[zackbloom]

Just to give a little context as a pilot: It is the job of the tower controller to decide who uses the runway when. There are often multiple planes waiting to take off, and multiple planes nearing the airport to land. It's not uncommon for a tower controller to allow a plane to takeoff while another is approaching the runway. The theory is, of course, that the flight will depart in plenty of time.

In this case, the controller failed to tell the departing flight to hurry (the references to 'no delay' or 'immediate' in the blog post), AND frankly timed things pretty close given the weather. Without the ability to actually see the approaching plane, or perhaps even the plane on the ground, it will probably be found that timing a departure that close at all was reckless. That said, I feel for these tower controllers, it's not common for many planes to get stacked up waiting to depart, and it is their job to get them out. What may have worked just fine on a clear-weather day simply became too dangerous on that day.

The official manual for air traffic controllers in the US is the FAA Order JO 7110.65W [1], if anyone cares to review it.

1 - https://www.faa.gov/documentlibrary/media/order/atc.pdf

[rationalist]

> I feel for these tower controllers

I would feel for this tower controller if there wasn't a bunch of comments in r/ATC saying how this particular controller has transferred between facilities because he keeps messing up and makes workplace complaints instead of owning up to his mistakes.

Edit to add source:

> a controller who, according to everyone who has worked with him from the last facility where he washed out and now AUS, say has no business being a controller and they can't fire him because he files EEO complaints habitually.

https://old.reddit.com/r/ATC/comments/10uub5x/

More discussion:

https://old.reddit.com/r/ATC/comments/10u0zvl/disaster_avert...

[rlpb]

> It's not uncommon for a tower controller to allow a plane to takeoff while another is approaching the runway.

Only in the US is it permitted for the controller to clear an aircraft to land while another is using the runway. The rest of of the world does not allow "anticipated clearance".

(Apart from a "land after" clearance where the landing aircraft must accept responsibility for separation.)

Edited to add: how it works everywhere else in the world: the controller is not permitted to clear an aircraft to land unless and until the previous one is confirmed clear. That's why the term is "cleared".

[SQueeeeeL]

I'm not sure how many people know this, but one of the first instances of "union busting" ever committed by the US federal govt was against air traffic controllers. The job used to be extremely competitive and prestigious, but overall lower wages and security has made it way harder to attract as many highly talented individuals.

And with how many rules there are in that pdf, it's shocking we don't see multiple accidents a year.

[JackFr]

Police unions improve the lives of police officers but do little to improve policing. Teachers' unions improve the lives of teachers but have little effect on student outcomes. It's not obvious to me that a powerful air traffic controllers' union would do anything to improve safety. In fact if other public sector unions are informative, the result of a strong ATC union would be to protect and insulate poor performers.

[bilekas]

I don't knock unions but I will add :

> The median annual wage for air traffic controllers was $129,750 in May 2021

SOME unions do take advantage, given the traffic controllers' 'single point of failure' it can be very attractive for some unions who are greedy. Again I reiterate, unions are not a bad idea, just not all of them are solely in the interests of the actual employees.

[srge]

Air trafic controller strikes have plagued our country (France) for many years and I see no indication that it makes our flight safety better

[coredog64]

PATCO went on an illegal strike, continued the strike in contravention of court orders, and then remained on strike after a deadline from the president.

They could have returned prior to the final deadline, they could have had a sick-out, they could have worked to rule.

I’m sympathetic to labor demands, but if your oath of office makes it illegal to strike and you participate in a walkout, well, that’s on you.

[ak217]

Air traffic controllers do have a union. PATCO, the previous union that was "busted", was a public employee union that chose to hold critical public infrastructure hostage, which is unacceptable. Any union that does that should expect to be stripped of its monopoly on that kind of labor.

[jeffrallen]

See also the 1999 documentary, Pushing Tin, for an exploration of the highly talented individuals employed by the FAA. /s

[bambax]

The linked article (more interesting than this one IMHO) asks

> Why were they arriving and departing on the same runway when parallels were available?

and it's a good question! If there's more than one runway available, and bad visibility, why make two planes use the same runway so close to one another??

https://vannevar.blogspot.com/2023/02/austin-fedexdal-disast...

[jameshart]

Unless the terminal is between the runways, using parallel runways will still require clearing planes to cross runways. The conflict risks are different, but they don’t go away.

Intuitively feels like the safest way to operate would be landing planes on the farthest runway, with takeoffs on the near one, because it would only require clearing just-landed aircraft to cross the takeoff runway and you have more discretion to time departures than arrivals.

[throwaway290]

Perhaps they had not much traffic that day and wanted to keep one runway busier to save on maintenance or something.

[cm2187]

But what about the Southwest crew? The article says they waited a full minute between being cleared for take off and starting to roll. Surely they wouldn't assume the runway is the right place to hang around in a busy airport, planes typically take off straight away. If they do that it will eat into any safety margin.

[sfeng]

It's very likely the Southwest pilots were completing a checklist, programming their flight computer, or some other minor pre-takeoff activity before being ready to takeoff. A minute just isn't all that much of a delay. If the controller needed it to happen immediately, they should have first asked if the plane was ready, and then should have issued a takeoff clearance with 'without delay' or 'immediate' in it. Only then would be the Southwest pilots job to refuse the clearance if they couldn't comply immediately.

I am unaware if there is a formal definition of how long a controller should expect a flight to take before following a non-urgent instruction, but 60 seconds doesn't seem wild to me.

Now you could say that the Southwest pilots should have heard 'traffic 3 miles out', and understood that things need to move quickly. But as a pilot, I can say we don't have the traffic picture controllers have, particularly in bad weather. The general understanding is if we can't see other aircraft, we manage our plane, and its ATC who can get a picture of how fast the other aircraft are moving and what is safe from a separation perspective.

[dghlsakjg]

The training I got as a lowly ppl, was that a takeoff clearance meant that the runway was yours to do with as you pleased within reason. If the southwest crew needed to sit on the runway for a few moments getting setup they had permission to do it. Their job is to follow atc directions, which they absolutely did.

If the controller wanted you to do an immediate takeoff they normally make damn sure that you are able and you know the context. At least in my experience mixing it up with jet traffic at Boeing field.

Something like: “Southwest xxx cleared for immediate takeoff, you have a FedEx heavy on 3 mile final”

To the pilot that is saying: you can go, but you only have 90 seconds or so.

[ninjagoo]

Yes, agreed - this certainly appears to lean towards ATC error given the conditions. Maybe the ATC rulebook needs to be updated for conditions, maybe it doesn't.

And it might be time to think about TCAS extensions to ground ops for aircraft with clearances?

[JustSomeNobody]

Question, when FedEx says "Southwest Abort!" and then the controller tells them to turn right and Southwest says "negative" is that because they didn't have enough runway to do either?

[altgeek]

My understanding is that Southwest was already at or had exceeded V1 speed. Explanation of V1 -> https://www.flyingmag.com/everything-about-v-speeds-explaine...