3/23/2026 at 2:18:19 PM
In 2026, with how much money their is in aviation, it seems wild to not have digitized this ages ago. The runway should be essentially 'locked' when in use, if they don't want screens in every ground vehicle that may cross a runway, at least display it at runway entrances.That ATC still takes place over radio just seems insane at this point. And there's pretty much no way to make ATC's job not stressful, its inherently stressful. Taking out how much of their job is held in the current operators mind versus being 'committed' seems like low hanging fruit 30 years ago.
The whole system's just begging for human error to occur. There's 1700+ runway incursions a year in the US alone, each one should be investigated as if an accident occurred and fixes proposed. Like when an accident occurs.
by ApolloFortyNine
3/23/2026 at 6:19:12 PM
While modernizing ATC in the US may be overdue, the real issue here is that ATC in the US has been understaffed, underpaid, and overworked for a while now.My father works ATC and his schedule has him working overtime, 6 shifts a week, including overnight shifts, meaning that there is literally not a day of the week where he doesn't spend at least some time in the tower.
If that's the reality for even half of the controllers, it's no surprise that we've been seeing more and more traffic accidents lately.
by matthewkayin
3/23/2026 at 6:24:54 PM
Seems like everyone, everywhere is overworked, underpaid, and under supported. How much longer can we frogs survive the boiling?by bikelang
3/24/2026 at 10:41:53 AM
They tried.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Professional_Air_Traffic_...
by tdeck
3/23/2026 at 11:08:26 PM
> Seems like everyone, everywhere is overworked, underpaid, and under supported. How much longer can we frogs survive the boiling?I'm Australian. In Australia, if you are forced to work overtime the rate of pay goes up, by 50% or if it's extreme, double. As a consequence "underpaid" isn't a common complaint of people working lots of overtime.
This has some negative consequences of course. If labour is plentiful you can have lots of people on hand and pay them on an hours-worked basis. The same deal applies - if you go beyond 40 hours a week their rate of pay goes up, but that shouldn't happen if labour is plentiful and management is on the ball.
But if, as in this case labour isn't plentiful, then they are going to have to fix it some other way - like paying to train more staff. What the employers can't do is offload the problem entirely onto their employees, so there are forces compelling them to get their act together.
The OP makes it sound like the dynamic is very different in the US.
by rstuart4133
3/24/2026 at 12:50:53 AM
The USA has time and a half overtime above 40 hours as well under the FLSA. This applies to ATC.Unfortunately, this is now priced into certain government jobs in the USA and people rely on it. Americans see the obscene amounts of money and hours as a challenge until they actually burn out.
ATC isn't even the worst offender. Law enforcement and prison guards can pull 100+ hours a week on a regular basis. This is how prison guards can pull $400k/year.
by jjmarr
3/24/2026 at 1:33:13 AM
> ATC isn't even the worst offender. Law enforcement and prison guards can pull 100+ hours a week on a regular basis. This is how prison guards can pull $400k/year.There's definitely elements of that - but part of that is that many pensions are based on the two highest earning years of your career, so it's "common" among cops when they are planning to retire to spend two years working every possible piece of OT available, to maximize their pension income.
by FireBeyond
3/24/2026 at 8:28:53 AM
Sounds like a weird incentivization for sure. Why not base the pension on the average over all the years worked as in many other countries? When you offer such incentives, people will naturally work in such a way.by SZJX
3/24/2026 at 9:26:11 AM
Because you'll loose half a career's worth of inflationary salary rises that way. Also, women might work part time after having children which would skew the average annual salary down. Over a 40 year career, just from inflation alone, you'd be getting about half your final salary that way, even ignoring any increases later on from being better qualified or taking on more responsibility.Mind you, in the UK, defined benefits pension schemes are very rare nowadays, but where they exist they are defined as a percentage of the final year salary with that company, so the highest 2 year thing seems a bit weird to me but for a different reason.
by ralferoo
3/24/2026 at 10:42:21 AM
Much more obvious solution is to not include overtime pay in the pension calculation.by kelipso
3/24/2026 at 12:14:48 AM
I've met truck drivers in the US that were driving 16 hours per day. I'm not sure if it is legal or not but it certainly wasn't considered exceptional. It's insane the kind of pressure some jobs put you under. Now ATC has obviously more potential for misery than a truck driver, still a passenger bus / truck collision isn't a small thing either.by jacquesm
3/24/2026 at 1:12:14 AM
16 hours is generally not allowed unless there are severe adverse conditions, but it's only recently with ELD (Electronic Logging Device) mandates that these rules are being forced to a degree. Before that, many drivers would simply go as many hours as they humanly could to keep moving.See: https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/regulations/hours-service/summary-...
by ics
3/24/2026 at 2:31:41 AM
much of my extended family was in teh trucking industry one way or the other. Before the electronic books you had manual log books. Lying in your log book was a very big deal, i want to say you could get in trouble with the law in addition to getting fired. Before that though it was even more the wild west than it is now. My step-father knew my grandfather's "outfit" and he would joke that if they had a chain long enough to go around it they would haul it no questions asked.This is from a popular 90s country song:
sleep would be best
but i just can't afford to rest
have to be in Denver at morning light
- much too young to feel this damn old
by chasd00
3/24/2026 at 2:10:48 AM
They would keep multiple overlapping logbooks so they could always present a "legitimate" log to DOT.by jcgrillo
3/24/2026 at 2:33:40 AM
I forgot about this, you're right. I remember some of my family members talking about this. (much of my extended family was in trucking)by chasd00
3/24/2026 at 1:30:56 AM
This was a while ago and I was absolutely shocked. In Europe they'd impound your truck.by jacquesm
3/24/2026 at 1:08:36 AM
Truck drivers and the hours they're on the road need to be logged per law. Most of this is done (or perhaps MUST be done) electronically.by rabidonrails
3/23/2026 at 11:28:25 PM
Workers in these jobs in the US have less protections than the private sector as they are deemed imperative to operating the country. As such it is illegal for them to strike for better wages, but they do receive 1.5x wages during their mandatory overtime work, and have a base wage over twice that of the annual median income, before their significant overtime income. I think the burn out is a bigger cause.by Computer0
3/24/2026 at 2:14:45 AM
> The OP makes it sound like the dynamic is very different in the US.The obvious reason that US air traffic control has been understaffed for "a while now" is that, roughly a decade ago, the FAA caved in to political pressure to stop having so many white controllers by decommissioning any hiring practices that posed a risk of hiring white controllers.
This meant the size of the workforce froze, stressing the system.
Tracing Woodgrains went into a good amount of depth on the scandal: https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-full-story-of-the-fa...
by thaumasiotes
3/24/2026 at 2:55:48 AM
That scandal exacerbated the problem, but there would still be a severe shortage had it never happened. The core issues, pay and grueling hours, predate that scandal by decades.by wahern
3/23/2026 at 11:24:06 PM
Things are quite DOGEy in the US.by markdown
3/24/2026 at 10:26:44 AM
Well, some critical mass of frogs must recognize and accept the fact we've been boiled, and then go after the cooks.Instead, you find that this critcal mass is happy being boiled with their eyes wide shut.
by wartywhoa23
3/23/2026 at 8:34:57 PM
That's true, but there are not that many jobs that have so many lives on the line as ATC.by jacquesm
3/24/2026 at 1:18:56 AM
I don’t think this statement is helpful because it effectively downplays the government mismanagement and industry-specific plight of ATC workers by expanding and generalizing the problem.It’s analogous to this hypothetical conversation:
“XYZ Politician is a corrupt official who needs to be investigated”
“Well actually, corruption is everywhere.”
See how that downplays and changes the subject at hand?
Not everyone is overworked and underpaid like ATC workers. The US government needs to implement real reforms to rectify that situation.
by dangus
3/24/2026 at 6:21:49 AM
Uhm, not everyone. There is a lot of people who live on passive capital income. They contribute absolutely nothing yet they control the economy.by Gud
3/23/2026 at 10:55:26 PM
True, few people managing lots of airplanes at the same time...by Sabu87
3/23/2026 at 10:29:31 PM
Not at all, the ATC situation is different. It doesn't help to try to jam a general (and wrong!) societal comment here, just diffuses responsibility.by wilg
3/23/2026 at 10:32:56 PM
[dead]by nine_zeros
3/23/2026 at 6:44:39 PM
[flagged]by shdudns
3/23/2026 at 11:21:44 PM
Lots of people are overpaid and underworked too. Or in bullshit jobs, or both.by parasubvert
3/23/2026 at 10:31:07 PM
It's simple... AI and automation will be gradually replacing everyone's job. The reason people are overworked is because they can't afford to lose their job.I wrote this 12 years ago and it's even more true today: https://magarshak.com/blog/stop-wasting-our-time/
by EGreg
3/23/2026 at 7:12:15 PM
The point of the frogs boiling metaphor is the frogs in fact do not survive.by ModernMech
3/23/2026 at 8:43:54 PM
The point of using the metaphor is that something will have to give if we don't course correct.by Zambyte
3/23/2026 at 9:59:39 PM
No it isn’t. The metaphor is that if you throw a frog into already boiling water it would attempt to jump out. If you start with tepid water and increase the temperature slowly enough they don’t. Sadly this was proven through experiment in the 1800s.It’s an argument that if you make changes slowly enough people won’t notice.
by y1n0
3/23/2026 at 11:07:05 PM
In the experiment you mention, before they put the frog in the cool water, they removed its brain. Then they boiled the water. The frog did not jump out of the water because it had no brain. The experiment proved the opposite of what you are asserting.by singleshot_
3/24/2026 at 9:36:59 AM
From the wikipedia article linked to just below this reply, it says that the first such experiment is as you described. But then goes on to say:Other 19th-century experiments were purported to show that frogs did not attempt to escape gradually heated water. An 1872 experiment by Heinzmann was said to show that a normal frog would not attempt to escape if the water was heated slowly enough, which was corroborated in 1875 by German scientist Carl Fratscher.
I don't see the point of the experiment with the brain removed, but given that they did the experiment with intact frogs as well confirms their original hypothesis.
However, later on in the article, it's been disputed in recent years: as the water is heated by about 2 °F (about 1 °C), per minute, the frog becomes increasingly active as it tries to escape, and eventually jumps out if it can. Earlier it also says that frogs put into already water just die (not mentioned, but presumably from shock) and so don't have a chance to start attempting to jump out. I imagine humans dumped into boiling water would have a similar response.
by ralferoo
3/24/2026 at 12:21:27 AM
If every wealthy country had a frog to represent their culture of taking care of workers (strong unions, workers rights, vacation days, not having healthcare tied to their employment, maternity and paternity leave, equitable pay etc), there is one particular frog which most would describe as having had its brain removed.by Schmerika
3/23/2026 at 10:25:20 PM
Not really the point, but that experiment was debunked. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frogby jdlshore
3/23/2026 at 11:12:20 PM
I have disproved this at home. Frog gets in idle hot tub. I turned up the heater. Soon, frog climbs out.by FarmerPotato
3/24/2026 at 5:25:22 AM
You know the story about how the frogs, thrown into a hot pot will jump out. But, if you turn up the heat slowly, they just eventually die? Well, the other day, at work, we were called into a room to watch a mandatory video of frogs in this environment. I actually noticed that management had turned the thermostat up really high. I hopped out of that meeting very quickly.by zippyman55
3/24/2026 at 3:23:52 AM
If it can also reverse a string on the whiteboard, extend an offer.by shermantanktop
3/23/2026 at 7:30:29 PM
In reality when these experiments were conducted the frog simply jumped out as soon as the temperature started to raise, frogs will not sit there in slowly boiling water and just die without trying to escape way before the water becomes dangerous.by gambiting
3/23/2026 at 8:52:42 PM
Yep, in the experiment where they did not, their brains had been removed. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2009/07/guest...by fwipsy
3/23/2026 at 8:58:58 PM
So not to dissimilar from modern society then.by hsbauauvhabzb
3/23/2026 at 7:38:18 PM
We need to combine the crabs in the bucket with the frogs in the water and I think we'll have the right metaphor.by ModernMech
3/23/2026 at 8:34:07 PM
Sadly most of us are hopeless lobster boiled by greater powers. Unlike the crabs through you still can save the other lobsters by refraining to eat them.by aziaziazi
3/23/2026 at 7:41:43 PM
Well, it works with humans just fine.by adampunk
3/23/2026 at 8:42:43 PM
Except for when it doesn't. It's not clear to me as to what you are trying to say.by Supermancho
3/23/2026 at 11:01:09 PM
None of us are jumping out of the pot. We will boil happily. An argument to the contrary needs to look outside.by adampunk
3/23/2026 at 9:04:58 PM
yes, and, fortunately -- even the frogs have enough awareness they actually jump out before they are boiled.by GeorgeTirebiter
3/23/2026 at 9:03:01 PM
We as a society are both ATCs and plane passengers, and most often, the latter. And when an overworked ATC makes an error, we indeed may fail to survive.by nine_k
3/23/2026 at 6:37:09 PM
As long as we're desperate for a job and we need to finance our lifestyle to impress the Johnsons.by fHr
3/23/2026 at 7:29:55 PM
It's not even to impress anyone, we need to keep roofs over our heads and food in our family's belliesby ExtraRoulette
3/23/2026 at 9:49:33 PM
Y'all can do with a bit less of that.Overweight/obesity combined: ~73-75% (nearly 3 in 4 adults) in the US.
by heraldgeezer
3/23/2026 at 9:59:45 PM
It's quite a tired take that the obesity epidemic is because Americans have too much affordable access to good food. America has affordable access to terrible food and while people can keep their bellies full on that actually eating healthily is a luxury.by munk-a
3/23/2026 at 11:22:27 PM
People who can afford crappy fast food can afford chicken breast and rice with veggies store bought and made at home. Just easier to kick back with a Big Mac and fries after work. Personal responsibility is keyby nxm
3/23/2026 at 11:33:10 PM
“Made at home” means time. I cook 3 meals a day in my house and it’s a significant dent in other things I could be doing. The more stress I take on from work, the less effortful food I make. I have taken years in my adult life to get good enough to “throw something together” that is healthy and is something I enjoy eating and would choose over a burger. I still eat a lot of burgers.Personal responsibility sure but that often comes with utter ignorance of the systems that people find themselves in, especially poverty and mental health. The bottom 50% own nothing, have no security, and everything that makes their lives a little easier are things they’ll consider.
by taurath
3/24/2026 at 3:42:14 AM
Great. So stop saying it's cheaper. It's more convenient, sure. Takes effort, yep.I was obese most of my adult life. It absolutely cost me more to eat cheap (as in nutrition) shitty fast foods than prepare things from base ingredients. It was more convenient and it was the easy path for sure, but absolutely in no way a means to save money. It costs vastly more. I could only afford to get fat once I started making money. Growing up we were too poor to eat that horribly.
by phil21
3/24/2026 at 8:31:50 AM
Your story is your story and nobody can say it isn't, but it reads strange to me to comment about cost when the crux of my statement was about the relative time and effort to cook rather than cost.But since you'd like to speak about price it seems, I'd posit that for a good long while there, dollar menu items were genuinely about as cheap as you could get for food - $4 on the way home from work and get an hour of time back to unwind? It was worth it to me - heck, a lot of the time I used that time to be in the gym.
