking forward to my next flights -- all but the stupid TSA part anyway.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
We need a motivation. In the past, this has almost always been for one of two reasons:
1) Profit.
2) Beat our competition to it so we don't look weak.
Number 1 is a pretty hard sell at the moment because we don't really have a clue how to monetize space yet. Some rich people are beginning to take those risks for various reasons, and hopefully something will fall out of that. Don't expect people to be seriously considering bringing in trillion dollar asteroids to NEO to mine though.
Number 2 hasn't been a motivation for a while. The few players in this arena who can field whole space programs themselves don't view each other as competitors, nor do they view failing to make it to the next milestone first as a defeat in any sense. If China proves out a full, impressive space program which looks like it might be a military or economic threat to the West, then perhaps we will see something. Until then, I wouldn't count on this as a motivator either.
Straight risk-taking isn't really an option for governments right now either, especially Western ones, due to monetary concerns (like shoveling billions into various police actions.) This leaves us basically with billionaires that have a lot of time on their hands to bring down the cost so that governments, which ultimately are most likely to take those risks, will be able to justify the cost of doing so. So if you want to see space really done right, support those companies and persons who are working to make it cheap.
We need a motivation. In the past, this has almost always been for one of two reasons:
:)
:)
1) Profit.
2) Beat our competition to it so we don't look weak.
Sometimes in the past groups of humans have done "crazy" things in the name of survival, as well.
Number 1 is a pretty hard sell at the moment because we don't really have a clue how to monetize space yet. Some rich people are beginning to take those risks for various reasons, and hopefully something will fall out of that. Don't expect people to be seriously considering bringing in trillion dollar asteroids to NEO to mine though.
For your first point, I'd say we already have monetized "space" - communications. The real problem is we don't have efficient and inexpensive high-volume launch systems that can handle cargo, crew, or both in significant amounts to do more than comm sats. This is a solvable problem however, without inventing new technologies.
As to trillion dollar NEAs, why not? Many if not most of them are likely to be old comets without a lot of heavy metals, but if we could find one that had high concentrations of heavy metals, we're likely only talking about a 100-150m diameter rock. It might take a generation or two to bring it in, but we could do it with existing technology.
If we had really good tracking abilities (radar installations spread along Earth's orbit and large arrays of multiple optic and radar scopes in orbit, which really wouldn't cost that much) there's no reason why we couldn't find one in an easy to alter orbit and bring it in. If we were successful it's not like it's going to go away, we'd have all the time we need to exploit it's resources. The experience in doing so, even with just automated or remote-controlled devices, would benefit everyone on the planet.
Number 2 hasn't been a motivation for a while. The few players in this arena who can field whole space programs themselves don't view each other as competitors, nor do they view failing to make it to the next milestone first as a defeat in any sense. If China proves out a full, impressive space program which looks like it might be a military or economic threat to the West, then perhaps we will see something. Until then, I wouldn't count on this as a motivator either.
Straight risk-taking isn't really an option for governments right now either, especially Western ones, due to monetary concerns (like shoveling billions into various police actions.) This leaves us basically with billionaires that have a lot of time on their hands to bring down the cost so that governments, which ultimately are most likely to take those risks, will be able to justify the cost of doing so. So if you want to see space really done right, support those companies and persons who are working to make it cheap.
There I agree, with one caveat; if we ever do face an "immediate" impact threat without preparation, it's likely it's going to take government sized-monies to counter it, and their populations are going to demand that they do... so it's in the governments interest (if it has any) to make sure it can.*
* assuming rational government policy, hah.
