Plane Answers: JFK kid controller incident and a smoking 757

by Kent Wien on

Probably the most popular offering on LiveATC.net is the JFK ground and tower frequency. It’s rather entertaining to listen to the Kennedy controllers who are often faced with the daunting task of moving so many airplanes from all corners of the world with a variety of accents.

So it’s no surprise that when a JFK controller hosted a young visitor to the tower on February 17th, and even allowed the kid to make a few transmissions over the tower frequency, those listening to LiveATC.net were there to catch it. And the TV reporters weren’t far behind.

The child, who was possibly the controller’s son, was heard handing off an Aeromexico and JetBlue flight to departure control as well as clearing the JetBlue flight for takeoff.

As a pilot, I’d probably react in the same way the JetBlue crew did. I’d get a chuckle out of it, but the FAA can’t possibly shrug off this now highly public incident. I just hope the controller doesn’t lose his job.

Frankly, these instructions could have been given in French and pilots would understand exactly what was instructed. And each pilot in this case read back the instructions clearly, so there was no misunderstanding. If the readback was incorrect, the controller would have jumped right in. So don’t believe the hype that a near disaster was narrowly avoided.

Of course we don’t bring our kids to work in the cockpit. In fact, there were two high profile examples of why this isn’t done. A Turkish pilot was fired in 2008 for letting a 15-year old sit in his seat.

And tragically, an Aeroflot flight crashed while the captain’s 15-year old son was flying. But a child saying adios from the tower to a departing flight isn’t exactly the same as letting a kid fly the plane.

No doubt the media will be all over this today. Here’s one report from The Early Show on CBS this morning that includes the kid’s ATC audio that was surely obtained from LiveATC.net:

And finally, we’re going to get back to more questions on Plane Answers. Here’s today’s:

Pete asks:

Dear Kent,

On a recent flight from BOS to SFO there was significant smoke from the engine when started. Let me lay the facts out… Light snow was falling. The plane needed to be de-iced. The plane was a 757. Upon starting the engine, significant smoke came from the engine. I worried at first but then figured it was because of the De-Icing solution. Is that correct and is it normal for smoke to come from the engine on start?

Good observation, Pete. The 757 and the Lockheed L-1011 use the Rolls-Royce RB211 engines which smoke quite a bit during engine start, especially on cold days. We’ve had passengers think the airplane was on fire during start, in fact.

While I’m not certain, it’s likely unburned fuel or pooling oil that’s at the root of this phenomenon. Either way, it’s definitely noticeable. Other jets don’t seem to produce the amount of smoke that this engine does on cold days.

De-Icing fluid can also cause a bit of smoke, but not as much as a cold 757 does.

Do you have a question about something related to the pointy end of an airplane? Ask Kent and maybe he’ll use it for the next Plane Answer’s Plane Answers. Check out his other blog, Cockpit Chronicles and travel along with him at work. Twitter @veryjr

Plane Answers: Three inexpensive ways to make flying safer

by Kent Wien on

The culture in aviation has always been focused around how to make flying even more safe. The FAA, NTSB and even Congress are looking into ways to improve air safety after the 49 people were killed in the Colgan Air accident in February–the only fatal accident in the U.S. so far in 2009.

I’d be willing to wager that more money goes toward ensuring the safety of the flying public than to life saving procedures or infrastructure in any other industry or activity. I’ve likely benefited from that investment, with far fewer of my colleagues lost in airplane accidents in the past ten years than in any previous decade.

But it’s easy to become hyper-focused on ways to make air travel safer without considering the opportunity costs. As a society, we have a limited amount of resources we can use to save lives. And somehow we tend to overlook the fact that, on average, 123 people are killed every day in the U.S. while driving in automobiles. That’s equivalent to an airliner crashing every day. Clearly that would be unacceptable.

But there are still a few areas of low-hanging fruit that could make air travel safer at a relatively low cost. Here are my top three:

Airway Offsetting

Today airplanes usually fly between two published points, essentially creating a ‘road’ in the sky called an airway. When these airways were designed, they were given four miles left and right of the imaginary centerline. GPS equipped airplanes occupy just a few hundred feet of that width, since they now fly very close to the center of the airway.

