from Hacker News

Private jet came ‘within 100 feet’ of colliding with Southwest plane, NTSB says

by jaboutboul on 8/15/23, 5:55 PM with 59 comments

  • by blantonl on 8/15/23, 7:44 PM

    Pilot here: I'd bet you 100 bucks the Citation had the Southwest 737 in sight the entire time while on the approach, and knew exactly what was going on. There was almost certainly little to no danger of a collision. When on a visual approach like this you are literally watching the runway the entire time.

    You can hear the Citation confirm and ask twice if they were still cleared to land, even after they were already cleared to land, so the Citation was gently nudging the controller that "hey, there's still an airplane on the runway."

    It was a go around at the airport because of existing traffic on the runway. This happens all the time. Granted the controller got bogged down task wise, but the Citation knew it. I'd even bet you that the Alaska flight behind the Citation watched the whole thing go down with amusement.

  • by gottorf on 8/15/23, 6:55 PM

    > The Federal Aviation Administration said in June that it would start mandatory monthly safety training sessions for air-traffic controllers across the U.S. after a spike in near misses.

    > In the first two months of the year, eight incidents involving airliners on or near runways were rated by the FAA as a serious risk of a collision or prompted the NTSB to open an investigation. That’s almost double the annual average for the previous five years.

    What's going on in control towers that's causing this? Did hiring standards for ATCs drop all of a sudden, or something like that?

  • by hggh on 8/15/23, 6:45 PM

    Video with ATC audio of the incident: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0DkXRwfaoE

  • by throwbadubadu on 8/15/23, 6:29 PM

  • by hggh on 8/15/23, 9:56 PM

  • by m3kw9 on 8/15/23, 7:20 PM

    Takes a lot of luck to hit something in 3d when both are trying to avoid each other

  • by Gelob on 8/15/23, 7:06 PM

    I love how never on the ATC is someone like oh shit we almost just died wtf was that