I'll grant you that pretty much any restaurant you'd sit down in where you don't pay at the counter is utterly more expensive - 3x the ingredient cost at least.
But we're not comparing steaks and chicken entrees here, we're comparing rice & beans and chicken breast vs a McDouble or $5 footlong. Weeknight roasts that you have to plan ahead for, Sunday meal prep days. Its all time - I recognize this because I choose to take that time on, and its time that I don't get to spend on other stuff.
by taurath
3/24/2026 at 8:55:39 AM
Personal responsibility is code word for "I do not want to look at causes of issues, just find someone powerless enough to be blamed." So you pile ever exceeding expectation on that most powerless people in the system and blame them for predictable society wide failure.by watwut
3/24/2026 at 3:36:36 AM
You're misinformed. Cheap healthy options are readily available at the grocery store. If you don't want to spend time on food preparation you can substitute canned vegetables for fresh which is slightly less cheap but still cheap.In the extreme case you don't even need a proper kitchen - a microwave, a rice cooker, and some large bowls will suffice. You can reliably find all of those things at thrift stores in the US. You also have the option to purchase dry staples in bulk (rice, oatmeal, pasta, etc) in 10, 25, or even 50 lb sacks if you can find a local place that stocks them (costco for example).
by fc417fc802
3/24/2026 at 3:39:31 AM
> actually eating healthily is a luxury.This is provably untrue. It is such a tired trope to constantly refute. I guess I need to start a google doc with citations.
It is FAR cheaper to buy staples and cook your own food at home. And healthier. You do not need to eat farm to table veggies and local meat for this to happen.
Anyone who tells you it is cheaper to eat fast food and prepared junk foods is misinformed or outright lying with an agenda.
Just look at every single immigrant community that migrates here. They know how to prepare food for cheap.
Yes, it takes a time investment and skill. No, the trope of "single mother with 3 jobs" is not a thing. Those people are already feeding their family healthy foods for the most part since they have self-selected for caring and putting effort in. I lived in communities with many such folks, and the ones holding down three jobs in no way fed their kids fast food or microwaved meals on a regular basis.
If anything is a luxury it's being able to eat prepared fast foods for the majority of your diet. Growing up McDonalds was a twice a year treat for special occasions. Peeling potatoes and baking bread from actual flour and yeast was the daily chores.
by phil21
3/23/2026 at 10:06:01 PM
99% of people can do 48h water fast with no issues. Easy weight loss, no need for a gym or healthy food.Try it!
Or don't. Feels good to mog people by just being normal weight.
by heraldgeezer
3/23/2026 at 8:20:43 PM
Oh, look whose family has a roof over their head and food in their bellies!We get it, @ExtraRoulette. You're big pimpin'.
by jewayne
3/23/2026 at 8:36:23 PM
I think we now have the answer to your query:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46046401
But I don't think we should extrapolate from it.
by jacquesm
3/23/2026 at 8:04:07 PM
I thought it was the avocado toast that was keeping us from owning a house.by jmcgough
3/24/2026 at 1:28:14 AM
I wonder how much of this can be attributed to breaking the ATC training/hiring pipelines back in 2014.https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-faas-hiring-scandal-...
by tbihl
3/24/2026 at 5:03:14 AM
This shifted the race of trainees, but it doesn't seem to have changed the more important metric of how many people were actually hired. The author claims it had an effect, but as far as I can tell he's never quantified it.The real issue is just insufficient slots.
by jml7c5
3/24/2026 at 3:55:58 AM
I'd guess the randomly firing a bunch of air traffic controllers in 2025 without cause didn't help much either:https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-begins-firings-o...
by hedora
3/23/2026 at 11:38:59 PM
It’s also hard to hire for. Candidates for job openings must be between the ages of 21-31 years old. Yes they are legally forbidden from hiring anyone older.by SamuelAdams
3/24/2026 at 3:46:23 AM
Since they have a mandatory retirement age of 56 (if they're not retired earlier for health conditions) it's not crazy to have an age cutoff for intake. Why put someone through a 2 year training with a high failure rate if after they make it through all of that you'll get at most 10 years of work out of them?by khuey
3/23/2026 at 9:48:40 PM
Why are we discussing the issue being ATC workers when the recordings make it clear that they had identified the issue and ordered the vehicle to stop? Sound like the issue is whoever was driving the truck not doing what was asked of them for whatever reason. Unless of course it was equipment failure.by urbandw311er
3/24/2026 at 8:05:01 AM
> Sound like the issue is whoever was driving the truck not doing what was asked of them for whatever reason.Hard disagree. The ATC initially cleared them to cross the runway. The truck started moving, and just then the ATC realised that they made a mistake and tried to fix it. Even their first attempt at that was unclear, and they only clarified who should stop on the second attempt.
People can’t react in zero second, trucks don’t stop immediately. The ATC mistake was clearing them to cross the runway, whatever happened after was out of their hands.
by krisoft
3/23/2026 at 9:50:54 PM
The controller told the truck to proceed, before telling it to stop. That was a serious ATC error.by jlawson
3/23/2026 at 10:31:31 PM
If the timings on the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pbm-QJAAzNY are accurate, it had time to cross; it seems they dawdled a bit.Controller probably should've told them to expedite the crossing or warned that traffic was about to land, but they were managing a lot at once; tower+ground by themselves and an emergency already.
by ceejayoz
3/24/2026 at 3:53:46 AM
I counted 8 seconds from clear to cross to first 'truck 1 stop' - along with it not being immediately clear the stop was for the truck, or for Frontier 4195 until 2 more seconds.Add a few seconds for human reaction time on both ends, I don't think that's really "enough time to cross safely" - maybe if the stars align.
by phil21
3/23/2026 at 11:25:46 PM
The poor guy was managing two runways and ground traffic, which is nuts.by markdown
3/24/2026 at 12:37:07 AM
This isn’t super unusual, it’s just that when they do this it’s normally at an airport in east bumfuck where a controller is barely needed.Doing it at LaGuardia or any major airport is absolutely nuts.
by dghlsakjg
3/23/2026 at 6:35:52 PM
No that is not the issue. Runway incursions have always been a problem and many deaths have occurred.There have been many attempts to change phraseology, teach pilots and controllers to always readback runways, etc. but nothing that actually prevents the issue from occurring entirely via automation.
by aeternum
3/23/2026 at 9:12:53 PM
The incursion was by a fire engine which was hurrying to handle yet another incident. The weather was foggy, it was raining, and the incoming plane was already low, so it was pretty hard to tell it apart from many other lights shining from the fog in the distance. It's not easy to assess the speed of motion when a fuzzy ball of light is advancing right towards you.The pilot was given the clearance to land before the fire engine was dispatched. Apparently there was not even enough time for the crew to max out the thrust and try to lift off the strip even if they managed to notice the lights of the incoming fire engine.
by nine_k
3/23/2026 at 10:15:33 PM
Planes use a system called TCAS to prevent collisions in the sky, this system is independent of ATC and works even if ATC is not paying attention or if pilots have the wrong frequency tuned. It detects impending collisions and gives both pilots clear and automated alerts plus an action IE climb + turn to execute immediately to prevent a collision.A similar system can and should be used for runways.
As a thought experiment, imagine how many car accidents there would be if instead of traffic lights, each person had a AM radio in their car and police officers called out over the radio which cars should proceed across the intersection. That is the unfortunate state of modern? aviation.
by aeternum
3/23/2026 at 11:07:33 PM
TCAS disables below 1,000 feet because there’s too much stuff at an airport.by ceejayoz
3/23/2026 at 11:27:13 PM
I have ADS-B in my airplane and can see everything on the ground on a pretty map as if it were literally a video game. I can see landing aircraft in realtime while holding short or crossing a runway. The emergency responder should have had it in their fire truck.The technology already exists. The problem has already been solved with an iPad and a $200 receiver. Almost certainly some BS regulation or rule was at least partially responsible here.
by oceanplexian
3/24/2026 at 12:08:45 AM
Information overload is a thing, and there are a lot of ground vehicles at a place like LGA.by ceejayoz
3/24/2026 at 3:48:10 AM
Consider that if you have access to all the local ADS-B data you can project paths forward through 3D space for the next, say, 30 seconds or so. Using GPS you can determine your own position in 3D space. At that point it's trivial (and I'm not handwaving here, it is literally extremely trivial) to filter projected paths based on passing close enough to your own in 3D space (ie accounting for altitude). Stick that on a tablet and require it to be present in all vehicles that operate on the tarmac.It wouldn't need to work 100% of the time because you'd still be required to contact ATC. The only requirement is that it have a reasonably high chance of alerting drivers to potential mistakes before they happen.
Which is to say this incident was trivially preventable had anyone with authority over these sorts of things cared to bother.
by fc417fc802
3/24/2026 at 11:24:50 AM
> for the next, say, 30 seconds or soBut this is a hand-wave.
This is a situation where both vehicles got explicit permission from someone who's supposed to know what they're doing. These sorts of runway crossings aren't unusual - and this one was responding to an emergency - and at a place like LGA there's always gonna be a plane on approach.
The difference between "hold short at runway 22" and being on runway 22 is much less than 30 seconds in some cases.
by ceejayoz
3/24/2026 at 2:17:20 AM
Well imagine if we designed a TCAS-like system that did work below 1,000 feet!by aeternum
3/24/2026 at 1:40:13 AM
Apropos of anything else, if you are operating an emergency vehicle on the road in "emergency mode", liability defaults to you unless demonstrably otherwise. I get that this is not a road, but...Almost every fire department in the country has SOPs for operating in emergency mode that generally include coming to a stop at all intersections or at least being able to affirmatively clear the intersection.
This personal liability is not particularly appealing in the world of fire, where ~70% of US firefighters are volunteer (not that the story is better in career), so codifying it in SOP allows departments/governments to negotiate insurance policies for their members, saying that "if you were driving in emergency mode, but within SOP, the department's insurance will cover your personal liability".
I saw the video. The incoming engine didn't appear to slow until too late, either.
by FireBeyond
3/23/2026 at 8:11:52 PM
Don't air traffic controllers get paid at a higher rate for overtime than for their 'regular hours'?If so, doesn't the understaffing (lower # of employees) result in each employee being overpaid (paid a higher hourly rate)?
EDIT: And it seems like air traffic controllers can retire after just 20 years and draw a defined benefit pension: https://www.faa.gov/nyc-atc
by rahimnathwani
3/23/2026 at 8:34:50 PM
It’s also the only industry that is legally allowed to practice ageism. You have to start before or up to 31 years of age. You’re out at age 56. This figures into how the benefits are structured.You can still do contract ATC work after 56.
by travisgriggs
3/24/2026 at 2:02:29 AM
Guess what happens to people's brains when they get old... the saying "teach an old dog new tricks" comes to mind.by userbinator
3/23/2026 at 11:00:57 PM
The RNLI also has an age limit: 45 or 55 for inshore or all weather crew.by gerdesj
3/24/2026 at 1:47:02 AM
Certainly not all departments, but many fire departments have an upper hiring limit for new hires. Above that age you can only be hired as a "lateral" (transfer hire from another department).by FireBeyond
3/23/2026 at 8:14:15 PM
Nurses also get paid more for night shifts, doesn't mean they're 'overpaid'by cenamus
3/23/2026 at 8:59:42 PM
I think GP means if we're paying overtime for so many people we're wasting money vs hiring more people to work at regular pay scales.The mystery to me is that AT shortages have been known fora. while now, so why haven't many more trainees been recruited?
by anigbrowl
3/23/2026 at 9:41:54 PM
> The mystery to me is that AT shortages have been known fora. while now, so why haven't many more trainees been recruited?ATC has been a shit career prospect for a while now so no one wants to enter training.
For one it requires uprooting your entire life to live near a training center, then they send you on an apprenticeship to a random airport in the country for a few years. And since there are only so many slots in the desirable metros, most people get sent to live somewhere “undesirable” to say the least.
