Posted on 02/04/2025 7:22:01 PM PST by Rummyfan
After the Reagan Airport disaster, will we finally reform the FAA?
We still don’t know how many mistakes led to the collision of a helicopter with an American Airlines passenger jet making its descent at Reagan National Airport last week. But one thing has been clear for decades: America’s air-traffic control system, once the world’s most advanced, has become an international disgrace.
Long before the Obama and Biden administrations’ quest to diversify staff in control towers, the system was already one of the worst in the developed world. The recent rash of near-collisions is the result of chronic mismanagement that has left the system with too few controllers using absurdly antiquated technology.
The problems were obvious 20 years ago, when I visited control towers in both Canada and the United States. The Canadians sat in front of sleek computer screens that instantly handled tasks like transferring the oversight of a plane from one controller to another. The Americans were still using pieces of paper called flight strips. After a plane took off, the controller in charge of the local airspace had to carry that plane’s flight strip over to the desk of the controller overseeing the regional airspace. It felt like going back in time from a modern newsroom into a scene from The Front Page.
(Excerpt) Read more at city-journal.org ...
My wife, two grandsons and I are flying into Oakland in early April after making one connecting stop. Just how panicky should I be?
With the thousands of flights in the air any given moment, I think they do a great job. No comment on the helicopter fiasco.
I just talked to a retired FAA person tonight and he says all you need is about 30% of the employees. A lot of deadwood in the FAA.
There is that. And I would attribute that to some very high professionalism on the part of controllers, air crews, and ground crews. Probably more a case of 'in spite of' rather than 'due to' the organization as a whole.
Just kidding.
Be sure the try the Oakland In-N-Out burger joint while you're there! It's to die for.
No, you’re not kidding.
Last year we flew in with two granddaughters. When I rented the car the agent suggested not filling the car up at any nearby gas stations when I returned it. That is if I didn’t want to get robbed or highjacked!
The In and Out near “Little Larry Sellers” house?
The author of the articles is lying about the flight strips. Yes, twenty years ago flight strips were used AS A BACKUP IN CASE OF RADAR FAILURE. Reverting to using flight strips and pilot reports of position is referred to as manual control.
In-N-Out Burger Is Closing Its Only Oakland Location Due to ‘Ongoing Issues With Crime’
I’ve had it in my mind to eat at In and Out ever since I saw The Big Lebowski. Maybe we’ll try one this time.
It really is like they say: flying is the safest form of travel. Why, you could be driving your car, doing everything right: seat belt, speed limit, no tailgating, etc., only to be struck and killed dead by a part falling off an airplane.
If you like your fries crispy tell them you want them double fried.
Aeroflot is ready when you are ...
And you’ll be able to get eggs from the pilot keeping his flock in the middle of the aisle.
God, I’d take it. No tranny dwarfs of color fly those planes. Which woke airline trannies did you say you trusted most?
“ Just how panicky should I be?”
Oakland is a third world country. Flying is super safe.
Oakland not so much
You shouldn’t be panicky at all. Here are two numbers to put things in perspective: Commercial aviation as a whole carried about 5 billion passengers in 2024. That’s nearly 63% of the entire human population of the planet. And the U.S. share of that was about 1 billion passengers.
Until this mid-air collision in D.C., the U.S. hadn’t experienced a fatal airline accident for 16 years. Not even one. In that time, billions of people were transported safely by U.S. airlines without even one fatality. That’s equivalent to moving the entire population of the planet multiple times and not losing a single person. That’s a level of safety that is beyond comprehension.
Nothing in life is 100% safe, of course, but commercial aviation is about as close as humans have achieved in any endeavor. In fact, I would argue that the cabin of a commercial airliner is not just the safest way to travel, but is actually the safest place you could be on the entire planet. Not only are you traveling in the safest manner yet devised, but while sitting in that airline seat you are also protected from dying in all manner of other ways, such as drowning, falling off a ladder, being in a car accident, etc.
But if you go, driving down the coast is awesome.
Barbara’s Fishtrap in Half Moon Bay is a good place to eat.
At least it was 10 years ago!
Or that frozen blue ice with some turds injected into it that broke lose from the latrine.
“I just talked to a retired FAA person tonight and he says all you need is about 30% of the employees. A lot of deadwood in the FAA.”
I had a friend in Arizona many years ago who was a senior manager for the FAA. He was heavily involved with the firing of the controllers during the strike in the 1980’s. I asked him about personnel shortages caused by the strike. He told me that the strike was a blessing as it gave them the opportunity to rid the agency of the malcontents and dead wood.
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