
Amazon cargo plane crashes in Texas - Trisell
https://www.wsbtv.com/news/breaking-news/amazon-cargo-plane-crashes-in-texas-3-dead/924509495
======
mabbo
I have gained such respect for the FAA and the NTSB in that _every_ crash is
followed up with a root cause analysis that all other industries should be in
awe of.

When this is all over, we'll know exactly what went wrong. We'll see the FAA
issue guidance or rule changes that will ensure it doesn't happen again. And
then we'll somehow see an even further reduction in airline crashes.

I hope that in a few more years, as more companies join the industry, we may
see a similar pattern start to evolve in the space launch industry.

~~~
jmkni
Imagine if we did that with software generally.

Every time there's a data breach, an agency would investigate with the same
thoroughness they do in aviation.

Then, National Geographic could have a spin off show called _Data Breach
Investigation_ (their aviation show is called _Air Crash Investigation_ in the
UK, I think it's called different things in different Countries.)

A man can dream...

~~~
mruts
Honestly that sounds like hell. I sure as hell didn’t become a developer so I
could get thrown in jail for buggy code. Building software is something no one
really knows how to do and we are still at the infancy of our field. I don’t
think it would be fair to impose the same standards thst real engineers have
on such a nascent and choatic field.

~~~
bilbo0s
> _I sure as hell didn’t become a developer so I could get thrown in jail for
> buggy code..._

You'd better stay away from any company that requires FDA approval. Believe it
or not, every change is signed. _By you_. By the FDA compliance person. Etc
etc. I'll give you two guesses as to how they decide who goes to prison if God
forbid something in the software is shown to have caused a fatality? Or,
worse, a series of fatalities?

That sort of regulation happens even in the software industry. It just depends
on the purpose of the software.

~~~
yesenadam
>I'll give you two guesses as to how they decide who goes to prison if God
forbid something in the software is shown to have caused a fatality?

Would you mind just telling us instead? Thanks.

~~~
rleigh
See IEC 62304:2006
([https://www.iso.org/standard/38421.html](https://www.iso.org/standard/38421.html))
and the related standards which govern the formal processes which medical
device software must meet for FDA and CE approval (as well as other national
standards).

The whole process from requirements, specifications, high and low level
design, implementation, validation and verification and the rest of the
lifecycle requires stringent oversight, including documentation and signoffs.
The signatures on those documents have legal meaning and accountability for
the engineers who did the analysis and review at each stage.

~~~
roel_v
Look at this from an economics perspective, do people in this sort of
positions get paid more than comparable positions in other fields? I'd never
heard of legal liability for software engineers. Has anyone ever been
convicted or otherwise been held accountable when there was a failure?

------
drawkbox
Boeing 767 crashes or emergencies are extremely rare:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Accidents_and_inciden...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Accidents_and_incidents_involving_the_Boeing_767)

Most are related to human intervention such as terrorism, pilot error, fuel
error and only a very small amount are mechanical errors. Of the 12 problems,
only 5 were mechanical error. I wonder what the cause of this will be.

~~~
throwawaymath
Those numbers are outrageous on their own. But what's even more amazing is
that not all emergencies result in crashes. Air Canada Flight 143 _ran out of
fuel halfway into the journey_ and there were no fatalities! They literally
glided to a motor track. That's so incredible a modern movie would have
trouble getting its audience to suspend disbelief for it.

~~~
peeters
The cause analysis of how they ended up with half a tank of fuel is crazy. The
crew loading the fuel mistook lbs for kg. The plane's fuel indicators were
faulty and required a manual procedure before takeoff. The engineer
communicated that to a pilot and the pilot misunderstood. That pilot relayed
his misunderstanding to the next pilot and that next pilot misunderstood the
misunderstanding. And then that next pilot misunderstood the checklist
indicating whether it was legal to fly with the non-functioning fuel gauge.
And the flight engineer didn't catch the lbs/kg mistake. Then during a brief
stopover in Ottawa, the captain thought to re-measure the fuel with the
floatstick, but still used the incorrect conversion factor.

~~~
eterm
I wonder how many lives are lost each year (not just in aviation but globally)
because the US refuses to convert to the metric system.

~~~
microcolonel
> _I wonder how many lives are lost each year (not just in aviation but
> globally) because the US refuses to convert to the metric system._

Keep in mind that the U.S. is not the only place where measures are mixed. If
anything, British people end up using _more_ measures than Americans. Here in
Canada, we have a lot of things read out in both, because of the immense
sticking power of customary measures.

