
A typo that almost crashed a plane - danso
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/FAA-safety-report-reveals-cases-of-pilots-mixing-14436212.php
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biswaroop
Tangentially related: In 1988, Iran Air flight 655 was shot down by an
American missile cruiser, killing 290 people. It was likely due to a UI
problem with the aircraft tracking system on the cruiser that reused an ID
number from a potential enemy fighter aircraft.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655)

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rhcom2
> The Aegis System software reuses tracking numbers in its display,
> constituting a user interface design flaw. The Aegis software initially
> assigned on-screen identifier TN4474 to Flight 655. Then just seconds before
> the Vincennes fired, the Aegis software switched the Flight 655 tracking
> number to TN4131 and recycled Flight 655's old tracking number of TN4474 to
> label a fighter jet 110 miles away. When the captain asked for a status on
> TN4474, he was told it was a fighter and descending.[42] Scientific American
> rated it as one of the worst user interface disasters.[43]

Ooof that is a boneheaded design decision.

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kelnos
I can guess why this maybe isn't a thing, but why are there no electronic
guides for this? The plane should be able to figure out via GPS and its
compass orientation which runway it's on. If you enter in 01 but end up on 10,
the plane should be able to figure out it's pointing the wrong way and is in
the wrong place.

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outworlder
> The plane should be able to figure out via GPS

Commercial planes don't do much with GPS. Flight systems are slaved to the
Inertial Navigation System.

> If you enter in 01 but end up on 10, the plane should be able to figure out
> it's pointing the wrong way and is in the wrong place.

Another sibling post already talks about this.

Note that the only thing the plane can do is to warn.

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parsimo2010
This isn't true any more. The vast majority of commercial flights navigate
with GPS, and follow GPS waypoints with the AP. They are so accurate that
international flights across the ocean apply SLOP (strategic lateral offset
procedure) to the route so they don't run into each other.

~~~
outworlder
> The vast majority of commercial flights navigate with GPS

Citation needed. Which planes? Can you even take off without configuring your
INS? Are the instruments slaved to the GPS system now?

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parsimo2010
Citation not needed. I'm a pilot. Inertial systems provide attitude and
heading information, but is only a backup for navigation. INS cannot deliver
the required navigational performance and is only used to cross-check GPS and
to provide a backup in case GPS fails.

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code4tee
“Aviation experts say airliners need to lift off the ground with enough runway
left to abort a takeoff“

That’s not accurate. While the aircraft shouldn’t be nearly hitting the end of
the runway on takeoff it’s normal for larger jets to hit a point before
takeoff where they couldn’t stop before the end of the runway.

Pilots call that point V1 during the takeoff roll, which means whatever
happens you need to take off. If one of the engines blows up, you still take
off. When V1 is called on takeoff standard procedure is to take your hands off
the throttle controls since a ground abort is no longer available as an
option.

The pre-takeoff briefing usually includes something like the captain saying if
there are any problems after V1 we’ll take the problem into the air with us
and troubleshoot from there.

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ChicagoBoy11
... and for the curious, there is a V2 which is the velocity the plane needs
to reach in which it can safely climb with only one engine!

~~~
outworlder
And for the further curious there are a bunch of 'V' speeds.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_speeds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_speeds)

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jaclaz
Interesting, still remaining in a max 3 characters coding, wouldn't it make
sense to renumber/redenominate runways using (say) alpha1-alpha2-alpha3?

Where:

alpha1 is a letter from A to J (10 letters/values 0-9)

alpha2 is a letter excluded R from P to Z (10 letters/values 0-9)

alpha3 is either L or R

So, runway 10L would be BPL and 01L would be AQL.

It still remains the possible error between L and R, though.

I don't know the reason why runways are called "Left" or "Right", I mean, even
without the typo doesn't having two runways # 10 possibly create some
confusion?

More generally "similar" codes should IMHO be avoided, most probably there are
reasons (that I don't know about) why a number of airports have their
taxiways/runways named/numbered as they are (possibly ingenerating confusion).

It seems like the crash at Linate Airport:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linate_Airport_disaster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linate_Airport_disaster)

ultimately was caused by the poor visibility and the confusion between the R5
and R6 (maybe if they were called - still say - L5 and R6 or 22 and 87 the
Cessna pilots wouldn't have made their error)

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randrews
The numbers have a meaning aside from telling the runways apart: they're the
azimuth of the runway divided by 10 degrees. So runway 10 has you taking off
at a heading of 100 degrees, or a little south of east. This matters because
you hear the runway numbers over the radio and can picture in your head where
the other planes are and where you need to be to line up to land.

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rflrob
Would a simple solution be to "lie" about the runway direction by a few
degrees: instead of runways 10 and 28, bump it up to 11 and 29 (or down if
that's a smaller lie). DFW is apparently comfortable having numbers slightly
off from the true direction, since it has 5 parallel runways, 17L, 17C, 17R,
18L, and 18R, all of which are at 175.4º.

~~~
ChicagoBoy11
I was confused by the comment saying that they'd "never consider that". There
is precedent for exactly this sort of thing, even in the US -- like the
example you cite!

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elsonrodriguez
Why not just always take off using the settings for the shortest distance?

Is this all about cost savings?

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ChicagoBoy11
Noise abatement and wear on the engine. I, too, thought that this perhaps was
an extreme measure for such a slight gain... i mean, how long is a plane on
full thrust on take-off? 15 secs? 20?

But then a jet mechanic showed me some graph comparing wear and engine de-
rates (the technical term for this less-than-100%-takeoff) and it has a
CONSIDERABLE effect on the lifetime of the engine, far more than I was
thinking.

~~~
heavenlyblue
Does anyone have a link to a chart with these?

Can’t find anything on Google.

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gojomo
[angular misinterpretation of supposed-problem-with-renaming runways "10", as
the opposite-direction versions of "28"/282-degrees, deleted]

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petschge
Not sure where you got 77.8 degrees from. THe opposite of 282.2 degrees should
be 282.2 - 180.0 = 102.2 degrees IMHO. Which means the label of 10 L/R is
correct.

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gojomo
Aha, yes, your math is correct & explains the "10"! I was not-fully-awake
figuring the opposite compass-heading as (360-282.2), which is actually just
the opposite-rotation-from-north, not the 180"-opposite direction. Got my
symmetries mixed-up.

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efrafa
Landing at SFO always scares me a little bit. The way you see runway/land only
few seconds before plane touches the ground is insane.

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taejo
Depends where you're sitting on the plane, I guess. My experience is seeing
land a few seconds _after_ touching the ground.

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KangLi
Lol all the accidents that never happened blow my mind :D