Air Traffic Control does an amazingly good job keeping airplanes at different altitudes to prevent opposite direction traffic from colliding.

But because of the precision of GPS equipped airliners, if two airplanes were heading in opposite directions on the same airway at the same altitude, a collision is relatively certain.

Since we’re all human, mistakes can be made by pilots and ATC that result in this ‘loss of separation’. Fortunately, just prior to the widespread use of GPS in airliners, another technology was developed to save us from those situations; the Traffic Collision Avoidance system.

TCAS has been a savior, likely preventing dozens of midair collisions. Had GPS been prevalent in airliners before TCAS, we’d likely have had far more midair collisions in the past fifteen years. This is an an issue I’ve been closely watching since two close friends were involved in nose-to-nose situations that were averted solely because of their TCAS.

But there could be a third level of safety that would only take a software upgrade to implement. I call it airway offsetting.

Since airways are still eight miles wide, why can’t our flight management system (FMS)-the box that contains the waypoints our GPS needs to fly the route-include a predefined offset to the right of course of, say, .5 miles? This would essentially create a two lane highway system in the sky, something done shortly after the first automobile was invented. It would also add an inexpensive third level of safety to our Air Traffic Control system.

Since greater precision is needed on an arrival and opposite direction traffic isn’t a problem between those points anyway, airplanes entering the arrival portion of the flight would lose the 1/2 mile offset. This could all be done without any input or concern from the pilots or ATC. All it would take is a software change to the on-board FMS computer of each aircraft.

And this third level of safety would have prevented the tragic mid-air collision in Brazil in 2006.

Engineered Materials Arresting System

An Engineered Materials Arresting System (EMAS) is a vehicle arresting bed that is installed at the end of runways to prevent aircraft overruns. It’s made up of cellular concrete blocks that start at nine inches deep and progress to as much as thirty inches. It’s a bit like an arresting hook for airliners, but the blocks are designed to slow an airplane down rapidly without doing damage to the aircraft or its passengers.

This technology is currently in use at Boston, New York and Chicago, and on a few of the runway ends at 25 other airports around the country. The FAA is aware that a number of aircraft accidents could have benefited from this relatively low-tech solution. The most recent was the only fatality in 2006; a Southwest jet that landed long and fast at the very short Midway airport that could have been prevented with EMAS.

Fortunately, the FAA appears to be committed to EMAS with plans to install four more of the concrete overruns this year and two in 2010. After that, hopefully more runway ends, especially at runways shorter than 8,000 feet, will be updated with the EMAS system.

Enhanced Class III Electronic Flight Bags

The next improvement to air safety contains at least two life-saving technologies with a single upgrade.

A Class III Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) is a device that offers tremendous situational awareness to pilots. It’s built into the map displays of the airliner, which allows it to incorporate GPS data and datalink communications to bring airliners up to the same level of technology that’s been in four-seat Cessnas for nearly a decade.

Specifically, three features of the Class III EFB will go a long way towards improving safety:

Taxi diagrams can be displayed with the aircraft’s position while maneuvering on the ground, much like an automobile GPS. During low visibility operations, this can easily save lives. In fact, the world’s worst airline accident was caused by two 747s colliding on the surface in Tenerife.

To really understand how important this feature is, take a look at this sobering video that uses actual ATC conversation with a pilot unsure of his location on the runway:

The FAA considers runway incursions to be one of the most pressing safety concerns for air travel.

The other benefit of a Class III EFB comes with real-time weather updates. As airlines add internet access to their airplanes, passengers now find themselves with more accurate and up to date weather depictions in the back of the airplane than the pilots have up front with their myopic weather radar.

Many Class III EFBs are capable of receiving satellite weather radar updates that can display the height of thunderstorms, the winds aloft, the current weather at the destination and turbulence reports that are all depicted in an easily readable format on the map display.

In an effort to keep the costs of this technology under control, perhaps the Class III EFB should be mandated only for aircraft delivered after a certain date. Boeing has already stated that the new 787, scheduled for its first flight next month, will come with a Class III EFB as standard equipment. Let’s hope the same advancements make their way into the smaller Boeing aircraft.