U.S. organizations are actively encouraged and (for the most part) fully
allowed to adopt SI measures, but it's not like switching road sides, where
everything makes sense after you hear "drive on the right now".

Keep in mind that powered flight was basically entirely developed by Americans
and pre-SI Brits, and already had more than fifty years of history by the time
either pioneering country adopted SI in any significant way. It should not
surprise you in the slightest that an American plane expected to hear fuel
mass given as weight in pounds; in fact, it should astonish you that anyone is
trying to measure it in kilograms in North America.

~~~
eterm
I'm British, so you don't need to explain using mixed systems, however in any
kind of academic, engineering or scientific contexts metric units are used
almost exclusively. Yes, people still refer to height in feet and inches a
lot, and we'll drink a pint (a real pint! None of your mini-pints!), but that
does change over time. For example older people will use stone and pounds for
their weight but being younger the doc doesn't bother telling me my weight in
anything but kilograms so I don't even know my weight except in Kg.

Even in Britain, in almost all engineering contexts, SI units would be
assumed. Your point about Americans assuming imperial units is precisely wwhy
it's so dangerous that metrification hasn't happened there.

If the US went metric, then there would no longer be any need to assume
anything but metric anywhere, and it would be safer for it.

Yes, there's a long standing tradition, but it only takes a couple of
generations to completely change, and that would likely be hastened by being
the last large country to do so and having a large cultural footprint on the
rest of the world.

If the US did convert to metric, in 3 or 4 generations the whole world would
be metric, and there wouldn't be any "wrong assumptions", and it is making bad
assumptions that lead to preventable failures.

If China can manage to go metric, the US can too.

~~~
microcolonel
> _however in any kind of academic, engineering or scientific contexts metric
> units are used almost exclusively_

This is true in the United States as well, but fueling a commercial airplane
is not an academic, scientific, or even an engineering exercise. It is as
routine and pedestrian as refueling a bus.

> _Your point about Americans assuming imperial units is precisely wwhy it 's
> so dangerous that metrification hasn't happened there._

Or maybe it's an argument for why "metrification" is itself dangerous. The
problem is the transition, not being on either side of the fence. It seems to
me that the only safe mode of transition is first to dual readout, and only
then to SI-exclusive.

Don't get me wrong, I like SI units, I use them every day, and I don't long to
spend any time multiplying and dividing by irregular fractions; I just don't
like the dismissive "shoulda been metric" rhetoric that floats around
everywhere; as though you can just stop selling letter paper and force
everyone to use A-series compatible envelopes, and convert the clean (if
baroque) markings on the paper products to bizarre decimal fractions of a g/m²
without any empathy for the old guard.

Some people care about how Britain still drives on the wrong side of the road,
but that doesn't mean they should berate you every time a drunk roadtripping
Frenchman turns out into oncoming traffic.

~~~
Symbiote
A British bus will be refuelled in litres, which I think was the point.

> as though you can just stop selling letter paper and force everyone to use
> A-series compatible envelopes, and convert the clean (if baroque) markings
> on the paper products to bizarre decimal fractions of a g/m² without any
> empathy for the old guard.

The first part was done in Britain in the 1950s, but with the weights rounded
to convenient metric numbers.

~~~
stordoff
> A British bus will be refuelled in litres, which I think was the point.

Refuelled in litres, but with efficiency measured in miles per gallon. It's
kind of a mess.

~~~
bostonpete
Miles per US gallon or miles per imperial gallon?

~~~
magduf
The latter, miles per UK gallon. Watch out for that, because if you don't know
better, you'll read about some car in the UK and wonder why it has such
astounding fuel economy!

------
jwildeboer
For reliable updates and objective information, as always, consult avherald.
For this accident:
[http://avherald.com/h?article=4c497c3c&opt=0](http://avherald.com/h?article=4c497c3c&opt=0)

~~~
tyingq
Airliners.net is usually interesting to follow as well. Mostly pilots posting:
[https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1416323](https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1416323)

~~~
tyingq
The FlightRadar image in that thread is pretty telling:
[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D0HZO8GX4AAvxAL.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D0HZO8GX4AAvxAL.jpg)

The last readout they were at an altitude of 1325ft, with a vertical descent
of 29504 feet per minute (~335mph). So that reading was (probably) roughly 2-3
seconds before hitting the ground.

