Re:Tears in the Rain: The 2002 Überlingen midair collision
by Fissionary on Tuesday August 15, 2023 @03:06AM
(#37131087)
> the one person involved who was explicitly not responsible
Not to condone revenge killings, but Nielsen was obviously part of this accident. It was his choice to work alone that night (rather than waking the other controller) and to allow the technicians to turn off most of his instruments, so the responsibility is partly his. He also issued the fateful descend command - had he literally stayed out of this, the Tupolev pilots would have followed the TCAS guidance and the accident would not have happened.
Re:Tears in the Rain: The 2002 Überlingen midair collision
by olliej on Tuesday August 15, 2023 @03:10AM
(#37131109)
He did not cause the accident, all the reports on the accident say his actions were the result of Skyguide, the company, as it tried to make public safety profitable.
To put it simply, blaming Nielsen for this accident is like blaming the worker in a car factory that puts the last part on a Ford Pinto.
1. The Russian airline: it put untrained pilots in charge of a plane. We know they were untrained as they clearly did not understand the most basic concept of TCAS. The article tries to paint this is regulatory confusion - which is patently nonsense, the entire concept of TCAS hinges on it being on par with stall and terrain alerts, where there is a single response, and that response counters any other instruction. The fact that the pilots were aware of the system and failed to learn about it is a failure on their part, the fact that the airline company failed to have the most basic of training on it makes it mostly theirs.
2. The Skyguide company: understaffed a region, and then under equipped it while understaffed, and then failed to have any reasonable back up for anything. Arguably a failure brought on by those people that insist "privatizing a public safety system is efficient".
But then Mr Macho-man had to defend his honor by going and murdering the one remaining victim of the crash, to demonstrate how manly he was. If you feel that murdering an innocent and defenceless person is justified for the "honor" of your family, and to give you value as a "man" I say you've failed the most basic tenets of "honor", and sure as shit don't get to brag about manliness.