For two, while trainees get paid they get totally fucked during government shutdowns. Many who make it to the funnel also quit at that point. Without fundamental structural changes to how they’re trained and paid at the political level, the number of trainees will remain small.
by throwup238
3/23/2026 at 10:03:34 PM
The politicization of government budgeting has made inefficiency rife. Sometimes new allocations are done purely for brownie points and there's genuine wastage - other times cuts are made that save a penny but lose a pound in the guise of efficiency. Doge was an excellent example in just how many severance payouts for employees who were occasionally rehired due to staffing shortages it triggered.by munk-a
3/23/2026 at 9:01:24 PM
Doesn’t this seem like the common practice in high-pension systems? You don’t use the overtime in pension calculations so it’s way cheaper to hire P people and run them on a 2x duty cycle than it is to hire 2P people and run them on a 1x duty cycle because the post retirement cost is Q in the first and 2Q in the latter.You can’t account for overtime in pensions because the employees will conspire to force overtime for retiring employees to bounce the pension up. Just a natural risk with an entity that can’t go bankrupt hiring people.
by renewiltord
3/23/2026 at 8:25:15 PM
Yes, when they work overtime they get paid more for that overtime than regular time.The money doesn't somehow make it sustainable for the people burning out their lives. Working 7 days a week, including overnight shifts, for 20 years to collect a pension seems like WELL earned compensation.
That's seems unrelated to "we have so few" and "we enmiserate the one's we do have".
by lelandbatey
3/23/2026 at 8:29:17 PM
I think rahimnathwani's point was not that they get extra pay so it's fine, but that it seems economically irrational to overwork fewer staff if it's actually more expensive.by bondarchuk
3/23/2026 at 8:35:19 PM
Here in Norway it's similar with doctors, they get paid a lot because they work crazy hours. But the doctors' association is fighting to keep it that way, as the old timers who didn't burn out along the way enjoys the high pay more than their spare time.by magicalhippo
3/23/2026 at 11:28:49 PM
Air traffic controllers are NOT fighting to preserve the status quo.by markdown
3/23/2026 at 9:22:50 PM
Yes, exactly.It's hard to argue you're underpaid if, as a result of short staffing, you're getting paid more (both in absolute terms and per unit of effort) than you signed up for.
by rahimnathwani
3/23/2026 at 10:13:51 PM
Wouldn’t insurance go some way to mediating this?If the ATC is under staffed they’d charge a far higher premium since the risk of accidents is higher.
I’m not sure who would be liable for this accident, I’m guessing ATC is a government provided industry, and I understand governments don’t insure.
by zeristor
3/24/2026 at 3:23:20 AM
That is not the real issue. Less people would be required if it was modernized.by kaliqt
3/23/2026 at 6:24:14 PM
Why do so many jobs have this failure mode? Thinking about this should illuminate for you that funding is not the whole story.by doctorpangloss
3/23/2026 at 6:26:44 PM
Okay, so then what is? Most jobs have this failure mode because there's a tendency to strip funding until disaster happens, even when it was clearly foreseeable.by jmalicki
3/23/2026 at 10:12:51 PM
this whole thing about funding and disaster is a big red herring. it tells me why we're talking about it, but it has nothing to do with how to solve the real, meaningful socioeconomic problem and why it keeps coming up in so many jobs. this is SO simple to understand but people resist it stubbornly. they WANT outrage. economic stuff isn't outrageous.> tendency to strip funding until disaster happens
well there's a tendency to pass unfunded mandates too. They are two sides of the same coin. Here's another way I've heard it described, to show you that this is a "bipartisan" issue:
> the Daily Show problem. I love the Daily Show, and I think Jon Stewart is hysterical. But literally the answer to every single problem is “Congress should pass a new law.”
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2014/10/marc-andreessen-in-c...
i don't think Marc Andreessen knows everything about everything the way that he thinks that he does. but he's not wrong. you are in the really lame "Congress should pass a new law" department - i guess to increase funding? - but you know, then it becomes, i don't see why it would be "enough" funding, we don't know, they could strike anyway...
personally, i believe the problem with guilded professions like "ATC guy" come about from complex but nonetheless finite incentives. so in a narrow sense, as long as some ATC controllers want to "work more, earn more," this problem will persist, it doesn't even have to be all ATC controllers, or even many, but the proportion of "work more, earn more" to "work less, earn less" personalities predicts the scale of the issues facing buyers of the guilded profession's services. other economists have talked about this and i'm sure someone will write great Causality Revolution paper about it for ATC.
broadly I think the problem has much more to do with the lack of economic opportunity in America, that there's minimum wage and everything else, and people are very risk averse like their peers in Europe or Asia but have less of a safety net so they are much more desperate. everyone is looking to guilds to solve their problem instead of demanding that their leaders support and deliver real growth, which makes me sound like Peter Thiel, and that should tell you everything you need to know about why this problem is so hard to solve. it's all politics, not a misunderstanding of the math about maintenance or disasters or whatever the fuck.
by doctorpangloss
3/23/2026 at 10:24:25 PM
We recently had a lot more probationary ATCs cut because of specific action by Elon Musk's DOGE, which has since then resulted in two major air disasters due to poor ATC handling, which was virtually unheard of before.This isn't some vague problem, it's a random asshole screaming "delete! Delete! Delete!" enlisting some random college dropouts to execute it for him, resulting in the loss of hundreds of lives directly attributable to those short sighted changes.
This isn't a vague problem, it's a specific asshole who is killing people so he can appear on stage with a chainsaw.
by jmalicki
3/24/2026 at 8:59:26 AM
Considering congress republicans are dead set to cause maximal damage, congress being between useless and harmful might just be correct diagnosis of the problem.Also, ATC controllers are not the one in power here. It is not like they would made the decisions that lead to here.
by watwut
3/23/2026 at 7:06:17 PM
Well, there was the time Ronald Reagan fired all the ATC workers [Edit: I had the reason wrong but I still blame Reagan.]by smallerize
3/23/2026 at 9:29:28 PM
Why blame Reagan? He was president 35 years ago and has been dead for 20 years.Why not blame any number of people who held the same office between then and now who have equivalent power to fix the system?
If we assign blame to this dead guy a long time ago, then there is no accountability to be had.
by gretch
3/23/2026 at 10:02:52 PM
Reagan fired a bunch, and then (naturally) hired a bunch to replace them. ATC work, generally speaking, for twenty years (that's when their pension vests), so twenty years after the strike there was a "cliff", with a larger than usual number of ATC retirements. As I understand it, that was anticipated at the turn of the millennium, and hiring + training ramped up to compensate, without much disruption. The next "cliff", twenty years after that (ie, that millennium tranche retiring), coincided with 1) a less than forward-looking administration, and 2) COVID. We still haven't dug our way out from under the second wave of retirements.You're absolutely right that solutions should have been taken, but it's also true that we're picking up the pieces of a decision taken forty years ago.
Source: /r/ATC. I highly recommend lurking there.
by eszed
3/23/2026 at 7:18:37 PM
They were already in a union (PATCO) and they were striking illegally which lead to their decertification.by coredog64
3/23/2026 at 7:30:35 PM
What's impressive is that if you look at the issues PATCO struck over, it was basically identical to the problems ATC faces today. The problem being that everything has only gotten a lot worse for ATC controllers.The union pretty loudly and early on pointed out major problems with that job and the response of ignoring them for 4 decades is what's driven us to the current situation.
by cogman10
3/23/2026 at 7:44:39 PM
Technically accurate.A union that isn't allowed to legally strike when needed isn't a useful union though. The state that ATC has been in for the decades after that suggests to me that they were correct to strike.
by kadoban
3/23/2026 at 8:44:32 PM
Huh. This seems selectively simplified. At least according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Professional_Air_Traffic_....Multiple economic write ups have concluded that Reagan’s “stick it to the upstart guy” cost us tax payers way more than it would if they’d just acceded and maybe even thrown in a gracious bonus to say thanks.
Larger sociology say the intangible cost to labor balance laws actually were much more.
Reagan’s trickle down (great euphemism for “piss on”) movement was the beginning of the demise of the GOP IMO. Disclaimed: I voted both times for him and many GOP followers.
by travisgriggs
3/23/2026 at 9:02:36 PM
striking illegallyHow dare those peons use their economic leverage! That's only for the upper class
by anigbrowl
3/23/2026 at 9:47:14 PM
There’s a pretty big difference between “economic leverage” when it means your stores might be shut down for a couple of weeks vs. all of the people moving, shipping, etc. in an entire country.by AuryGlenz
3/23/2026 at 10:09:04 PM
A strike being inconvenient? Workers leveraging how crucial they are? The stoppage of work having massive impacts across the country? Huh, maybe the powers that be should listen to the workers when they ask nicely for better conditions instead.by magnetowasright
3/24/2026 at 12:27:51 AM
They were free to use it and did.Their employer, the Federal government, was free to fire them, and did.
by twoodfin
3/24/2026 at 9:52:08 AM
and now the country of freedom is free to deal with ATC shortages that leave people managing two runaways and ground traffic by themselves in a a major airportah, truly a decision with no consequences
tl;dr just because it's a legally allowed decision, doesn't mean it's a right decision
by lesostep
3/23/2026 at 7:47:53 PM
Inadequate funding seems like the common factor across the vast majority of jobs with these failure modes.by jjk166
3/23/2026 at 9:16:15 PM
When paying for a (rare) failure is cheaper than paying for the (constant) absence of failure, it's just natural. You know, the optimal amount of fraud in a payment system is not zero. The optimal amount of fatal aircraft incidents is not an exact substitute, bit the pressure is of the same kind, I'm afraid :(by nine_k
3/23/2026 at 9:50:22 PM
Because we need to trust people and it is not sustainable to overstaff.In my job we work 40h a week + oncall rotating. It works.
by heraldgeezer
3/23/2026 at 6:36:09 PM
Can’t this whole thing being automated and let only special/unexpected situations being handled by humans ?by thefounder
3/23/2026 at 7:58:39 PM
This was a special/unexpected situation - one of the other passenger jets declared an emergency and needed to evacuate the passengers onto the ground (there were no free gates to return). The firetruck was on it's way to assist with the emergency.by alistairSH
3/23/2026 at 6:44:42 PM
Nowhere has automated ATC because errors look like this.by pjc50
3/23/2026 at 7:03:00 PM
That's like the argument about how we'll never (or should never) have self driving cars.Clearly human-run ATC results in situations like this, so the idea that automated ATC could result in a runway collision and should therefore never be implemented is bad.
by alex43578
3/23/2026 at 8:27:24 PM
It's not an argument for total automation but an argument for machine augmentation. It would be fascinating just as an experiment to feed the audio of the ATC + flight tracks [1] into a bot and see if it could spot that a collision situation had been created.You obviously wouldn't authorize the bot to do everything, but you could allow it to autonomously call for stops or go-arounds in a situation like this where a matter of a few seconds almost certainly would have made the difference.
Imagine the human controller gives the truck clearance to cross and the bot immediately sees the problem and interrupts with "No, Truck 1 stop, no clearance. JZA 646 pull up and go around." If either message gets through then the collision is avoided, and in case of a false positive, it's a 30 second delay for the truck and a few minutes to circle the plane around and give it a new slot.
by mikepurvis
3/23/2026 at 8:59:36 PM
I'm not well-enough versed in HMI design or similar concepts, but I think this idea for augmentation could collide with alarm fatigue and the disengaged overseer problem in self-driving cars.If we aren't confident enough in the automation to allow it to make the call for something simple like a runway incursion/conflict (via total automation), augmentation might be worse than the current approach that calls for 100% awareness by the ATC. Self-driving research shows that at level 2 and level 3, people tune out and need time to get back "in the zone" during a failure of automation.
by alex43578
3/24/2026 at 3:59:23 AM
> could collide with alarm fatigue and the disengaged overseer problemDepends both on the form the "alarm" takes as well as the false positive rate. If the alarm is simply being told to go around, and if that has the same authority as a human, then it's an inconvenience but there shouldn't be any fatigue. Just frustration at being required to do something unnecessary.
Assuming the false positive rate were something like 1 incident per day at a major airport I don't even think it would result in much frustration. We stop at red lights that aren't really necessary all the time.
by fc417fc802
3/24/2026 at 5:58:17 AM
Depending on how late the go-around/aborted landing is triggered, that can be a danger in itself. Any unexpected event in the landing flow has a risk, to the point that there's a "sterile cockpit" rule in that window.Even if it's just a warning to the ATC, distracting them and forcing them to reexamine a false positive call interrupts their flow and airspace awareness. I get what you're saying, that we could err on the side of alert first, out of precaution; but all our proposed solutions would really come down to just how good the false positive and false negative rates are.
BTW, stopping at a red light unnecessarily (or by extension, gunning it to get through a yellow/red light) could get you rear ended or cause a collision. Hard breaking and hard acceleration events are both penalized by insurance driver trackers because of that.
by alex43578
3/24/2026 at 6:35:26 AM
I'm assuming there that any such system would be appropriately tuned not to alert outside of a reasonably safe window. My assumption is that it would promptly notice the conflict following any communication which under ordinary circumstances should leave plenty of time to correct. To be fair I don't expect such a system would address what happened in this case because as you note false alarms on too short a notice pose their own danger which may well prove worse on the whole.This specific situation I think could instead have been cheaply and easily avoided if the ground vehicle had been carrying a GPS enabled appliance that ingested ADS-B data and displayed for the driver any predicted trajectories in the vicinity that were near the ground. Basically a panel in the vehicle showing where any nearby ADS-B equipped planes were expected to be within the next 30 seconds or so.