------
tyingq
Here's the ATC chatter around it: [http://archive-
server.liveatc.net/kiah/KIAH-App-Feb-23-2019-...](http://archive-
server.liveatc.net/kiah/KIAH-App-Feb-23-2019-1830Z.mp3)

~~~
throwawaymath
For those unfamiliar (like myself), what is this?

~~~
tyingq
Air traffic control. You hear them talking to, then losing contact with the
flight. They refer to the flight mostly as "591 Heavy", though you'll also
hear "3591".

There's several references. Around 27:09 you can hear them talk about looking
for a lost aircraft.

~~~
throwawaymath
Oh cool, thanks. I didn't realize this chatter is public.

~~~
mikeash
Aircraft communication, including ATC, is mostly done using plain old VHF
radio. You can buy a decent handheld air band radio for $200. Ancient
technology, but it works well enough.

~~~
RockyMcNuts
True, works well enough, and also it's a disaster waiting to happen for very
obvious cybersecurity reasons

~~~
CPLX
I’m not finding those reasons to be as obvious as you, perhaps you could
elaborate.

~~~
polishTar
What’s stopping someone from impersonating ATC?

If I understand correctly, a foggy day + “cleared for takeoff” is all that’s
needed for a malicious actor to kill hundreds of people

~~~
ceejayoz
> If I understand correctly, a foggy day + “cleared for takeoff” is all that’s
> needed for a malicious actor to kill hundreds of people

Only if the real ATC really, _really_ drops the ball.

It's happened a few times, and leads to an immediate "who the _fuck_ was that
on this frequency?", and that's likely to result in the pilots in the area
treating it like a comms outage.

See [https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/44279/what-
prev...](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/44279/what-prevents-
someone-from-hijacking-a-radio-frequency-mid-air)

~~~
polishTar
It clearly hasn’t become too much of a problem yet, but I feel pretty
concerned that, given my understanding, it appears there’s only one layer of
defense against this type of attack. The response requires 1) the ATC to
figure out what happened, 2) the ATC to promptly cancel the takeoff clearance,
and 3) the pilot receiving+responding to the cancelled clearance with enough
time.

Too many things in that chain can go wrong, especially so given this would all
need to happen in just a few seconds. A sophisticated attacker might even be
able to jam the signal right after they give the fake clearance or (not
entirely certain this is possible) use a highly directional transmitter that
would allow the targeted plane to receive the message but not others.

I’m definitely not an expert in this area, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I
missed something, but if I didn’t, this appears to be an astonishingly large
vulnerability.

~~~
btgeekboy
It’s just simply something that isn’t as big of a deal as you’re thinking.
Hell, we have problems today with idiots on frequency that are technically
qualified to be there but are gumming up the works.

When was the last time you authenticated that construction worker directing
traffic on the ground?

Pilots fly without a control tower all the time. They’re also the final
authority to the safe operation of that aircraft. If anything is amiss, we’ll
do something else. Maybe that’ll mean contacting a different facility on a
different frequency, or declare lost comms via transponder and go to our filed
alternate while things are worked out.

Try listening to LiveATC for an uncontrolled field on a nice weekend day. (Or
even a towered airport like KCMA on a Saturday at noon.) It’s controlled chaos
and yet we all make it work.

------
sct202
That's terrible, and it could have easily been worse had the crash happened
closer to Houston.

------
Scoundreller
VASAviation (Youtuber that publishes ATC recordings and plots them on a map
with weather) for this incident:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cn58iVuzBY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cn58iVuzBY)
[2mins30]

------
edward
On Wikipedia:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Air_Flight_3591](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Air_Flight_3591)

------
alexis_fr
I can’t comment on the cause, but it reminds me of a UPS cargo plane fire in
Dubai. Lithium batteries can’t be extinguished using oxygen-deprivation
methods. It is typically the kind of goods that are shipped by plane by
mistake.

It was featured in an Air Crash Investigation episode named “Fatal Delivery”.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UPS_Airlines_Flight_6](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UPS_Airlines_Flight_6)

------
bdz
AVHerald
[http://avherald.com/h?article=4c497c3c&opt=0](http://avherald.com/h?article=4c497c3c&opt=0)

~~~
k2enemy
Interesting link, thank you. They mention that the debris is spread out over
three miles of shallow water. I don't know anything about aviation, but it
seems like this would suggest that the plane broke apart above ground.

