The Federal Aviation Administration is once again looking into a close call at a major U.S. airport, after two passenger jets narrowly avoided a mid-air collision as they attempted to land in Phoenix.
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This is all very interesting. But who is looking into the problem when two Starbucks customers narrowly avoid harsh words when both arrive at the same time and try to occupy the same spot, mid-lineup?
In other words, they approached no closer than one-quarter mile, because of the existing systems which caught human error and reported it to people so they could avert a disaster.
Sounds like it’s time to thank the government officials who required the development and use of those systems!
There have been several articles about the problem of understaffed towers and seriously overworked air traffic controllers. The FAA has just hired a whole bunch more but they're still in various stages of training so it will be a bit before the effects are felt.
The pilots of the United jet also said they'd received a cockpit alert to take evasive action. Both planes aborted their approaches, circled the airport and then landed without incident
For my own clarification. So while this shouldn’t happen, the procedures and training did what they were supposed to in this scenario? Honest question.
Traffic Collision Avoidance System is in all airlines anymore. They did the training. TCAS talks to the other aircraft in the area and tells one to go up, and the other to go down. The training is do what TCAS says to do and ignore the controller for the moment.
I will wait for more information on cause(s), however this is a loss of separation that should not have happened. The cockpit alerts were a failsafe that allowed crews to avoid disaster.
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Anyway, I learned that a 737 is pretty nimble, and can climb at a very steep angle if it wants to.
http://www.b737.org.uk/fireliner.htm
Sounds like it’s time to thank the government officials who required the development and use of those systems!