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A comment on Jazz CRJ9 at New York on Mar 22nd 2026, collision with fire truck on runway. Parent comment

Re:Jazz CRJ9 at New York on Mar 22nd 2026, collision with fi... by ApolloFortyNine on Monday March 23, 2026 @11:22AM (#47490771)
>In the end the air traffic system is a highly complex but also a highly reliable system, especially when you compare accident rates.

1700 incursions a year, and other articles mentioning multiple near misses a week at a single airport [1]. It is safe in practice, likely largely due to the pilots here also being heavily trained and looking for mistakes, but it seems a lot like rolling the dice for a bad day.

>I am sure the working conditions of ATC staff might be improved - but being both a pilot and a programmer, I know that there is no easy digitalization magic wand for aviation.

I didn't say it'd be free. Just hard to believe radio voice communication is the best way to go.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/08/21/business/airl...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Jazz CRJ9 at New York on Mar 22nd 2026, collision with fi... by thomas_witt on Monday March 23, 2026 @11:37AM (#47490987)
Cars have 6 millions accidents a year. Analogy: If we could digitize cars by making every car a self driving car which communicate with each other and ban non self driving cars by 1.1.2027 problem solved.

That's what would need to happen to aviation to "digitize" it.

There are already digitized communications like CPDLC - but it turns out using an unreliable communication technology like VHF - voice isn't so bad in terms of bandwidth. And aviation has standardized protocols for voice communication making sure that everybody is on the same page.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Jazz CRJ9 at New York on Mar 22nd 2026, collision with fi... by guzfip on Monday March 23, 2026 @11:40AM (#47491032)
Lmao the one hope I have for this country is that I know for sure that the American people will rise up to put a violent end to techbros once they try to “ ban non self driving cars”
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Jazz CRJ9 at New York on Mar 22nd 2026, collision with fi... by thomas_witt on Monday March 23, 2026 @11:45AM (#47491110)
And I suppose people flying an 40 year old Cessna 172 will share the same feeling if someone wants to "digitize" it.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Jazz CRJ9 at New York on Mar 22nd 2026, collision with fi... by ApolloFortyNine on Monday March 23, 2026 @12:41PM (#47491870)
There is a ton of tech in airplanes we don't require in every car, your 'argument' here is nothing more than strawman I refuse to entertain.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Jazz CRJ9 at New York on Mar 22nd 2026, collision with fi... by dpark on Monday March 23, 2026 @01:37PM (#47492624)
What tech do you suppose we’d put in an airplane that would stop a fire truck from driving onto the runway? Gatling guns?
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Re:Jazz CRJ9 at New York on Mar 22nd 2026, collision with fi... by SpicyLemonZest on Monday March 23, 2026 @01:22PM (#47492427)
The problem with the analogy is that aviation has no equivalent to "maintain a safe following distance" or "pull over and come to a stop". If a plane is on an active runway, or in flight, it's generally compelled by physics to keep moving forward one way or another. An automated system that prevented the truck from entering the runway would have been great, but an automated system that falsely reported a truck on the runway might have caused a disaster by forcing the plane into dangerous maneuvers to avoid it.
[ Parent | on HN ]