Personally, I'd like to see Paul Allen fund a nice sized telescope array for searching for NEAs (and perhaps help keep Arecibo alive, as well)... I wrote to him about it but never received a response.
if you're interested in airline safety, there's a guy named "Stuck Mic" that posts a good bit on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=stuckmic best i remember, he's either an air traffic controller(or was), and some of the problems go all the way back to the illegal controller strike back during the Reagan Administration. seems there's been an effort under way ever since to replace controllers with an automated system, with the results being that more money goes into the automation effort than actually training and paying a sufficient number of people to do the job. fwiw, i don't have a dog in this fight, just found it interesting. i'm sure there's three sides to everything. they also have a website here: http://www.stuckmic.com/
I once flew out of Chicago, early 1990s, 737 IIRC, where coming up off the runway the plane banked *hard* like I've never experienced before or after. It felt like a 30 degree bank, but it was probably more like 5 degrees, the human mind tends to exaggerate slopes so badly. The G force exceeded anything I've ever felt on a runway. At the crazy angle (I was on the down-wing side) the flight attendants strapped in beside the exit doors seemed like they were a floor or two above me. I was concentrating on keeping my head centered at the top of my neck, so I didn't orient myself to ground features. People gasped, but no-one vocalized. Not even a kick in the aft to lift out of Denver on a hot summer day would compare to G-force we were pulling. The plane seemed to also pitch nose upward and climb hard. It was smooth, forceful, and disorienting. I had visions of children tearing the wings off a fly. Those wings really are amazingly strong. Then the plane smoothly returned to level flight.
Moments later, with no hesitation at all, the pilot came onto the intercom in the most baritone lounge-chair voice you can imagine:
"I just had a chat with air traffic who told me they would feel a lot more comfortable if I banked to the right. I said to myself 'if they're more comfortable, then I'm more comfortable' so we did. Now we're all feeling very comfortable. It should be a smooth ride into Toronto, so relax and enjoy the in-flight service."
No doubt we were bearing toward Baltimore as he spoke and air traffic was still busy determining how to turn him around again.
I also wondered what additional service is required when they ping the G ball for 15 seconds like that. I just found a web page that states that the g-force limit of a 737 is unknown. Fortunately, the answer wasn't recovered from the flight recorder of the plane I was on that day.
My father was once on a flight that dumped fuel over the ocean, circled back, and landed five minutes after takeoff. I've always suspected that incidents were more frequent than the airline industry wishes to publicize. I wonder if that smooth recovery speech is part of the pilot simulator training. I wonder if he was giving us that speech while the copilot was checking out the lights that indicate the wings are indeed still attached.
Don't worry, you won't be hearing about the 4.8's any more. The FAA has reclassified anything better than 90% of required separation as a Proximity Event instead of an Operational Error. Expect a major reduction in Operation Errors real soon.
I've done forensics on a few cases, hence AC. In my experience a case has to be quite clear for a lawyer to spend time on it. So yes, it is profit for the lawyer, but there is no shortage of simple gross negligence cases to choose from. I've seen an ER physician who had been fired from one hospital for diluting a burn patient's fentanyl so he could use. He was suspected of being high again during a patient's death. This guy submitted a urine sample with a temperature of 80F. Amazingly the hospital considered it a valid sample. In another case, the radiation physicist used a 10mm collimator instead of a 5mm collimator to treat a non-lethal brain condition. The result was 8 times the necessary volume of brain tissue being necrotized. If you kill too much tissue at one time, the body can not recover, and you get what is essentially a run away necrotic condition. The patient took about two years to die from the treatment. To be sure, causality is hard to prove in these cases, but I know the hospitals will not change their ways unless it actually costs them when they are negligent.
I've seen the same lawyers turn away far more cases than they take. It seems very rare for the medmal folks to just cave in and pay. Almost always you are looking at a jury trial because juries do not want to believe that Doctors make mistakes, much less that they are sometimes grossly negligent.
From my point of view, the lawyers that are making the easy dirty money are the ones defending some of these doctors and hospitals.
to those of us on the plane. One time, flying out of MSP, we pulled on the runway to takeoff, and then sharply pulled back off to the left. Since I was on the left side of the plane, I looked out the window. Low and behold, another large jet just about to land on us, coming in for a landing. Wow.
The pilot comes on, and says some bullshit about weather ahead and we're going to wait a few more minutes. I wanted to yell out 'Someone nearly got us killed, you lying sack of crap!', but likely that would get me thrown off the plane.
So whenever I hear the pilot come on, and tell some shit about weather or turbulence, or why the plane is delayed, I don't believe a word of it now. I think that's the part that pisses me off most, to know we're not being dealt with at an adult and honest level.