~~~
justtopost
How did you get that from the link? I read 'eyewitnesses report it going in
nose first'.

~~~
k2enemy
In one of the yellow highlighted sections

 _The crash scene extends over a distance of 3 miles in shallow waters up to 5
feet deep._

~~~
userbinator
Given the velocity of impact, it's not unusual for an intact plane to
literally explode into tiny pieces upon impact, that continue traveling for
quite some distance.

------
kyleblarson
ATC recording:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cn58iVuzBY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cn58iVuzBY)

------
dontbenebby
I was surprised to learn Amazon has it's own planes. I always assumed that
cargo planes carried cargo from a variety of companies.

~~~
t3rabytes
Amazon doesn’t own them, Atlas Air owns and operates them for Amazon. Groups
like American Airlines Cargo and Emirates Cargo do have mixed loads though,
but these Prime jets are more akin to UPS and FedEx jets that serve a single
user.

~~~
dontbenebby
Interesting fact, thanks for sharing.

When I lived near a major cargo airport for Fedex, I often got Prime stuff
delivered via Fed Ex, which I assumed was intermingled. I didn't realize
Amazon also had it's own literal fleet.

------
jakeinspace
Was really strange seeing this last night on the news, I was only about 20
miles away. Very curious what the cause was.

------
alanh
i thought the domain was webtv.com for a second. (WebTV was how my paternal
grandparents used the Internet.)

------
entity345
Hopefully they have a contingency plan to keep those Prime parcels on time.

Edit: They must have contingency plans for such scenarios. That's part of the
job. But I think that it is not possible to keep to the initial schedule, so
I'm guessing that the plan is to re-despatch ASAP to minimise delays while
displaying the standard "delayed-apologises" to customers.

~~~
navbaker
Are people downvoting because they think you’re being heartless? Is this not a
valid concern that businesses have to deal with even in the midst of dealing
with the tragic loss of life?

~~~
ikeboy
This is not a valid concern. The cost of refunding all the packages will be
trivial compared to the cost of the plane, Amazon will apologize to the
customers and refund or offer replacement, no special contingency plan needed.

~~~
entity345
Total loss of shipment is a valid concern in the supply chain and transport
industries...

Remember also that the total loss of the plane impacts more that this single
flight. Like airlines, I am sure it had an utilisation schedule, and now it's
gone so they'll have to account for that.

That's why they do have contingency plans... And that's why they develop them
with a cool head. Because when disaster strikes people tend to get emotional.

Edit: Wikipedia says that Amazon Air operates 39 planes. Sudden loss of one
has to have an impact that has to be planned.

~~~
ikeboy
Sudden loss of one is unlikely enough that they probably don't have a specific
plan ahead of time.

~~~
Slartie
Sudden loss due to crash = unlikely (fortunately)

Grounded for unknown timespan due to some kind of severe damage = does happen
from time to time (good thing, because otherwise, crashes would become more
likely...)

Since the effect on the logistics chain is identical (at least apart from that
single shipment in question), you just use the contingency plan for the latter
when the former happens. And for the latter, you MUST have a plan.

~~~
ikeboy
The plan there involves sending the same cargo through another plane or
similar.

------
HGMIV
Tragic. I wonder if this will reach the national news media. Also, I am
curious as to what caused it.

~~~
gbil
I'm in Europe and have read about this in local news sites since hours so I
wonder why you think it will not reach US national news

~~~
eganist
This is the front page on US CNN right now.

[https://i.imgur.com/FqitEhc.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/FqitEhc.jpg)

And they typically elevate stories based on reader interest, so the fact that
it's so thoroughly minimized (to the right, in red) shows how little anyone
cares relative to the other stories.

~~~
entity345
Let's be realistic here, this is not (national) front page news.

~~~
close04
It's the first cargo plane crash with fatalities in 6 years. [0] Since this
type of aircraft also carries passengers it's big news.

Commercial air travel in the US has a pretty enviable track record. As far as
I am aware, outside of the fluke accident that killed one passenger last year
when a piece of the engine went through the fuselage, the last fatalities were
in 2009, Colgan Air Flight 3407. [1]

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_accidents_to_com...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_accidents_to_commercial_cargo_aircraft#2019)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incident...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_commercial_aircraft)

~~~
alistairSH
Asiana Air 214 had 3 deaths in 2013. Pilot botched the landing and struck the
tail on a seawall at San Francisco. Back portion of fuselage was ripped off,
ejecting a handful of passengers and crew.

For US-based carriers, you are correct. Ignoring international carriers
operating in the US strikes me as slightly disingenuous (though lots of people
do it), as the international carriers should be subject to most of the same
regulations as US carriers (when operating in the US). And as a consumer, I'm
as likely to be on BA, KLM, or somebody else as I am United when flying
internationally.

