I’d love to read about their Opsec failures. It seems like an offline conversation or Signal chat with disappearing messages could’ve saved these two. Any links to details on the case?
As airline crew, I stay in the lounge (employee lounge, not bar lounge) when I know I'm not going anywhere on time.
Flighty gets heavy use from US airline employees. We're frequently in the airport with a brief break before flying the next flight. Usually, this next flight will be on an aircraft that hasn't arrive to the airport yet. Most of us will find a quiet place to relax for awhile and it's really irritating to pack stuff back up and walk to the gate just to find out there's no plane.
Another scenario is you arrive to an airport and need to switch aircraft. The "turn" time might be scheduled for 45 min. It's really nice to know as you walk off the aircraft that "Hey, it's actually delayed. Now I have 2 hours." I'll go grab a bite to eat or catch up with family back home etc.
My particular airline will show you what the next inbound aircraft is and it's flight number and ETA but it's a "fetch" experience. You open the app, wait for a refresh, click like 4 times to navigate to the right page, get the tactical information. Flighty keeps it on the lock screen. Just lift your phone and it's there.
We're constantly asking our employer to emulate Flighty. Tech isn't their strong suit though.
Sounds like you identified a business opportunity for Flighty - license the functionality or just sell app access to the entire airline, at least for employees.
I agree. The reason I love Flighty vs FlightAware or Flightradar24 is because the app is solely focused on my flights. The real-time tactical information about delays and inbound aircraft is so good that it is very heavily used by airline employees since even the airlines are not great about providing this data in a timely fashion to their front line employees.
The dashboard is really nice and if it remained free I could see integrating it into a display's playlist in my office but, I highly doubt this doesn't turn into a hefty subscription service.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
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
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
>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
I'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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
I’m trying to write a nuanced response but frankly it’s difficult. If they want freedom they should take it. The same way Ukraine is standing up to their bully and the same way countless other revolutionaries stood up.
Behind the scenes help is perfectly ok. The colonists didn’t form America entirely on their own.
I think where so many have issue with this war is that a couple of old men decided they would try to overthrow an incredibly dug in regime with a little air power. It’s like Iraq and Afghanistan all over again. The results are wildly predictable.
The regime is entrenched and waiting it out while causing havoc with semi-guerilla tactics of bullying the Straits and attacking neighbors.
Change comes from within. Not from cruise missiles.
Does anyone else have issues opening Claude.com domains on iOS? It’s infuriating I can never open documentation or the usage page or account management portal on iOS on Safari. Works fine on a laptop. Mac, Windows, or Linux.
Flying stats dashboards always amuse me. I get it, for the non-pilot it's kind of like a status thing, "Well I traveled X times in 2025!". As a pilot though, I have gobs of stats I could put up there but from flying for 15 years I realize there's not really anything meaningful in there other than "Gee whiz, I flew a little more/less than last year." I know some other professional pilots do track some of their stats a little closer as they try to optimize for hours flown:hours paid but I've never cared to hyper optimize my schedule in that way.
Why is there a paywall AND anti-aging snake oil ads? Pick one. If that's the type of ad you sell it signals to me the site is absolutely not worth the subscription.
When someone is able to put something like this together on their own it leaves me feeling infuriated that we can’t have nice things on consumer hardware.
At a minimum Siri, Alexa, and Google Home should at least have a path to plugin a tool like this. Instead I’m hacking together conversation loops in iOS Shortcuts to make something like this style of interaction with significantly worse UX.
I feel like you could get pretty far with a raspberry pi and microphone/speaker. I think the hard part is running a model that can detect a "Hey agent" on-device, so that it can run 24/7 and hand off to the orchestrator when it catches a real question/query.
I think you’re right. I’ve been seeing more and more DIY hardware setups popping up. There are even wake work models for hardware as low powered as the ESP32.
In the middle of moving though so probably have to wait before taking on hardware.
reply