Edit: I changed my mind, I agree with the union.

How would anyone know that you are not a child molester if you’re not willing to let me search your home and check for evidence?

If you’re not a child molester, why would you have any problem with me searching your home?

If you feel the need to protect your home from search, then child molesters are most likely a significant constituency within your home.

It’s really unfortunate that such a significant proportion of people in legutierr’s home are child molestors.

That is nasty and crosses into personal attack, which is not cool. Please don't post like this again. You can make your substantive points without getting aggressive; please do that instead.

We've had to ask you not to break the site guidelines before. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

Ok, sorry about that.

Because a good union sides with it's members. That's how they get members in the future otherwise why would anyone sign up?

> why would the union have any problem with the NTSB interviewing them?

They don't. You sometimes have to read more than just the HN headline to understand what the issues are.

This is not logical.

Interesting to see how the escalation works in someones thought process, but these are not valid arguements.

"If you have nothing to hide, you dont need privacy"

Perhaps there are antiquated rules and possibly dangerous flight systems approved by the FAA. Maybe these pilots need to be protected from being publicly persecuted in the interest of corporate profit and confidence in the government.

It may not be entirely logical, but that's kind of the point I'm making. A professional reputation is not built on certainty but on confidence and a perception of risk.

These logical leaps are inappropriate in the case of a prosecution or legal proceeding. Airline pilots are, however, in a position of public trust. They hold thousands of lives in their hands.

One of the reasons that the public trusts air travel is that the NTSB systematically deconstruct every airplane accident that happens, to the point that all aspects of what could go wrong are thoroughly understood and mitigated in the future. This whole process depends on full transparency by all involved. Airplane accidents are rare today because of it.

If the union is perceived as standing in the way of that process—if it is seen to be standing in the way of safety—then the public can no longer rely on the process or the institutions involved, and will have to draw its own conclusions about the people involved.

Do defense attorneys “stand in the way” of justice?

NTSB investigations are not criminal proceedings.

Yes. If justice means a criminal going to jail, defense attorneys do stand up and fight tooth and claw to prevent that happening. That is thier job. It is the job of the prosecution, the government, to overcome and enforce justice.

I don’t think that’s what justice means. Justice means that only people who a jury believes are guilty of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt go to jail. Defense attorneys serve that definition of justice. One could argue that prosecutors stand in the way of justice because their job is to put someone in jail regardless of whether they are truly guilty. In reality, the adversarial system is justice.

Yes, well done. That's reason at its best.

They nearly had a crash, and they are trying to cover up what happened. I think it is reasonable to assume they are "bad pilots" in this situation until there is more information.

Who, exactly, is this "they"?

On HN of all places we should realize complicated technical systems result in complicated technical problems and the easiest, lowest status, people to blame are usually not the cause of all problems in a system.

It seems highly likely there could be a problem with ATC giving a misleading or inconsistent clearance, or radio coverage being faulty or inadequate (I said "stop and hold at ground point One Alpha, not stop and hold at ground point One shhhhh"), or signage being inadequate, or the architecture of the airport being inherently faulty by design. No amount of knee jerk punishing the pilots automatically without impartial investigation will fix any of those safety concerns and as such that does not increase the safety of flight. Seems rather odd the NTSB is strongly opposed to a detailed impartial judicial review of their process?

If I had nothing to cover up, and someone asked for a different recording service to be used "no skin off my back" because I have nothing to cover up. Seems like the NTSB is trying to cover something up. I wonder why they would use a non-technical travel blogger to release their side of the story instead of numerous ATC organizations and unions or pilots orgs etc. What a fascinating source for the story?

"They" refers to the pilots.

And, while a complicated technical problem is likely to not be the pilot's fault, after a certain degree of refusing to cooperate with the investigation, it becomes their fault.

Also, onemileatatime is a long-standing news website that reports on the aviation industry; the NTSB "released their side of the story" in press releases.

It could be they had been given bad informations. Unless suicidal I doubt anyone would just cross a lane knowing another plane is taking ofand risk hiting them at full speed.

Also we have no idea from the article if they crossed said lane by being around the safety margins usually set or if it was a close call. I guess there is a lot of safety margin taken in aero between saying "sure you can cross that lane nobody is about to take off" and "a jet is already bombing at full speed on that lane, don't cross!!"

The point of an investigation is to investigate. Not punish someone you are already sure it is the culprit.