~~~
close04
It's harder to enforce regulation at the same level as for a domestic carrier.
How easy is it to track the quality of pilot training, or aircraft maintenance
parts half a world away?

~~~
inferiorhuman
_It 's harder to enforce regulation at the same level as for a domestic
carrier. How easy is it to track the quality of pilot training, or aircraft
maintenance parts half a world away? _

Not that much harder, you still need FAA approval to fly in the United States.
For instance, Air India has run afoul of the FAA in the past and most
Indonesian airlines have been banned from EU airspace at one time or another.
Currently VietJet (I think) is working to get FAA approval to fly in the US.

The problem is that it's inappropriate to say "your lack of safety culture is
a problem" before there are deaths. Korean Air had to hire submit to a bunch
of training by Delta Airlines after a series of wrecks. It's not a
particularly uncommon opinion to look at the culture of deference and respect
for elders/seniors you see in East Asia as being detrimental to safety. I
agree. The Asiana wreck showed this (there were three people in the cockpit,
two of whom called for a go around, the other one ignored the calls). KLM
showed what happens when you're unwilling to question a senior officer back in
the 70s in Tenerife.

~~~
close04
In theory the regulation is the same. By "enforcing" I meant making sure the
practice matches the theory.

I remember finding out that if a pilot has a "conflict of personality" with
another pilot they can just check a box on a form and they never end up on the
same crew. This was after one difficult pilot bullied his young co-pilot until
the latter made an error (failed to read the altitude) that cost the lives of
all people on the plane.

The rule likely applies to every airline flying in the US. But actually
enforcing it is a lot harder to enforce half way around the globe or somewhere
where that safety culture you mention is different. There's a chance the
punitive measures are also applied differently, where in the US someone might
go to prison for failing to properly apply regulation.

~~~
inferiorhuman
> In theory the regulation is the same.

It's not though. Canada, for instance, has far more lax work time limits on
its pilots. Guess who else has had problems at SFO? If you guessed Air Canada
you'd be correct. There are plenty of regulations that are different for
foreign carriers operating on American soil (it probably comes down to
mutually agreed ICAO rules).

------
ronnier
More articles

[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6737937/Atlas-
Air-c...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6737937/Atlas-Air-cargo-
jet-operating-Amazon-Prime-Air-reportedly-crashed-approach-Houston-Texas.html)

Last photo
[https://twitter.com/AirlineFlyer/status/1099397894589816832](https://twitter.com/AirlineFlyer/status/1099397894589816832)

------
Max-20
The crew already had 2 overnight flights before could be fatigue and simple
mistakes during bad weather.

~~~
chrisseaton
Do you think you could leave the speculation about cause and fault to the
authorities? People have died and you're confident enough to start attributing
blame with essentially zero information? Appalling.

~~~
Nomentatus
Granted, citations were needed for the post you're hammering. (I can't find
anything online either way, re sleep loss in this accident.) But the author
might not be speculating about the sleep loss, insiders sometimes comment
here, in which case there won't be citations.

That sleep loss contributes to accidents and is therefore relevant to the
discussion (if true) is in no way speculative:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=accident+sleep+los...](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=accident+sleep+loss)

~~~
detaro
And this is why HN has the rules about "general news" it has.

Discussion of specific issues is interesting, but they're better discussed in
extra threads instead of as speculations on a case nothing concrete is known
about.

~~~
Nomentatus
I need you to disambiguate. What do you identify as an irrelevant "specific
issue" in this thread?

~~~
detaro
I haven't called anything "irrelevant". But without anything actually known,
comments can basically only reiterate generic points about plane crashes or
suggest random possible reasons, which predictably leads to discussions on how
it's irresponsible to speculate or suggest specific (now dead) people
misbehaved without evidence. It doesn't make for good content, and the fact
alone that the crash happened isn't a good topic for HN.

This specific subthread starts with either speculation or unsourced claims of
lack of sleep: That alone is an interesting topic of discussion, but better
placed on a submission about a specific case where this is known to have been
a factor, or some general article about it, not here.

~~~
Nomentatus
My point is that we don't know whether the poster was speculating. I would be
happy with a citations for all comments rule, but it's not in place now. The
comment had details, wasn't general speculation.

