I'm pretty sure the amount of data isn't the problem here. Maybe it's the number of corner cases? You would still want some human-in-the loop with quality UI for ATC.

There are plenty of stories of ATC helping to guide pilots back to the ground after an engine failure or after a student pilot had their instructor pass out on them or something like that.

Even if most of the work is routine, you definitely still want a human in the loop.

It's worth pointing out that plenty of pilots take off and land safely at uncontrolled airports. ATC is a throughput optimization; the finite amount of airspace can have more aircraft movements if the movements are centrally coordinated. It feels like we are nearing the breaking point of this optimization, however, and it's probably worth looking for something better (or saying no to scheduling more flights).

The FAA already does issue temporary ground stops for IFR flights when ATC capacity is saturated. This acts as a limit on airlines scheduling more flights, although the feedback loops are long and not always effective. The FAA NextGen system should improve this somewhat.

https://www.faa.gov/nextgen

with extremely controlled conditions. There is no fog in database, nor fallible humans involved, What an ignorant response

In a digitized environment. We cannot yet simulate the real world.

True. But to avoid 1 minute unavailability per year requires 99.9999 % availability

Like any scale system, degrade the experience. Use radio if the more advanced systems are unavailable?

Yup, by having backup runways.

A third runway for Heathrow was formally proposed in 2007 and is projected for completion in 2040. This is an airport so overburdened people are buying and trading slots.

This isn't a Kubernetes cluster where you can add VMs in 30 seconds.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expansion_of_Heathrow_Airport

And no fire trucks crossing the runways.

....they need to get to fucking fire

....if they go around kilometer of the runway the fire will turn into bigger fire

Two trucks

Did it? They didn’t get there so did we get bigger fire at their target?

I imagine the training will consist of something like changing the comms protocol to say “runway lights are on, control. Truck 1 confirming cross runway 4D?” prior to crossing. Double check so to speak.

Ground vehicles consistently have radio conventions that just don't fit into the aviation world. It feels like a contributor to this accident, you can hear the controller's brain skip a couple gears trying to understand the goofy word order from the truck.

Pilots and controllers speak the same language in the same order; ground vehicles just kinda say stuff.

The aviation-ized version of your proposal would be something like this:

> tower truck 1 short of 4 at delta, red status lights

That makes sense! I imagine the word order thing is just that ground vehicles are not aviation trained. They just happen to be in the same space.

>> Software routinely solves database coordination problems with millions of users per second.

A naive view that confuses the map with the territory.

While in a database state you write a row and reality updates atomically....for aircraft they exist in a physical world where your model lives with lag, noise, and lossy sensors, and that world keeps moving whether your software is watching or not. Failed database transactions roll back, a landing clearance issued against stale state does not. The hard problem in ATC is not coordination logic but physical objects with momentum, human agency, and failure modes that do not respect your consistency model.