Do you have a question about something related to the pointy end of an airplane? Ask Kent and maybe he’ll use it for the next Plane Answers. Check out his other blog, Cockpit Chronicles

Plane Answers: A closer look at technology in the Northwest overflight

by Kent Wien on

I’ve had a few questions come in concerning the rather egregious error made by the Northwest pilots last week. I hesitated to discuss the incidents, since there’s absolutely no defending what they did.

But when my own sister Kim, asks:

“I would love to hear your opinion as to what the NWA Pilots were really doing when they “missed” MSP.”

Well, for you, Kimmie, I just can’t say no.

It’s the topic of the week among pilots.

Speculation has been rampant, but the NTSB and FAA released some preliminary information from the pilots that has all but squashed any speculation on what exactly they were doing. The more pressing question has been, “How could it happen?”

The conversation among pilots so far has ended with claims of dismay. How did they disconnect from flying enough to lose that kind of situational awareness?

By coming clean and explaining their story, the pilots admitted to something essentially no better than falling asleep; something that took their attention from flying the airplane. And they sought to set the record straight, confess and explain what diverted their attention; I can appreciate that.

As a result, the FAA has immediately revoked their certificates.

Most notable in their story was the fact that they had their laptops out inflight. Many airlines encourage the use of laptops to access an electronic version of their flight manuals. These “EFBs” are more useful than their paper counterparts because of the quick searching capabilities a laptop offers. However, it’s my understanding that Delta and Northwest don’t use any EFB on board their aircraft. Regardless, the pilots admitted that they were discussing new scheduling procedures that were to take effect with their laptops, something that’s prohibited even at airlines that use Class I (laptop) EFBs.
According to the NTSB, the co-pilot was more familiar with the new bidding system, called preferential bidding, which involves choosing the types of trips and the day and time of departures in a general sense instead of simply picking a month of flying from the company constructed bid sheet.

Preferential bidding takes some time to get used to, and the pilots who figure it out early are likely to enjoy an advantage for a few months over those who don’t. The co-pilot was simply trying to get the captain up to speed, and this apparently was enough of a distraction to cause the crew to lose contact with ATC for well over an hour.

Missed signs

Media reports have suggested that the pilots missed repeated calls from the company and that ‘bells and chimes’ were sounded as the company and ATC desperately tried to contact the flight.

Those descriptions aren’t entirely accurate. When the company tried to contact the pilots via ACARS there wasn’t actually a chime associated with the message. There was simply a 1/4 inch tall notice on one of the forward displays on the instrument panel that a message has been received. There was no AOL style “You’ve got mail!” chime. Some airplanes also print any message automatically on a small and rather quiet printer.

Losing contact with air traffic control is something that can happen to any pilot. A missed radio call is followed up by another call or two before the center switches to the 121.5 emergency frequency that pilots monitor on a second radio. If both attempts fail, ATC will then call another aircraft of the same airline to have them relay a message through ACARS for the airplane to re-establish contact on whatever frequency is in use.

If no contact is made, the chatter on the radio suddenly stops, so instead of hearing bells, chimes and calls, the Northwest pilots likely heard nothing at all. Similar to parents of toddlers, pilots should recognize this ominous silence as a possible problem.

They could have received a VHF SELCAL, a tone loud enough to make you jump out of your seat if activated by ATC. However, I suspect it wasn’t used in this case, since it was a similar flight attendant call that eventually led to the discovery of the gross error.

On a related side note, a small number of the airplanes I fly do have a chime sound that activates when an ACARS message is sent. But that chime is identical to the flight attendant chime, the route uplink chime, the winds uplink chime, the HF SELCAL Chime, etc… In the future, ATC instructions sent via CPDLC will even use this same chime. It becomes easier to disregard or miss those particular chimes when they’re constantly being used to announce other unimportant or nuisance notices.

The Boeing engineer in charge of designing this system explained to me years ago that humans were unable to differentiate the meaning of more than five different sounds, so they elected to keep those chimes the same and rely on an added cue such as a light or message that tells the pilots what the chime represents.

Will it happen again?