> stopping at a red light unnecessarily
Is it not always legally necessary where you live? It certainly is here. When I described them as unnecessary I was recalling situations that would clearly be better served by a flashing yellow.
by fc417fc802
3/24/2026 at 1:51:29 AM
Valid concern. Ultimately, the ideal would be to have commentary from professionals in the space to say what it is that would be most helpful in terms of augments.In doctor's offices it was easy, just listen to the verbal consult and write up a summary so doc doesn't spend every evening charting. What is the equivalent for ATC, in terms of an interface that would help surface relevant information, maintain context while multitasking, provide warnings, etc, basically something that is a companion and assistant but not in a way that removes agency from the human decision-maker or leaves them subject to zoning out and losing context so they're not equipped to handle an escalation?
by mikepurvis
3/24/2026 at 8:23:20 AM
There is such a bot and it is installed in LaGuardia Airport. The system is called Runway Status Lights, and it was supposed to show red lights to the truck. And the truck was supposed to stop and ask the controller: “If an Air Traffic Control clearance is in conflict with the Runway Entrance Lights, do not cross over the red lights. Contact Air Traffic Control and advise that you are stopped due to red lights.” https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/rwslThat is how it is supposed to work. How did it work in reality is an other question of course, and no doubt it will be investigated.
by krisoft
3/24/2026 at 2:01:42 AM
Truck 1 took too long to go through the runway. They had time toby Atotalnoob
3/23/2026 at 9:59:16 PM
> That's like the argument about how we'll never (or should never) have self driving cars.The reason we won't ever have self-driving cars is that no matter how clever you make them, they're only any good when nothing is going wrong. They cannot anticipate, they can only react, too slowly, and often badly.
by ErroneousBosh
3/24/2026 at 1:25:17 AM
They absolutely could anticipate, and arguably with more precision than people. The common occurrence of collisions when making left turns at an intersection shows that people's ability to anticipate is fallible too: people can't even anticipate that car driving towards them will continue to do so.Self driving cars' reaction times aren't slowed by drugs, alcohol, or a Snapchat notification pulling their attention.
Current systems haven't been proven in all weather conditions and all inclement situations (ie that tesla collision with a white semi-trailer), but it's crazy to say that self-driving cars won't match or exceed human drivers in terms of safe miles driven. Waymo has already shown an 80 to 90% reduction in crashes compared to people.
by alex43578
3/24/2026 at 4:01:17 AM
> Waymo has already shown an 80 to 90% reduction in crashes compared to people.Compared to unsafe people. It's an important caveat though I agree with the larger point you're making.
by fc417fc802
3/24/2026 at 5:52:44 AM
Can you clarify what you mean by unsafe? From what I can tell from the study, they're comparing to a human benchmark - basically the "average" driver, not a cherrypicked "bad" driver cohort.by alex43578
3/24/2026 at 6:19:27 AM
Just as with wealth the average is drastically skewed by outliers. I don't recall precise numbers off the top of my head but there are plenty of people who have commuted daily for multiple decades and have never been in a collision. I myself have only ever hit inanimate objects at low speeds (the irony) and have never come anywhere near totaling a vehicle; my seatbelts and airbags have yet to actually do anything. Freight drivers regularly achieve absurd mileage figures without any notable incidents.As I stated earlier I agree with the broader point you were trying to make. I like what they're doing. It's just important to be clear about what human skill actually looks like in this case - a multimodal distribution that's highly biased by category.
by fc417fc802
3/23/2026 at 8:03:01 PM
We automated some of the flight, we automate train signals.We can probably semi automate runway crossing. Someone mentioned red lights when you definitely cannot cross
by mememememememo
3/23/2026 at 6:46:06 PM
Imagine it were 90% automated. Now imagine there's a 3 hour outage of the automated system.You're left with a bunch of planes in the sky that can't stay there forever, and not enough humans on the ground to manually land them.
Now image the outage is also happening at all airports nearby, preventing planes from diverting.
How do you get the planes out of the sky? Not enough humans to do it manually.
Now imagine the system comes back online. Does it know how to handle a crisis scenario where you have dozens of planes overhead, each about to run out of fuel? Hopefully someone thought of that edge case.
by cj
3/23/2026 at 8:44:31 PM
This.Remember when all the Waymos were confused by a power outage? Now do that, but with airplanes that will fall thousands of feet and kill hundreds instead of park in the middle of the street.
I'm not saying we shouldn't automate things. We should. But, it's not easy. If it was, we would have done it already.
by alistairSH
3/24/2026 at 3:31:11 AM
> Remember when all the Waymos were confused by a power outage?I remember.
Do you remember (before Waymo existed) what happened to traffic in SF anytime the power went out?
I remember. It was pretty much the identical situation.
Traffic goes to hell when the traffic lights stop working properly (without Waymo and also with Waymo).
by tanseydavid
3/23/2026 at 9:31:36 PM
It should not be automated but it should be heavily augmented.One of the failure modes should not be “guy forgot thing”.
by gretch
3/23/2026 at 9:02:38 PM
Speaking of runway crossings specifically, you could have an automated backup, and require authorization from both ATC and the automated system to enter a runway.by tempestn
3/24/2026 at 1:23:18 AM
We build pacemakers, AEDs, flight control software, and other mission-critical life-and-death software. The idea that we'll just forever keep the system run by specially trained humans with known and foreseeable faults because poorly designed software could fail is head-in-sand unreasonable.by moduspol
3/24/2026 at 4:40:14 AM
Look what happened when the power went out in SF and the Waymos just stopped in the street because they were confused and there weren’t enough humans to direct them. Now imagine that but with planes that will fall out of the sky when they run out of fuel since they can’t land. Automating this is pants on head retarded.by what
3/23/2026 at 9:45:51 PM
> Imagine it were 90% automated.It already is.
> Now imagine there's a 3 hour outage of the automated system.
Planes divert to another airport, passengers grumble, end of story. Airport closures can and do happen all the time for all kinds of reasons, including weather or equipment malfunctions.
by cyberax
3/23/2026 at 9:50:47 PM
Except when the system fails regionally.by cj
3/23/2026 at 10:01:00 PM
Then all the takeoffs will be cancelled, immediately reducing the workload, and planes will be manually landed.by cyberax
3/23/2026 at 7:28:02 PM
[dead]by tosapple
3/23/2026 at 7:12:26 PM
There's exceptions all the time. They turn back because a warning light came on. They saw a deer on the runway, a passenger got up to the bathroom. There's no way that could be automatic, plus they often need atc to look at their jet to see if it's damaged.My suggestion is to restrict the use of smaller jets like crj and turboprops. I know airports like LaGuardia can't handle the big jets either, but they could reduce the slots and require a jet that holds, say, 150 people or more. This would result in fewer flights per day to some airports, but reduce overall congestion while still serving the same number of passengers.
by gosub100
3/23/2026 at 8:05:36 PM
Overwork is an issue in general, but I don't know that it was the actual issue here.> In audio from the air traffic control tower at LaGuardia, a staff member can be heard saying: "'Truck One, stop, stop, stop!" in the seconds before the crash.
It sounds to me like either the Cop or the Firefighter (whichever was driving) wasn't listening to ATC and this whole incident was probably completely avoidable.
EDIT: a video of the crash seems to have warning lights that the emergency vehicle ignored.
by hajile
3/23/2026 at 8:31:43 PM
> Overwork is an issue in general, but I don't know that it was the actual issue here.One controller working tower duties, ground movement duties, coordinating with other ATC functions off the radio, an active emergency request, and giving clearance amendments all within 2 minutes. It's insane understaffing. On top of it, there was nobody there to take over after the crash. He worked the whole cleanup for the next 30 minutes.
This is an Olympian level elite Air Traffic Controller who was setup to fail.
I've visited towers, center facilities, and have flying (and some instructing) in the San Francisco airspace for 10 years. That kind of failure is systemic way above an individual.
by storyinmemo
3/23/2026 at 8:10:54 PM
The audio I heard seems to show the firetruck asking if the runway is clear to cross, the controller responding in the affirmative, the firetruck confirming the affirmative, and then 7 seconds later, the controller saying STOP STOP STOP.by lotsofpulp
3/23/2026 at 8:41:10 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8Kqg6sokz4It seems like less than 2 seconds from declaring intent to cross until they are told not to cross.
The runway entrance lights look red to me which is also a huge warning flag.
by hajile
3/23/2026 at 10:08:24 PM
From the description:> Audio is not synced.
I think the gaps between transmissions have been trimmed, too; this isn't matching other versions of the ATC audio, such as [VASAviation's][1].
> The runway entrance lights look red to me which is also a huge warning flag.
IANA-ATC, but presumably in an emergency, you're permitted to obtain clearance from ATC to enter an active runaway, to get to the emergency. (Which they did, and got, but which ATC later effectively revokes with the command to stop, prior to the accident. Whether ATC should have granted the clearance, well, I'll wait for the NTSB report there.)
by deathanatos
3/23/2026 at 2:53:22 PM
> The runway should be essentially 'locked' when in use, if they don't want screens in every ground vehicle that may cross a runway, at least display it at runway entrances.It does, the Runway Status Lights System uses radar to identify when the runway is in use and shows a solid bright red bar at every entrance to the runway. I'm curious what the NTSB has to say about it for this incident. From the charts LGA does have RWSLs. I didn't check NOTAM to see if they were out of service though.
by bronco21016
3/23/2026 at 10:12:27 PM
> From the charts LGA does have RWSLs. I didn't check NOTAM to see if they were out of service though.Just to add…
The vehicle in question got clearance from ATC to cross the runway. ATC revoked it shortly afterwards (by radioing "Tower, Truck 1. Stop truck 1. Stop! Stop Truck 1, STOP!" (followed by the incident; the next transmission is go-arounds.)); presumably, ATC realized the impending danger. I am assuming that requesting permission from ATC to enter a runway in an emergency is a permitted action, so RWSL aren't going to prevent this type of incident.
I don't think we know why Truck 1 did not heed the stop warning (e.g., if it came too later, got lost, etc.), but I am thinking that if they understood the indication from the RWSL, they overrode it by getting clearance, because they needed to cross the runway due to the (first) emergency.
So, same. Will be curious to see what NTSB says. I suspect something about resource management: there seems to be too much happening, too quickly, for that one ATC controller. While perhaps the controller makes mistakes, the mistakes appear to my untrained ear as "reasonable", and I'd like the system to be such that reasonable mistakes don't cost lives.
by deathanatos
3/23/2026 at 11:13:39 PM
I’d love a source indicating it’s permissible to override the RWSL for emergency vehicles. In all training materials I’ve seen for pilots, it’s clear that an ATC clearance does NOT permit overriding the RWSL indication precisely for this scenario where ATC inadvertently provided a bad clearance. The direction to pilots is to query the controller to give them a chance for a second look and trap the error of the incorrect clearance. I linked the FAA page in another post where it provides direction to ground vehicles as well. Tomorrow I will have more time to research but this might be one of those things buried in a difficult to find Advisory Circular or something.by bronco21016
3/24/2026 at 1:58:50 AM
(Obligatory IANA-ATC.)https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/rwsl
From what I've found it seems like the indication of the RWSL should match the clearance from ATC. This to me suggests a ground vehicle is permitted to request:
> • DO NOT proceed when the Runway Entrance Lights have extinguished without an Air Traffic Control clearance. Runway Status Lights verifies an Air Traffic Control clearance, it DOES NOT substitute for an Air Traffic Control clearance.
> • If an Air Traffic Control clearance is in conflict with the Runway Entrance Lights, do not cross over the red lights. Contact Air Traffic Control and advise that you are stopped due to red lights.
The page never directly states it¹, but the implication is that a ground vehicle can request clearance, and the clearance from the ATC can be granted, & RWSL should match. If they do not match, red RWSL prevails, and green RWSL are not a substitute for clearance.
Truck 1 did request clearance. So then the question for this incident would be "what was the status of the RWSL when Truck 1 entered the runway?"² If they were red, according to the linked page, Truck 1 should not have entered the RW regardless of the clearance, and the mismatch between ATC verbally granting clearance & the RWSL system seems problematic. But, I don't know what the actual status of the RWSL was, so.
… hopefully, the NTSB report in a few months will contain an explanation.
¹I am treating this page as a non-authoritative explainer, not as legal regulations.
²The one video I've seen of the incident is not clear enough for me to make out the RWSL.
by deathanatos
3/24/2026 at 4:15:57 AM
This was an emergency vehicle actively responding to an emergency, not a regular vehicle. I'm not sure if that changes SOP but it certainly seems worth considering.by fc417fc802
3/24/2026 at 1:58:36 AM
It is my understanding the buck stops with the Firetruck driver. No matter what clearance they had, they were supposed to visually check the runway was clear before crossing. The truck didn't slow down at all.by fracus
3/24/2026 at 1:56:14 AM
>I don't think we know why Truck 1 did not heed the stop warningI read a theory that there's only one radio in the truck that needs to be switched between frequencies.
Presumably the truck driver got clearance from the tower then immediately switched away to the frequency that the firefighters use to coordinate.
by roncesvalles
3/24/2026 at 4:15:59 AM
Not a chance any airport is letting firetrucks drive around in the movement area without comms to tower/ground.by rogerrogerr
3/24/2026 at 2:17:32 AM
Video has been released showing that the REL's were operational at LaGuardia during the crash. It isn't definitive that the REL's that are facing the fire truck's view are working but they will have video and we will know soon.Tweet showing the video of the collision:
https://x.com/MCCCANM/status/2036131991792550351?s=20
Here is a diagram showing their locations.
https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/rwsl/media/LGA.pd...
by fnordfnordfnord
3/23/2026 at 5:19:44 PM
Emergency vehicles almost always can override/ignore warning devices (think firetrucks running red lights) which can cause "fun" for some value of "death/dismemberment/vehicle loss".by bombcar
3/23/2026 at 5:49:18 PM
Airport emergency services are presumably trained in this, but since a plane cannot stop easily (or not at all on takeoff after V1), I seem to remember the general rule is that even emergency vehicles with lights and sirens on give way to planes, and don't enter runways without permission from the tower.In the audio released by the BBC, the fire truck DID get permission from the tower to cross something, I can't tell if it was the runway in question. However, to cross the red runway lights if lit, you normally need that spelled out too something like "truck one, cross four delta, cross red lights". This did not happen on the BBC audio, which could mean one of many things.
by red_admiral
3/23/2026 at 6:07:02 PM
They got clearance, which was overruled by a STOOOP!The guy was alone operating 2 frequencies, had an emergency of another aircraft going on… is not so easy as many commenters from the armchair are insinuating
by f1shy
3/23/2026 at 6:39:47 PM
They got clearance and then obviously didn't bother to look outside, which is a dereliction of the basic responsibility of operating any vehicle on an airport surface. Clear left, clear right, then cross the hold short line.(See my other comment below if you're tempted to say something about visibility.)
by _moof
3/23/2026 at 7:37:24 PM
They could not see, because delta crosses in diagonal to the runway, such that the plane comes from behind (and the right side) so the driver has no chance to see. The truck was moving fast which is ok, because you want to clear the runway as fast as possible.by f1shy
3/23/2026 at 10:49:03 PM
It doesn't matter what the orientation of the taxiway is. If you can't see when you're stopped straight on the taxiway centerline, you stop at an angle instead.There is never an excuse for not visually clearing a runway before entering it.
by _moof
3/24/2026 at 3:29:00 AM
Then peak your head out of the window, that’s not an excuse.by kaliqt
3/23/2026 at 8:16:42 PM
>The guy was alone operating 2 frequencies, had an emergency of another aircraft going on… is not so easy as many commenters from the armchair are insinuatingI'm not saying its easy, I'm actually specifically saying it's such a hard job we should have automated most of it away ages ago. If the only thing stopping an accident like this is an ATC employee, this _will_ happen in the future.
They came up with rail signals long before the idea of a computer even existed. It's hard to believe voice only communication of routes and runway access is the best path forward. Especially when passenger airliners are involved.
by ApolloFortyNine
3/23/2026 at 8:44:14 PM
Automation emboldens policy makers to reduce human count because of the perceived increase in safety. This results in less eyes and brains monitoring for situations of automation failure or abnormalities. The corner stone of aviation safety over the last several decades has been having multiple, highly trained and experienced operators on station monitoring aviation systems to catch those moments when something goes wrong. Additionally, a culture where those operators are encouraged to speak up and be heard when something goes wrong without fear of being reprimanded is essential.Automation is fantastic. We use it extensively in aviation. However, the long tail of 9s in reliable requires constant vigilance and oversight because anything that can go wrong will.
by bronco21016
3/23/2026 at 8:34:08 PM
Who's entering the signal that the runway is locked? What if they screw up?There are so many failure modes with vehicles and planes using the same tarmac that I fail to see how anything would be worth developing here that doesn't eliminate that requirement altogether.
by hypeatei
3/23/2026 at 9:09:48 PM
Currently it’s automated at this airport: https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/rwslPresumably this is lack of familiarity with this on the part of firefighters.
by renewiltord
3/23/2026 at 10:38:11 PM
Ah, okay. I suppose it'll be part of the investigation but I wonder if the RELs were indiciating an unsafe runway which prompted the firetruck to ask or if they always ask for permission. Either way, I think my assesment is still correct: there are a lot of edge cases that neither lights nor humans are going to stop. O'Hare apparently has tunnels/underpasses for ground vehicles to use which seems basically foolproof for avoiding collisions like this.by hypeatei
3/24/2026 at 9:45:41 AM
No-one goes on a runway without positive ATC clearance, even emergency vehicles.In Germany at least, if the runway access is "red" then the only thing that lets you cross the lights is an explicit ATC command to cross the reds as well as general clearance, and that's part of training and procedures because it's a semi-automated backup system to the human primary system. RED MEANS STOP is drilled into everyone precisely to reduce the number of runway incursions/collisions.
by red_admiral
3/23/2026 at 6:14:09 PM
From where I'm sitting, it's not really "the fault" of ATC (even though it is) simply because I'm not trusting enough of ATC even when they're on "my side".When cleared across a runway I'm still going to be looking in all directions, and proceed as fast as I can. I also look both ways at railway crossings even if the guards are up and silent.
by bombcar
3/23/2026 at 6:36:06 PM
I wonder if visibility was good enough that looking both ways before crossing the runway would have prevented this.by __turbobrew__
3/23/2026 at 6:39:13 PM
That'll be one of the things the NTSB investigates.I also wonder if you're down to a "one controller" scenario if it would be better for there to be once frequency, not a ground/air split.
by bombcar
3/23/2026 at 8:03:21 PM
Or perhaps a "one controller" scenario is just terrible policy.by alistairSH
3/23/2026 at 7:38:59 PM
No. it wasn't. Delta crosses 04 in diagonal, so basically they should have taken the head out of the window and look behind. They had the clearance, so they just tried to cross. The problem is for some reason they did not hear the "Truck 1 stop" call.by f1shy
3/23/2026 at 8:38:15 PM
From the FAA’s site [1] on RWSL:> If an Air Traffic Control clearance is in conflict with the Runway Entrance Lights, do not cross over the red lights. Contact Air Traffic Control and advise that you are stopped due to red lights. (ex.: "Orlando Ground, Ops 2 is holding short of runway 36 Left at Echo due to red lights").
Airports are highly controlled environments unlike typical motor vehicle roadways and generally the same rules apply for aircraft, vehicles, and equipment on airport surface movement areas. From all sources I can find, if the RWSLs were working they should have been red and nobody should have entered the runway without further clarification from ATC.
by bronco21016
3/23/2026 at 7:33:56 PM
All vehicles can override/ignore warning devices. Doesn't make it right. Emergency vehicles should not override/ignore train or plane crossings. Trains and Planes don't care about flashing lights. Crossing an active runway requires clearance for safety.In this case, from the available information, the drivers of the fire truck thought they were cleared, and proceeded to cross while a plane was cleared to land. I'm not familiar with ATC ground radio to know if they were actually cleared or not, but it seems clear that that the drivers thought they were cleared.
Investigation reports will give us more details.
by toast0
3/24/2026 at 3:27:11 AM
Anyone can override if needed, not just emergency personnel.However that is not permissible here. Airplanes are similar to trains, you have to stop and wait and there are no exceptions.
by kaliqt
3/23/2026 at 5:19:11 PM
Air traffic (and ground traffic) control are not simple problems. La Guardia has 350k aircraft operations (takeoffs and landings) every year. 1000/day. Peak traffic is almost certainly more than 1 plane every minute. Runways are always in use and the idea that some simple software will solve all the safety problems is not grounded in reality.by dpark
3/23/2026 at 5:59:36 PM
This isn’t hypothetical, this system just exists in other countries. Digital systems can confirm flight instruction from ATC with zero radio communication.by PieTime
3/23/2026 at 8:19:57 PM
> Digital systems can confirm flight instruction from ATC with zero radio communication.Digital comms is available in the US:
* https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/DataComm
The issue is that the final approach and landing (and taxiing?) environments are probably too dynamic for that: in this particular situation one of the vehicles was responding to an emergency (fire).
In addition to huge planes, there is baggage transportation, passenger buses (to mid-field terminals), fuel pumpers, emergency vehicles, snow plows, deicers, and general maintenance vehicles (clear debris off runways).
by throw0101d
3/23/2026 at 6:13:08 PM
I’m not saying we couldn’t move more into automation. What I’m saying is that doing so will not solve all of our air/ground control problems. We still have human pilots and humans driving vehicles on the ground. Switching from humans directing landings to machines might improve some things but will not solve for all (and probably not most) risks.Literally the crash here was caused by a fire truck entering the runway.
by dpark
3/23/2026 at 6:31:25 PM
The ATC told them to enter the runway because they were confused or distracted due t overwork.No one here or anywhere is saying automation would solve or be able to handle everything that human operators handle, that's an argument you invented that no one is making.
People are saying automation could handle a significant portion of the routine things allowing humans to handle the more complex/finicky issues.
Even if automation could handle 10% of the most common situations it would be a huge boon. In reality its probably closer to 50%.
by clint
3/23/2026 at 7:19:55 PM
There's unfortunately an alertness problem WRT automated systems.If the reason you have the human there is to handle the unusual cases, you run the real risk that they just aren't paying attention at critical moments when they need to pay attention.
It's pretty similar to the problem with L3 autonomous driving.
Probably the sweet spot is automation which makes clear the current set of instructions on the airport which also red flags when a dangerous scenario is created. I believe that already exists, but it's software that was last written in 1995 or so.
Regardless, before any sort of new automation could be deployed, we need slack for the ATC to be able to adopt a new system. That's the biggest pressing problem. We could create the perfect software for ATC, but if the current air traffic controllers are all working overtime and doing a job designed for 3 people rather than one, they simply won't have the time to explore and understand that new system. It'll get in the way rather than solve a problem. More money is part of the solution here, but we also need a revamped ATC training program which can help to fill the current hole.
by cogman10
3/23/2026 at 7:03:19 PM
> The ATC told them to enter the runway because they were confused or distracted due t overwork.Very possibly. It will be interesting what comes from the investigation.
> No one here or anywhere is saying automation would solve or be able to handle everything that human operators handle, that's an argument you invented that no one is making.
I’m asking if it would have solved even the current situation. The truck presumably saw the red light, and was asking to cross. Would traffic control have said no if more had been automated and if so, what automation would fix this? Unless we are supposing the truck would be autonomously driven and refuse to proceed when planes are landing, in which case, maybe, though that’s not really ATC automation anymore.
by dpark
3/23/2026 at 7:39:39 PM
an automated system that could check if a plane is about to land on a runway and show some kind of alert or red light is hardly a stretch of the imaginationby Palomides
3/23/2026 at 7:53:50 PM
That’s such a great idea that it already exists and is deployed at La Guardia.by dpark
3/23/2026 at 9:05:50 PM
Thank you for providing your aviation knowledge to this discussion. What a classic example of tech people thinking that because they're smart, every other industry must be dumb and they can just jump in and fix it.by Nition
3/23/2026 at 10:07:23 PM
I also do not like this persistent tone of “everyone else is stupid; software would easily fix it” that pops up so often. Not all problems are easy to fix with some code.To be clear, though, I don’t even have significant aviation knowledge. But this isn’t hard to learn about. That’s part of what irks me so much about this tone. It’s not just “I’m so smart” it’s “I’m so confident that you’re dumb that I don’t need to know anything about the domain you’re working in to know better than you”. Someone could ask ChatGPT why airports don’t have stoplights to stop traffic from crossing the runway and it would reveal the existence of this system.
by dpark
3/23/2026 at 10:54:57 PM
> "I don’t need to know anything about the domain you’re working in to know better than you"This frustates me to no end. Is it just an example of the Dunning–Kruger effect?
by jerbearito
3/23/2026 at 11:54:12 PM
Something like that. It feels a bit different because it’s less about overestimating one’s knowledge/ability and more about underestimating the complexity of domains outside one’s expertise. But yeah. Very similar.by dpark
3/24/2026 at 2:04:28 AM
Me too, but I don’t like referring to Dunning-Kruger ever for multiple reasons. There are perfectly good labels like cockiness, arrogance, ignorance, presumptuousness, and wrongheaded. ;)There are many issues with DK, and the paper’s widely misunderstood. For one, the primary figure demonstrates a positive correlation between confidence and competence, so according to DK’s own paper, high confidence is not an indicator of incompetence, contrary to popular belief. The paper also measured things in a very funny way (by having participants rank themselves against other people of unknown skill), and it measured only very simple things (like basic grammar, and ability to get a joke), and it only polled Cornell undergrads (no truly incompetent people), and there were a tiny number of participants receiving extra credit (might exclude the As and Fs in the class). Many smart people have come to the conclusion that DK is a statistical artifact of the way they did their experiment, not a real cognitive bias. Some smart people have pointed out that DK is probably popular because it’s really tempting to believe - we like the idea of arrogant people getting justice. The paper also primes the reader, telling them what to believe even though the title isn’t truly supported by the data. It’s an interesting read that I think would not pass today’s publication criteria.
Anyway, sorry, slash rant.
by dahart
3/23/2026 at 10:52:21 PM
Agreed, but I see this in every industry. And though it's certainly arrogant on some level, I think of it in a more positive light: people are generally optimistic and want to solve problems.My grandfather had a rule at his business for 55-ish years: we welcome your ideas and suggestions, but not for the first year. You spend that time learning our processes, decisions behind them, pain points, areas that need improvement, etc. You also spend that time doing the work and hearing from your colleagues. Then you can (hopefully) make informed suggestions. That's not possible in every situation, but I like the intent.
by jerbearito
3/23/2026 at 11:55:07 PM
> people are generally optimistic and want to solve problems.This is an amazingly positive spin on the behavior.
by dpark
3/24/2026 at 1:59:10 AM
I meant something in-vehicle for ground vehicles, like an extremely simple extrapolation of current velocity and the extremely predictable trajectory of a plane, instead of depending on going back and forth over radio asking a very busy fallible human, but sureeven my cheap car has geofencing and automatic braking
I've worked on avionics professionally and I haven't crashed any of my planes yet...
by Palomides
3/24/2026 at 4:54:29 AM
“These lights … turn red in response to traffic, providing direct, immediate alerts without the need for input from controllers”.It will be interesting to see what the report says. Did the light system not function? Did they override it? Do they ignore it consistently?
> geofencing and automatic braking
I’m not at all sure I want emergency vehicles to be blocked like this. And if they can override then it’s no different. They didn’t roll onto the runway on accident.
> I've worked on avionics professionally and I haven't crashed any of my planes yet...