Congress is already talking about measures to restrict laptops in the cockpit. These rules were already in place, and may serve only to remove the official uses of a computer, requiring pilots who currently use a Class I EFB to go back to carrying nearly twenty pounds of books in their kitbags again; a move that still won’t prevent some pilot from pulling out a laptop to check their schedule.

I’ll leave you with a look at the Class II EFB that Virgin America uses on their flights. Eliminating these tools would be a step backward for the industry.

Do you have a question about something related to the pointy end of an airplane? Ask Kent and maybe he’ll use it for the next Plane Answers. Check out his other blog, Cockpit Chronicles and travel along with him at work.

Plane Answers: Why can’t airlines wait at the gate vs. in a queue on the taxiway?

by Kent Wien on

Welcome to Gadling’s feature, Plane Answers, where our resident airline pilot, Kent Wien, answers your questions about everything from takeoff to touchdown and beyond. Have a question of your own? Ask away!

Mike asks:

Hello Kent,

There are times when I find myself on a plane that is waiting in the queue to depart and I wonder if this makes sense. After all, having 10 airplanes push from gates only to idle their engines for 20-30 minutes waiting to take off does not seem to be a good idea for an industry where fuel is the largest single cost.

Can you explain who decides when an aircraft pushes back and queues up to take off? Is there a reason that airplanes get in line to depart as opposed to just being assigned a number and waiting at the gate until it’s their turn (other than if the gate is needed for an arriving plane)?

It doesn’t really make sense, Mike. But some airports have adopted a gate hold program that does just what you’re talking about; hold airplanes at the gate until the line begins to clear out. London and Paris both use this technique. However, even after holding at the gate for 15 minutes to an hour, we still often find ourselves waiting in line for departure as we approach the runway. It’s simply a matter of the required spacing for departures combined with the number of flights scheduled to leave at the peak times that causes this.
There is also a concern by ATC that there may be no aircraft ready at the end of the runway for departure if they’re held at the gate at the last minute, which would result in even more inefficiency.

Other airports (especially in the U.S.) will advise flights of a ‘wheels up’ time, allowing the pilots to push back at their discretion as long as they can be ready by the time given by ATC. This works to some extent, but flight crews are paid only after they push back from the gate, so the incentive to begin taxiing early is something that admittedly factors into their decision.

To prevent this, our company has a system in place to start the pay clock for pilots and flight attendants once an ATC delay is given which, in theory, would eliminate this incentive. In practice, many pilots don’t trust the system to log the time or have been denied the extra pay in the past and would rather take the delay off the gate – possibly to an area where ATC will allow them to shut down the engines.

Richard Branson at Virgin made an attempt to think outside the box and looked into a tug system that could tow the airplanes to the end of the runway. Such a system could have saved hundreds of pounds of fuel per flight. Unfortunately, it was discovered that the extra wear and tear on the nose wheel would cost more than the savings generated by the reduced fuel burn.

Do you have a question about something related to the pointy end of an airplane? Ask Kent and maybe he’ll use it for next Monday’s Plane Answers. Check out his other blog, Cockpit Chronicles and travel along with him at work.

Airport dining in style – in an air traffic control tower

by Scott Carmichael on

Amsterdam Airport has always been home to some very decent restaurants, and today, they welcomed the newest establishment to their lineup. The WINGS food & drinks restaurant is located at the east side of the airport, home to the old Schiphol location (which closed in the 60’s).

What sets this restaurant apart from any other airport eatery, is that it is built inside an old air traffic control tower. The tower was built in 1952, when Schiphol handled just 325 passengers a day.

In 1998, the tower was scheduled to be demolished, but thanks to donations from various Dutch companies, a moving team picked the tower up, and moved it 30 meters from its original location, saving it from the wrecking ball. At 661,000 lbs, not an easy thing to do.

With the tower at its new location, construction crews transformed it from its original task into a restaurant and meeting center. The tower features four floors of meeting rooms, all overlooking the airport runways.

Unfortunately, WINGS is not easy to reach from the main airport building, but a bus service operates between the main terminal buildings and “Schiphol Oost”. WINGS is open on weekdays, and offers a full menu with everything from typical Dutch food to various international dishes and sandwiches.