Is this relevant somehow?
by dpark
3/23/2026 at 10:04:25 PM
The habit where HN commenters greenfield solutions that are slightly worse versions of the ones experts already have in place is unmatched.by mikeyouse
3/23/2026 at 8:10:20 PM
In an ideal world this would be like rail traffic, where the runway would be 'locked' (red signal) due to the landing plane, and the fire engine would have to explicitly request an override to cross the locked runway, and importantly, this process has to be _rare_. If it's something that's done 5000 times a day, it'll be normalized. Everyone involved should be aware of the dangers of traversing a 'locked' runway.by ApolloFortyNine
3/23/2026 at 10:55:40 PM
My understanding that this scenario is exactly what happened here.by burntwater
3/23/2026 at 6:37:40 PM
Changing the delivery method doesn't do anything to solve the problem of a controller sending an instruction that creates a hazard.by _moof
3/23/2026 at 9:59:19 PM
What is _really_ needed is a replacement of the archaic narrowband analog FM radio. Where you can't listen and talk at the same time. There are probably at least several dozen accidents where the inability to communicate with an aircraft or a road vehicle was a contributing factor.I would settle for a good digital system with an ability to issue emergency/priority calls to specific receivers. Oh, and full-duplex communication.
I'm practicing for a sports pilot license, and I really have problems with understanding other pilots and the ATC.
by cyberax
3/23/2026 at 5:47:52 PM
> more than 1 plane every minuteSoftware routinely solves database coordination problems with millions of users per second.
by infinitewars
3/23/2026 at 5:52:19 PM
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.by infinitewars
3/23/2026 at 6:13:11 PM
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.
by matthewkayin
3/23/2026 at 6:37:54 PM
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).by jrockway
3/23/2026 at 7:06:39 PM
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.by nradov
3/23/2026 at 5:53:12 PM
True. But to avoid 1 minute unavailability per year requires 99.9999 % availabilityby mongol
3/23/2026 at 6:12:07 PM
Like any scale system, degrade the experience. Use radio if the more advanced systems are unavailable?by verelo
3/23/2026 at 6:18:51 PM
In a digitized environment. We cannot yet simulate the real world.by yifanl
3/23/2026 at 6:17:47 PM
with extremely controlled conditions. There is no fog in database, nor fallible humans involved, What an ignorant responseby PunchyHamster
3/23/2026 at 5:49:54 PM
Yup, by having backup runways.by glitchc
3/23/2026 at 5:57:03 PM
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.
by jjmarr
3/23/2026 at 5:54:34 PM
And no fire trucks crossing the runways.by dpark
3/23/2026 at 6:18:34 PM
....they need to get to fucking fire....if they go around kilometer of the runway the fire will turn into bigger fire
by PunchyHamster
3/23/2026 at 6:29:40 PM
Two trucksby singleshot_
3/23/2026 at 9:06:12 PM
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.
by renewiltord
3/24/2026 at 4:23:08 AM
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
by rogerrogerr
3/24/2026 at 5:45:49 AM
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.by renewiltord
3/23/2026 at 6:02:05 PM
>> 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.
by johnbarron
3/23/2026 at 8:40:13 PM
That makes digitization even more important, you sold me.by amomchilov
3/23/2026 at 5:40:30 PM
No one said it was simple. You're tilting at windmills.by mvdtnz
3/23/2026 at 5:42:33 PM
Literally called it “low hanging fruit”.by dpark
3/23/2026 at 6:05:41 PM
But context is important. "Low-hanging fruit" doesn't mean the solution is "easy" in a vacuum, it just means this specific aspect is the easiest and/or most obvious place to start attacking a problem.Or to stick with the language of the analogy, every fruit tree has some fruit that is lower than the others. That doesn't mean all "low-hanging fruit" is within arm's reach of the ground, some fruit just doesn't require as big of a ladder as other fruit.
This comment isn't a judgment of this specific case. I don't know enough about ATC to have any confidence in my opinion on the viability of replacing humans with software.
by slg
3/23/2026 at 11:09:45 PM
I disagree with you entirely. "Lowest-hanging fruit" isn't the same as "low-hanging fruit". The phrase "low-hanging fruit" does specifically mean that the solution is easy, in a vacuum - the fruits are "low", which is not relative to the other fruits or the height of the tree, but relative to the ground.by wk_end
3/24/2026 at 12:49:53 AM
I'll just defer to Merriam-Webster[1]:>the obvious or easy things that can be most readily done or dealt with in achieving success or making progress toward an objective
So not only can it be "obvious" rather than "easy", it is also in the context of "achieving success or making progress toward an objective". There is nothing in the definition that requires either this specific step or the overall goal to be easy.
[1] - https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/low-hanging%20fru...
by slg
3/23/2026 at 6:53:51 PM
That goal post moved so fast it made a whooshing noise as it passedby PLenz
3/23/2026 at 7:10:44 PM
I think you're mistaken. That whooshing sound must have been my comment flying over your head.That was my first comment in this thread, so there was no established goal to change. My sole goal was to clarify the meaning of an idiom that the comment I was replying to was misstating.
I even included a disclaimer that "This comment isn't a judgment of this specific case", so I don't know how you could have received it as such.
by slg
3/23/2026 at 5:21:02 PM
[flagged]by CamperBob2
3/23/2026 at 5:23:01 PM
One jet landing every minute, coordinating the airspace for miles around the airport, along with coordinating non-landing traffic (helicopters, small craft), while making sure these (already heavily automated) flight systems dont get confused and kill several hundred people sounds easy to you, along with keeping everything on time and schedule?Go write it then.
by JohnMakin
3/23/2026 at 5:24:55 PM
And I think most critically: being able to adapt all of this on the fly when invariably something goes off-plan.by estearum
3/23/2026 at 5:26:18 PM
Aviation is over 100 years old. Everything that can possibly happen in ATC has either already happened or can reasonably be anticipated.It's stupid, wasteful, and ultimately dangerous to make a human do a machine's job.
by CamperBob2
3/23/2026 at 5:40:30 PM
You say it “…sounds like a simple problem,” and sure, if you think this is a computer problem, it sounds simple. But if all you’re getting back is indignant sputtering, that’s your cue to explain why it’s simple—explaining something simple shouldn't be hard. What do you actually know?It takes all of two minutes of Wikipedia reading for me to understand why this isn’t simple; why it's actually extremely not simple! If you ignore the incumbency, the regulations, the training requirements, the retrofitting, the verification, the international coordination, and the existing unfathomably reliable systems built out of past tragedies, then sure, it’s "simple". But then, if you're ignoring those things, you’re not really solving the problem, are you?
by thomascountz
3/23/2026 at 5:51:45 PM
If you ignore the incumbency, the regulations, the training requirements, the retrofitting, the verification, the international coordination, and the existing unfathomably reliable systems built out of past tragedies, then sure, it’s "simple".Those are excuses and encumbrances, not reasons. If they are so important, it leads to a question: what existing automated systems can we improve by adding similar constraints?
If these are just "excuses" and not "reasons," then explain how you have determined them as such.
I would like to say, "Because knowledgeable people have explained the difference to me." But again, this has come up before, and no explanations are ever provided. Only vague, reactionary hand-waving, assuring me that humans -- presumably not the same ones who just directed a fire truck and an aircraft onto the same active runway, but humans nevertheless -- are vital for safety in ATC, because for reasons such as and therefore.
There you are doing it in order to avoid engaging with the substance of what people are saying.
There is no substance in the replies. There never is. Only unanchored FUD.
by CamperBob2
3/23/2026 at 9:05:14 PM
Ok. You have shared that what some say are reasons, you say are excuses. Do you want to be told you are right, or do you want to propose a valid solution? If the latter requires the former, I maintain that this is not a simple problem.by thomascountz
3/23/2026 at 9:37:55 PM
I just want what I've been asking for: someone to explain to me why, in 2026, humans still need to be involved in the real-time aspects of ATC."Because it's always been done that way, and that's what the regulations say," will not be accepted, at least not by me.
(Really, my question is more like why humans will still be needed in the loop in 2036. If we started automating ATC today, that's probably how long it would take to cut over to the new system.)
by CamperBob2
3/23/2026 at 11:08:58 PM
You have made a claim. That... sounds like a simple problem.
If you ignore the incumbency, the regulations, the training requirements, the retrofitting, the verification, the international coordination, and the existing unfathomably reliable systems built out of past tragedies, then sure, it’s "simple". But then, if you're ignoring those things, you’re not really solving the problem, are you?
Those are excuses and encumbrances, not reasons.
Ok. You have shared that what some say are reasons, you say are excuses... I maintain that this is not a simple problem.
I just want what I've been asking for: someone to explain to me why, in 2026, humans still need to be involved in the real-time aspects of ATC.
On the heels of tragedy, you reasoned this could've been avoided simply. We are all ears. And yet, at no point did you demonstrate any understanding of the problem containing real world constraints, and instead demand that it be explained to you how the world works and how systems are implemented.
If you want to discuss an idealized system in a vacuum, then say as much; I would find that interesting. But do not demand to be given an explanation when you do not understand—and cannot accept—why things are the way they are.
Let me summarize it like this: you may very well have the best solution in the world, but if it doesn't include a strategy for how to share it (let alone implement it), then I maintain you do not understand the problem and therefore cannot claim it is simple.
by thomascountz
3/24/2026 at 12:37:24 AM
Let me summarize it like this: you may very well have the best solution in the worldI have no solution at all, for the 35th time.
This conversation is over; it's clear I'm not going to get what I asked for. If someone could answer my question, they would have by now, rather than throwing one smoke bomb after another.
by CamperBob2
3/23/2026 at 10:03:32 PM
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47492768Can you please explain how specifically you imagine a scenario like this getting automated?
by estearum
3/23/2026 at 10:27:00 PM
No, that's not how this works. You tell me why it can't or shouldn't be automated."Design an automated ATC system" isn't a valid answer to "Why can't ATC be automated?"
by CamperBob2
3/23/2026 at 11:23:56 PM
Er, I sort of do think that's how it works? The ultimate rebuttal to "you can't do X" is to actually do X. Until you do that I think that ultimately the burden of proof falls on you. It can be very easy to imagine certain tasks and systems can be automated - especially when you aren't actively involved in those tasks and systems and are unfamiliar with their intricacies.by wk_end
3/23/2026 at 11:29:32 PM
You: why don't we have a universal cancer vaccine?Me: [ insert specific example of currently intractable problem ]
You: sounds like an excuse
Me: okay... can you explain how it could work?
You: THAT'S NOT HOW THIS WORKS
okay
by estearum
3/24/2026 at 12:42:32 AM
More like:Me: Why don't we use radiation to treat cancer?
You: Radiation is dangerous
Me: Sounds like an excuse
You: OK, design a medical-grade synchrotron
Me: That's not how this works
You: LOL pwned
...insert specific example of currently intractable problem...
What makes the problem intractable? We can now do both voice recognition and synthesis at human levels, and any video game programmer from the 1980s can keep some objects from running into each other.
When an emergency is declared, keep the other objects in a holding pattern and give the affected object permission to land. Then roll the fire trucks. Preferably not routing both the trucks and another aircraft onto the same runway, as the humans apparently did here.
by CamperBob2
3/24/2026 at 2:58:08 AM
It’s not weird that you believe automated ATC is possible. The weird thing is that you insist it’s simple.People’s lives hang in the balance of a system built of corner cases. And you trot out radiation treatment as your metaphor? As if we didn’t royally fuck that up and kill a bunch of people at first.
by dpark
3/24/2026 at 4:04:45 AM
The 'simple' remark was in response to your wide-eyed implication that 1000 takeoffs and landings per day is somehow a challenge for modern computing systems.You'll lose this argument sooner or later. I just hope it happens before several hundred people find out the hard way that humans no longer have any business in a control tower. With your attitude, Therac-25 would have been seen as grounds to shut down the entire field of radiotherapy.
by CamperBob2
3/24/2026 at 5:26:15 AM
Your “simple” springs from your assumption that the problem is easy and anyone who disagrees is dumb. This is also why you can’t hear any of the answers others have given you. You don’t want answers. You want to be “right”.No one thinks that the difficulty with automatic ATC is that computers have trouble counting 1000 things.
by dpark
3/24/2026 at 7:12:50 AM
No one thinks that the difficulty with automatic ATC is that computers have trouble counting 1000 things.I mean, you're the one who said it...
by CamperBob2
3/24/2026 at 1:10:04 AM
> What makes the problem intractable? We can now do both voice recognition and synthesis at human levels, and any video game programmer from the 1980s can keep some objects from running into each other.Great point!
It must be that despite the reliability, obvious advantages, and accessibility to "any video game programmer from the 1980s", everyone else is just choosing not to do it.
Alternatively, these things are not as simple or as reliable as you, a person who has no familiarity with the problem, assumes them to be.
I guess we'll never know ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
by estearum
3/23/2026 at 6:18:57 PM
The only difference between an excuse and a reason is the designator's belief as to the validity of the reason provided. You have already said you do not have the expertise required to assess validity, yet here you are doing it in order to avoid engaging with the substance of what people are saying.If these are just "excuses" and not "reasons," then explain how you have determined them as such.
by estearum
3/23/2026 at 5:48:57 PM
> Aviation is over 100 years old. Everything that can possibly happen in ATC has either already happened or can reasonably be anticipated.This is just not how complex systems work. N of 1 events happen regularly, which is exactly what makes them challenging.
You simply asserting every scenario has been seen before does not actually make it so.
by estearum
3/23/2026 at 5:25:29 PM
while making sure these (already heavily automated) flight systems dont get confused and kill several hundred peopleConfusion is indeed a common side effect of a job done halfway.
Replying: I'm really confused at the point you're trying to make - you declared yourself not an expert in this field, while loudly declaring it's so easy to automate.
Because we've already done harder things. 1000 takeoffs and landings per day equals a trillion machine cycles between events... on the phone in your pocket. It is an extraordinary claim, requiring extraordinary proof, to say that this task isn't suitable for automation.
Why don't you do it then? What am I missing?
I'm not qualified to do it, I didn't say I was, and in any event, I don't work for free. I'm asking for concrete reasons why it's not feasible. Spoiler: there are no reasons, only excuses.
The concrete reason your ideas won’t work is you don’t have any.
It's not my job to explain how to do it, it's your job to explain why it can't or shouldn't be done. The extraordinary claim is yours, not mine.
Remember how we installed traffic lights all over the roads and now car crashes never happen any more at intersections? Truly automation solves all problems.
Hard to respond to an argument of this quality, at least without getting flagged or worse.
by CamperBob2
3/23/2026 at 5:37:48 PM
I'm really confused at the point you're trying to make - you declared yourself not an expert in this field, while loudly declaring it's so easy to automate. Why don't you do it then? What am I missing?by JohnMakin
3/23/2026 at 5:41:27 PM
> Why don't you do it then? What am I missing?I know this was rhetorical but the obvious answer is a complete lack of any actual ideas. “Just automate it” is a common refrain from people who don’t know how to fix the actual issues with any domain.
Remember how we installed traffic lights all over the roads and now car crashes never happen any more at intersections? Truly automation solves all problems.
by dpark
3/23/2026 at 5:47:56 PM
> I'm asking for concrete reasons why it's not feasible. Spoiler: there are no reasons, only excuses.It sounds like you're not asking anything at all
Just to play it out a bit, are you imagining that a pilot would be reporting a mechanical failure upon descent into busy airspace to some type of like AI voice agent, who will then orchestrate other aircraft out of the way (and not into each other) while also coaching the crippled aircraft out of the sky?
Are you imagining some vast simplification that obviates the need for such capability? Because that doesn't seem simple at all to me.
by estearum
3/23/2026 at 6:05:15 PM
To repeatedly declare something simple to fix, but then have no idea how to fix it, and indeed to declare oneself unqualified to fix it, is kind of an astounding level of hubris.> I'm asking for concrete reasons why it's not feasible.
The concrete reason your ideas won’t work is you don’t have any.
by dpark
3/23/2026 at 5:33:53 PM
> Every time I've asked what's so hard about automating ATCWhy don’t you describe the hypothetical automation you believe would solve the problems then?
My hunch is that either your ideas are already implemented (like GP post who said they need to add red lights at the runway instances, except yeah, they do have that), or they are just bad.
> indignant sputtering and patronizing hand-waving.
Preemptively insulting everyone who might respond to you certainly looks like you’re asking for a real conversation. :|
Your accusation of “patronizing hand-waving” is especially off base considering you literally proposed nothing except “automating”. Hand waving indeed.
by dpark
3/23/2026 at 5:27:49 PM
I worked in aviation in the late 1990s and automating ATC is all they could talk about. So, that's almost 30 years of talking and no action.by HoldOnAMinute
3/23/2026 at 5:33:26 PM
That's because it's a political problem, and not a technical problem. It could have been done then, and it can be done now.Just curious: how many people in this thread know what SAGE was? A $5 Arduino has more computing power than the whole SAGE network. This isn't 1958, so we don't need the 'Semi' part of 'Semi-Automatic Ground Environment' anymore.
by CamperBob2
3/23/2026 at 6:27:56 PM
Hehehehe, grounded.by felipellrocha
3/23/2026 at 6:31:38 PM
You can't just throw software at this. It's a complex system that involves way more than just an airplane and someone in a tower. Systems engineering, human factors, and safety management systems are the relevant disciplines if you'd like to start reading up. In addition there are decades of research on the dynamics between human operators and automation, and the answer is never as simple as "just add more automation." Increased reliance on automation can paradoxically decrease safety.CPDLC is already being deployed domestically. It's currently available to all operators in en route segments.
All runway incursions at towered airports are reported, classified according to risk, and investigated.
by _moof
3/23/2026 at 6:48:42 PM
On the flipside, look at the success of TCAS. It doesn't have a perfect operational history. It hasn't completely eliminated midairs, either. But it took a relatively rare event and further reduced the frequency by about a factor of 5.I wouldn't be so quick to rule out that there's some kind of relatively easy technological double check that could greatly reduce incidents. The fact that we've not gotten there despite years of effort to reduce runway incursions doesn't mean that it's not possible.
by mlyle
3/23/2026 at 6:54:10 PM
TCAS is fantastic - absolutely stellar example of effective automation.But calling a replacement of major ATC functions with software a "simple fix" is a perfect illustration of why this is a bad idea. Nothing about human-rated safety-critical software is simple, and coming at it with the attitude that it is? In my view, as an experienced pilot, flight instructor, spacecraft operator, and software engineer, that thinking is utterly disqualifying.
Besides, there already are a lot of "simple" fixes in place for this problem, e.g. RWSL, which didn't prevent this accident.
by _moof
3/23/2026 at 7:01:51 PM
I don't know. At some point, you need to do all the systems engineering. But "why not just ......" is a perfectly reasonable place to start looking at a problem and sometimes the answers really are that simple.> Besides, there already are a lot of "simple" fixes in place for this problem, e.g. RWSL
It'll be interesting to hear why RWSL didn't help, as it is supposedly deployed at LGA.
by mlyle
3/23/2026 at 7:25:18 PM
You could put a TCAS on every ground vehicle. It's not rocket science.Yes, I know it probably costs $300k, surely today you can have a $10k ground version.
You could also show every plane on a screen inside the vehicle and have some loud alarms if they are on a collision path.
You could even just display FlightRadar24, still better than nothing.
You would still get permission for the tower, this would not be an allow system, just a deny system.
by dist-epoch
3/23/2026 at 8:27:20 PM
> You could put a TCAS on every ground vehicle. It's not rocket science.TCAS on planes is disabled below 1000±100' (~300m) AGL (above ground level).
ADS-B on vehicles is already a thing (and FAA certified):
* https://uavionix.com/airports-and-atm/vtu-20/
There are three categories of runway incursion types: operator/ATC error, pilot error, pedestrian/vehicle. Even if someone 'knows' that they need to "hold short runway 12", they can still have a brain fart and go through the hold short line.
Unless you want to argue that all vehicles taxiing have to operate (SAE Level 4) autonomously?
by throw0101d
3/24/2026 at 8:29:38 AM
Having emergency braking is different than SAE Level 4. Exactly my point with only denying access versus also allowing it.by dist-epoch
3/23/2026 at 8:15:49 PM
Yeah but TCAS works inside each airplane. ATC (and ground operations) require coordinating across multiple types of aircraft, at airports across the world, with high precision AND humans in the loop (there are A LOT of edge cases).This is a REALLY hard problem that the US cannot solve alone. It would require extensive global coordination.
Not insurmountable, but this is not something you can easily roll out piecemeal. If even a single aircraft lacks the compatible equipment you're back to the existing system.
by alfalfasprout
3/23/2026 at 7:18:50 PM
> You can't just throw software at thisOk, let's not try improving systems, how's that working out?
by jonny_eh
3/23/2026 at 7:53:34 PM
"each one should be investigated as if an accident occurred and fixes proposed"I feel the same way about close calls on the road, especially ones involving a vehicle and a vulnerable road user like a pedestrian or cyclist. Way too many lives being saved by a person jumping out of the way at the last minute who shouldn't have had to do so, and then cops and bureaucrats shrugging with "well what do you want us to do, the numbers don't show enough fatalities here for it to be worth fixing" and later when someone actually does die it becomes "this is a horrible tragedy that no one could have seen coming, let's focus on thoughts and prayers rather than accountability that could lead to structural change."
by mikepurvis
3/23/2026 at 8:07:55 PM
If it was all on video I'm all for it, though the argument "I wasn't driving" makes it more trouble than it's worth.by ApolloFortyNine
3/23/2026 at 8:12:15 PM
As a former bike commuter who used to send helmet cam vids to my local police, I definitely got back that response a bunch of times, "we have the plate but not the face of the driver, so it's not actionable for us, even to issue a warning".Which has always seemed a little nuts, like in case of hit and run it would definitely be possible to take action based on a plate alone, both for police and insurance purposes. Unless the registered owner can point to the not-them person who was driving their car at that time, then it was them. Or it was stolen, but either way there will be a clear paper trail.
by mikepurvis
3/23/2026 at 8:23:37 PM
>Which has always seemed a little nuts, like in case of hit and run it would definitely be possible to take action based on a plate alone, both for police and insurance purposes. Unless the registered owner can point to the not-them person who was driving their car at that time, then it was them. Or it was stolen, but either way there will be a clear paper trail.All that creates a mountain of work and man hours that any police department in America would likely put on low priority.
Basically our legal system is too forgiving and the possibility that someone stole their car (even if it was a friend) and returned it 20 minutes later exists, and therefore it's on the police to prove it wasn't.
And the law is pretty hard to change since it would change it to 'guilty until proven innocent'.
by ApolloFortyNine
3/24/2026 at 12:51:08 AM
Can I rent a car, get it stolen by someone doing illegal speed and parking during week end, then finding the car back (and luckily the keys!) and return it to the rental?How is it more mountain-of-workish for the policemen if that’s not a rental but my own?
by aziaziazi
3/24/2026 at 4:19:45 AM
> Unless the registered owner can point to the not-them person who was driving their car at that time, then it was them.Not true, at least in the US. You are innocent unless it can be positively demonstrated that you were the one driving.
For a serious enough incident the police will invest the necessary time to collect evidence that you were in fact the one driving. But that's costly to do.
by fc417fc802
3/23/2026 at 3:04:39 PM
How would you exactly "digitize"? While that sounds like a nice idea in theory it's the same as "digitizing" road traffic.In the end the air traffic system is a highly complex but also a highly reliable system, especially when you compare accident rates.
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.
by thomas_witt
3/23/2026 at 5:10:52 PM
The Runway Status Light system already does this via automated monitoring of traffic from multiple systems: https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/rwslI'm sure the NTSB report will cover why this didn't stop the accident. Presumably either the system wasn't working as-expected, or the fire truck proceeded despite the warning lights since they had clearance from the controller.
The system is only advisory at present, so if the truck did see a warning light and proceeded anyway, they were technically permitted to do so.
by njovin
3/23/2026 at 3:22:40 PM
>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...
by ApolloFortyNine
3/23/2026 at 3:37:54 PM
[flagged]by thomas_witt
3/23/2026 at 5:22:36 PM
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.by SpicyLemonZest
3/23/2026 at 3:40:33 PM
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”by guzfip
3/23/2026 at 3:45:32 PM
And I suppose people flying an 40 year old Cessna 172 will share the same feeling if someone wants to "digitize" it.by thomas_witt
3/23/2026 at 4:41:04 PM
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.by ApolloFortyNine
3/23/2026 at 5:37:18 PM
What tech do you suppose we’d put in an airplane that would stop a fire truck from driving onto the runway? Gatling guns?by dpark
3/23/2026 at 6:20:23 PM
It's already digitized, he's clueless. The ATC knows where vehicle was and where the plane is going, it looks as simple case of mistake or maybe not watertight enough proceduresby PunchyHamster
3/23/2026 at 5:34:57 PM
> While that sounds like a nice idea in theory it's the same as "digitizing" road traffic.Traffic lights instead of mad max intersections are better.
Then there's subway Automatic Train Control.
I don't know that Air Traffic Control staff don't have computer systems for establishing which plane owns what airspace. They at least did do it manually already following specific processes, so it can be at least augmented and a computer can check for conflicts automatically (if it isn't already). And, sure, ATC could still use radio, but there could be a digital standard for ensuring everybody has access to all local airspace data. Or maybe that wouldn't help.
Your ground vehicle wanting to cross a runway could have the driver punch "cross runway 5" button (cross-referenced with GPS) and try to grab an immediate 30 second mutex on it. The computer can check that the runway is not allocated in that time (i.e. it could be allocated 2 minutes in the future, and that would be fine).
But, as pointed out elsewhere, obviously some of this is already present: stop lights are supposed to be present at this intersection.
by coryrc
3/23/2026 at 7:14:19 PM
The problem is knowing before today how to handle the case where a ground vehicle isn't across the runway in those 30 seconds.by bryan_w
3/23/2026 at 6:12:03 PM
I'm sure they've started all of this a few times over the past decade. The problem is in the US if you can't start and finish a project like that in less than 2 years then it's effectively dead in the water. The last time we "modernized" ATC was closer to the 90's than today, when there was still some general political will to make our government agencies modern instead of tearing them to pieces.by throwway120385
3/23/2026 at 7:10:55 PM
The FAA NextGen program has been running for literally decades. They have made some progress but there's a lot of work left to be done.by nradov
3/23/2026 at 7:42:55 PM
Automating ATC is similar to automating flying in general. Even if it's possible to automate 99% of 99% of flights, including even takeoff and landing, commercial flights still have two pilots because if things start to go wrong there's just so many edge cases that you can't easily write automation to handle all of them. Same thing for ATC, except even worse. They still have control towers because controller eyeballs still work even if nothing else does, if ground radar fails, or if a vehicle doesn't have an ADS-B transponder, or if a crash eliminates the radios, etc. There's just so many edge cases that making automation be able to handle everything is extremely difficultby ranger207
3/23/2026 at 8:09:55 PM
But still, even if you need humans when things go wrong, automating away all the work for when things go right is a massive load off those people. There will always be failures, the goal is fewer failures, and especially eliminating known failure modes.by jjk166
3/23/2026 at 6:31:30 PM
Ha. My first job in '89 was working for an FFRDC reviewing IBM's Jovial code that was going to "revolutionize ATC" by modernizing everything.I'm gonna guess that code never went into production. The problem seems easy until you start looking under the hood.
by angst_ridden
3/23/2026 at 3:10:01 PM
The BBB allocated $12B for ATC modernization. https://www.faa.gov/new-atcsMoney isn't the only reason it's so old. The coordination problems are huge. https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/24/us_air_traffic_contro...
by smallerize
3/23/2026 at 11:57:07 PM
With the current atmosphere around technology, I feel like "digitize air traffic control" is an idea that will be both executed terribly by the money grubbing lunatics in control the government and tech corporations, AND received poorly by the public.by 48terry
3/23/2026 at 6:16:29 PM
There are systems for it, just not really integrated into emergencies and ground vehicles. Mistakes also happen even if all info required to avoid is presentby PunchyHamster
3/23/2026 at 10:22:23 PM
This isn’t really ATC though connected. I was just watching a presentation from Royal Schiphol today about a lot of the automation of the airport they’re putting in place as part of admittedly long-term 2050 plans. Lots of computer infrastructure rework.by ghaff
3/23/2026 at 11:02:44 PM
I'm a ground instructor and instrument rated pilot and I fly a 206 in and out of busy charlie and delta airports. I'm also a ham radio guy (WT1J) and an SDR dev. I'm 100% with you on this, but the amount of inertia you're dealing with here approaches infinity. And there are some weirdly strong arguments for not changing things.We use AM simplex radio. That means everyone hears everyone else and that helps everyone build a situational awareness picture. Secondly we use AM because if someone transmits over someone else it makes a squealing noise so you know it happened. Also AM propagates pretty well.
Most people on HN could design a pretty good digital replacement in a few minutes - and no doubt some have been suggested in these comments. But its instructive to understand a bit about aviation history. The liability risk carried by aircraft and avionics manufacturers at one point go so bad that we stopped making general aviation planes in the USA. Then that liability was limited to a very small extent by GARA, and we had what we call the 'restart' of manufacturing.
So the idea of introducing a new mandatory replacement (not addition like ADS-B) for AM comms has a lot of resistance from quite a few areas: Manufacturers don't want to have to make the capex to reinvent and recertify new equipment. The US has a lot of old planes due to the lack of innovation because of the liability issue - and so those old planes all need a retrofit and pilots don't want to spend that money. Avionics for certified aircraft is already horrifically expensive. Legislators don't want to take on the risk of an incident attached to a bill they sponsored. And then there's the practical matter of now having two systems - the legacy AM comms, and the modern one that some have and some don't and the split in situational awareness between those populations.
So while full-duplex is seductive, and digital is seductive, and satellite seems like the obvious endgame - the reality of transitioning is very difficult.
Vehicles are listening to the same audio the pilots are, so they have the same mental picture of what's going on. Last week I talked to a maintenance vehicle at KBLI directly from the air because he was on a runway I needed to land on, at an untowered field. He cleared it, I landed, and he went about his business. So the system works pretty well most of the time.
I think the root of the issue here is actually something else. Firstly there is a lot of dissatisfaction among NATCA members (ATC union) towards their union, and the view seems to be that the union could be doing a lot better job of lobbying for their workers. You can visit /r/atc or /r/atc2 on reddit to learn more.
Secondly, the USA has fallen into a nasty trap where our government has positive incentives to choreograph shutdowns to get our congress members and senate members the face time that they crave. So there is a negative incentive to resolve a shutdown. Rather let it get hot, let it play out, and maybe you'll be the one to appear to save the day to your constituents. The trouble with this is that the department that creates one of the highest risks for civilians in a very visible way, is the FAA and the controllers in particular. So they have become a political football. And they're in an extremely stressful job without pay. And that's a very big problem.
You're seeing this play out in a growing adversarial relationship between the NTSB (e.g. DCA) and FAA, with NTSB tearing FAA a new one recently for DCA - and rightly so. I think that's led to more demotivation at FAA which hasn't helped.
So the situation is spiraling out of control. We have controllers who are overworked, who regularly don't get paid, and a union not doing the greatest job at advocating for them. Along with the recent cuts in government funding across the board.
It's frustrating for pilots. The best we've been able to do is bring our local TRACON folks stacks of free pizza, both in Colorado and Seattle. But that's obviously a token gesture. I don't see a way out of it. To be perfectly honest. And it's very frustrating because the amount of good work that FAA does, is quite startling. You'd be amazed how much data they produce including real-time feeds that are freely available to devs like us. Once you get into the IFR world and start looking not just at approach plates, but the review and updating process of each, the other maps that are produced, the real-time sitrep data that they're producing - it's really quite something what they've accomplished. And the world looks to FAA for its lead in aviation. We were the first to pioneer powered fixed wing flight, after all. I can only hope there's a way out of this.
by mmaunder
3/23/2026 at 5:38:50 PM
> That ATC still takes place over radio just seems insane at this point.Voice communication is insane? I suspect you are ignorant of what it is like to actually fly a large aircraft into a busy airport. Fault-tolerant and highly available hardware must facilitate low-latency, single-threaded communication with high semantic density in order to achieve multi-dimensional consensus in a safety-critical, heterogeneous, adversarial environment.
There is some interesting research that captures this sentiment and shows how complex a solution might need to be (replace "faulty agent" with "human error"): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00051...
by zenoprax
3/23/2026 at 5:52:28 PM
Voice communication has the advantage is that it can be used without taking off hands and attention off controls. Digital solution would require using device.by ianburrell
3/23/2026 at 6:03:56 PM
Voice communication can still be used for anything out of the ordinary despite automating the common case.Almost all voice transmissions are routine instructions/clearances from ground to air, with the pilots reading them back to reduce the chance of errors. In fact, this already exists and is in wide use in (at least) the US, EU, and in transoceanic airspace.
Of course, now you have two systems that can fail, and reducing reliance on the older one can easily cause automation complacency (which is a well-researched source of errors) and require more frequent refresher courses if the skill is not practiced on a continuos basis.
I suspect that that these are the reasons it's not commonly used for approach and tower operations: There's a lot more spontaneous and/or nonstandard stuff happening in those flight phases, and as you say you don't want a pilot's eyes on a tiny screen/keyboard instead of on their instruments or out the window.
by lxgr
3/24/2026 at 1:28:53 AM
I was originally going to reply with "Try moving a couch with eye blinks and hand signals" and then decided against it. Pilots have enough to do with their hands and feet as it is and looking for and mashing a "I accept the terms and conditions of the landing clearance" button is not really in line with the task at hand.by zenoprax
3/23/2026 at 5:58:53 PM
Listening to some recent close call ATC tapes, yes, it seems absolutely insane to manage current traffic levels with the existing number of controllers over voice.I don't doubt that it's a very safe system with enough slack allowing for intentional redundancy. But as it is, some of these controllers seem to be limited by their ability to pronounce instructions, leaving absolutely no margin for error and presumably very little room for conscious thought.
by lxgr
3/23/2026 at 6:10:52 PM
HN has recently banned AI written / edited comments. Be better.by jorvi
3/24/2026 at 1:24:48 AM
Not AI. Not sure how I feel getting my writing style called out like that though :Dby zenoprax
3/23/2026 at 6:12:08 PM
> That ATC still takes place over radio just seems insane at this point.There is digital comms with ATC without voice:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controller–pilot_data_link_com...
* https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/DataComm
But in the highly dynamic environment of final approach, landing, and taxiing, I doubt it would be practical. Unless we want to try autonomous 'driving' on taxiways and runways?
by throw0101d
3/23/2026 at 9:22:30 PM
What you are describing is sometimes considered to be part of the mythical Cat IIIC standard. The gap between Cat IIIB and Cat IIIC is being able to fully automate the entire taxiing and other ground manoeuvring. It is widely considered to be impossible to achieve safely with current tech. It does feel like the future though.by simonjgreen
3/24/2026 at 4:12:21 AM
I guess they can't afford it, but my ego is telling me I could do this.by TechSquidTV
3/23/2026 at 4:29:25 PM
> There's 1700+ runway incursions a year in the US alone, each one should be investigated as if an accident occurred and fixes proposed. Like when an accident occurs.How many runways crossings are there in a year? How much is "1700+" a percentage of that total?
by throw0101c
3/23/2026 at 6:31:26 PM
A "runway incursion" is a very broad term that includes everything from this accident to a single engine Cessna moving past the hold short line prematurely at a quiet airport.FAA defines it as "Any occurrence at an aerodrome involving the incorrect presence of an aircraft, vehicle or person on the protected area of a surface designated for the landing and take off of aircraft." [0]
Many runway incursions run no risk of any accident, but are still flagged as issues, investigated, and punished if appropriate.
[0] https://www.faa.gov/airports/runway_safety/resources/runway_...
by snitty
3/23/2026 at 5:21:54 PM
The point is that it doesn't matter what percentage of the total they are, it's that 1 is too high without adequate explanation (the Gimli Glider caused vehicles to be guilty of a runway incursion by turning an abandoned runway into an active one, for example).And the cost of investigating 1,700 should be within the budget.
by bombcar
3/23/2026 at 5:52:58 PM
Of course it matters. All of these entities have limited budgets and personnel and almost unlimited ways they could apply those resources. They have to choose what to chase and they do that by deciding how big of a problem it is.by criddell
3/23/2026 at 6:12:18 PM
If 1,700 is a huge percentage of runway uses (obviously it isn't but grant it, say at a single airport), then it's mandatory it be investigated because it's so huge.If 1,700 is a minuscule fraction of all runway uses (as it likely is) then investigating it should be a proportionally minuscule amount of the budget.
by bombcar
3/23/2026 at 6:29:15 PM
There are five categories of incursion, with the top one being where a collision occurs:* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runway_incursion#Definition
* https://www.faa.gov/airports/runway_safety/resources/runway_...
All incursions (in the US) are tracked:
* https://www.faa.gov/airports/runway_safety/statistics
Given there are ~45,000 flights per days in the US (and so aircraft and vehicles would move hither and fro around an airport for each flight), 1700 feels like a small number.
by throw0101d
3/23/2026 at 6:38:09 PM
Exactly - it's a small number and should be investigated, because if we reduce the number of all incursions, we reduce the number of collisions (and fatalities).by bombcar
3/23/2026 at 7:03:02 PM
They are classified as operation/ATC error, pilot error, and vehicle/pedestrian error.Human can misspeak or mishear instructions, but if they were communicated and understood correctly (a read back was correct), but the pilot had a 'brain fart' and went forward instead of stopping, how do we eliminate brain farts?
by throw0101d
3/23/2026 at 7:20:25 PM
That's a big part of the story of aviation; the way things are communicated has changed because of brain farts, the way things are lined up, etc.See 5-2-5 for an example:
https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/aim_html...
NOTE- Previous reviews of air traffic events, involving LUAW instructions, revealed that a significant number of pilots read back LUAW instructions correctly and departed without a takeoff clearance. LUAW instructions are not to be confused with a departure clearance; the outcome could be catastrophic, especially during intersecting runway operations.
The older term was "hold short runway X" and that was too close to "hold runway X" - the first meant do NOT enter the runway, the second meant enter and line up but do NOT takeoff.
by bombcar
3/23/2026 at 7:38:01 PM
The old version of “line up and wait” was “taxi into position and hold”. “Hold short of runway” is still in use but means something different.by lisper
3/23/2026 at 6:36:30 PM
You can't know how big of a problem it is without an investigation. Frequently, the initial "obvious" cause of a collision or incursion turns out to be a multi-layered set of failures. Tightening up procedures or recognizing a previously overlooked defect in the systems makes us all safer and should be prioritized.We talk about Vision Zero for streets. Vision Zero is actually achievable in aviation.
by brewdad
3/23/2026 at 5:25:58 PM
My very fuzzy back of the envelope says easily 10s of thousands per day.by dpe82
3/23/2026 at 8:27:44 PM
There is a certain class of person who will take something simple like, say, brake lights on a car, and extrapolate it out to industrial control systems of something incredibly complex with demanding safety requirements and "observe" "it can't be that hard can it?"I remember a debate a year or two ago about a plane ignoring instructions (IIRC it had changed frequencies) and had taxiied onto a runway when a plane was landing. Luckily the landing plane saw this and do a go around so nobody was harmed.
In the aftermath, there were similar complaints to yours. "Why can't they just have lights to block planes when a departing or landing plane was using the runway?" without thinking through how any of that works. For a start:
- How do you allocate that a runway is "in use"?
- If ATC does it, what if they fail to turn the system on?
- What if turning it on or off fails?
- What if it gets stuck on or off? How do you fix it? Are there procedures for ATC to override it anyway?
- There are multiple entry points to a runway. What if they're in different states?
- What company si going to sell such a system and accept liability?
- What training requirements will be needed for ATC and the pilots?
- What do you do if a pilot goes ahead and ignores it?
I think people can't think beyond cars. Cars have had unimaginable effort put into them so they can only operate within a certain window. Even then they require maintenance.
But as soon as you scale up to industrial safety and control systems, a power plant, the engine on a ship, etc you will end up with a bunch of controls where the people using them need to be skilled operators and it is essentially impossible to eliminate mistakes with automation and IT systems. You will need overrides. You will need redundancies. You will need to end up doing things nobody has ever considered before and have to rely upon training, education and experience to go beyond the envelope. That's just how it works.
by jmyeet
3/24/2026 at 3:31:10 AM
I thought the exact same thing!The technology existed to at least help automate this decades ago.
by the_real_cher
3/23/2026 at 10:09:06 PM
The Rocket-man-bad-person tried to do this last year and essentially lost his company over this.by dzhiurgis
3/23/2026 at 10:02:50 PM
> That ATC still takes place over radio just seems insane at this pointHow would you do it, then?
by ErroneousBosh
3/24/2026 at 2:21:33 AM
sounds easy, but there will always be special cases that a machine hasn't handled and cause even more accidentsby m3kw9
3/23/2026 at 7:27:19 PM
I would not trust my life to a government software project (See Phoenix Payroll for a typical case)by nikanj
3/23/2026 at 5:49:20 PM
You seem to be giving too much credit to the singleton design pattern. We know exactly how well that works on a modern, multi-tasking, preemptible operating system (hint: not well at all).by glitchc