Hudson River Crash / Bird Impacts & UAV
I often hear that Human pilots are superior to machines. Apparently there are thousands of Engine failures caused by ingesting birds; since I know birds can be detected by radar hundreds of feet away, it would be possible for an autopilot to avoid birds - while it is hugely difficult for pilots to "see and avoid" birds.
This is to say nothing about bringing disabled airplanes back to their airport safely rather than resorting to a statistically fatal water landing.
One of the features of a peer to peer autopilot/autoATC is the ability to 1. reroute multiple planes to avoid enemy aircraft (ie birds) in real time, and 2. reroute multiple planes to prioritize the landing of distressed planes.
It is my opinion that on second analysis, this lucky landing will be criticised as a series of poor choices, and point to 1. the inability of the tower to route traffic around a flock it should have seen, and 2. the inability to react within the time demands of a predictable event. (Since the climbout for this plane is higher than the glideslope, the pilots best choice was return to origin; he appears to have had about twice as much speed and altitude as he needed to land at la Guardia.)
Are avoiding birds, and prioritizing dead stick landings strong arguments for increasing the role of machines in the ATC?
This is to say nothing about bringing disabled airplanes back to their airport safely rather than resorting to a statistically fatal water landing.
One of the features of a peer to peer autopilot/autoATC is the ability to 1. reroute multiple planes to avoid enemy aircraft (ie birds) in real time, and 2. reroute multiple planes to prioritize the landing of distressed planes.
It is my opinion that on second analysis, this lucky landing will be criticised as a series of poor choices, and point to 1. the inability of the tower to route traffic around a flock it should have seen, and 2. the inability to react within the time demands of a predictable event. (Since the climbout for this plane is higher than the glideslope, the pilots best choice was return to origin; he appears to have had about twice as much speed and altitude as he needed to land at la Guardia.)
Are avoiding birds, and prioritizing dead stick landings strong arguments for increasing the role of machines in the ATC?
Replies to This Discussion
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ModeratorPermalink Reply by Brian on -
Without even going into all the possible things that could have prevented them from choosing to RTB, alls that it takes is one reason for them not to choose not to return to the AP. Given the area there are not alot of options available that are not populated or without trees or suitable landing options. Given what they had to work with the water landing seems to have been the best choice. Landing where they did gave them the best chances for survival. If they'd have landed offshore weather conditions certainly could have an impact on the situation as seas would have produced more chop and made for a possible hard landing (as compared to the smoother landing available on the river) even where they ended up was better than landing up the river as rescue units were right there...
As far as "this is a suicide/murder attempt on the part of the pilot. Water landings are fatal in most cases." goes... Landing on buildings is ALWAYS FATAL... Suicide/murder attempt! Please save the Drama acting class..
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Permalink Reply by wayne garris on -
any landing you can walk away from is a good landing .
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ModeratorPermalink Reply by Gary Mortimer on -
My flab is aghast
The blokes did a fantastic job of sorting out an approach and plainly suitable landing.
If they had cocked it up, ho hum a few salmon out the way and a sad loss of life.
If they had turned back across a congested area and cocked it up........
Should people flying UAV's firmly believe that they will always behave perfectly, nothing can go wrong then god help us.
Right wheres an Airbus driver when you need one to tell us the numbers.
Hands up all those wanting to get airborne at Durbans new 2010 La Mercy airfield when the swallows come in to roost at night, about 6 tonnes of them I believe.
Yep we are building an airfield on an environmentally sensitive site.
If very few swallows turn up in Europe in 2011 you can blame Fifa! (Well not strictly)
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Permalink Reply by bGatti on -
I'm waiting for one reason he could not have made LG. Absent one, that was the best choice. Saying its so hardly makes it so. I have heard the Pilot felt it was too far. I think the math suggests this is rarely true - as quite simply airplanes climb much steep than their 1/20 glide ratio. It's the math plain and simple, and until someone can un-explain the math, then it's so much touchy-feely hero worship. I've made plenty of dead stick RC landings.
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ModeratorPermalink Reply by Brian on -
It's not about the math, it's about the risk to human life. You say you want one good reason that he says he couldn't make it back to LG. Maybe he could have, but maybe on the way a smaller plane cuts across his path and causes avoidance maneuvers wich cause him to loose too much spead and require a landing in the middle of an interstate, neighborhood, or garbage dump.
The people involved use operational risk assesment proceedures to make decisions.
The replies to your email have less to do with the pilot being a great pilot w/tons of experiance and more to do with ... Well I'll be nice...
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Permalink Reply by bGatti on
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There really isn't a lot of experience in flying commercial aircraft under less than ideal conditions. I'm pretty sure you can fly the A320 under power for many years and not learn very much about gliding it in for a dead stick landing. Simulators (ie not real planes) are the only way to achieve something approaching that experience. RC planes are a different kind of simulator which permit the pilot to push the flight envelope way past the safe limit. You want this landing to be a heroic achievement - which perhaps only one in a hundred pilotc could have achieved? I suggest it is no such thing, and that of a 100 pilots, some number would have chosen to dry land at LG, and I would put my money on that group for highest probability of safe outcomes.
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Permalink Reply by bGatti on
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It appears to me that he had twice the speed needed to return to La Guardia. I don't buy your reason to avoid LG. I would bet LG had zero GA planes, and every other plane was in communication with LG and would have cleared the runway. You're assertion of procedure to make decisions is an assertion. It is my opinion that the pilot had trouble believing in the glide slope of the airplane; that in short he didn't trust the plane to fly without power, and opted to crash rather than accept the task of flying the plane in without power.
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Permalink Reply by bGatti on
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Math isn't politics. The facts, such as they can be known at this point - suggest to me that LG was quite reachable (with a fudge factor of ~2x), that landing in the Hudson is statistically fatal (thankfully this was a rare, improbable, and likely unrepeatable exception), that every feature of the plane intended to facilitate a water landing was borked.
A "Heroic" pilot might be expected to know about the ditch switch feature of his airplane, and use it to protect the passengers in the event of a water landing. A "Heroic" crew might be expected to understand how airplanes float (or sink), and prevent the scuttling of a (boat) by opening an underwater hatch. If this crew were running the titanic, they would have sunk before they hit an iceberg - 3 minutes after they left the dook, and close enough that every passenger could walk back to shore.
Death count is not the only way to measure success.
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Permalink Reply by bGatti on
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Here's a similar mass-psychosis case in which science is trumped by "unbridled celebration".
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28902137/
As the world marvels over the miracle births of eight seemingly healthy babies in California, medical ethicists and fertility experts argue that the media is sending the wrong message with its focus on the creation of an instant Brady-Bunch like family.
It’s fine to celebrate the healthy delivery, said Sean Tipton, spokesperson for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. But, a pregnancy resulting in this many babies is “clearly is not a medical triumph. Eight babies is not an outcome anyone should want.”
Unbridled celebration of these multiple births ignores the risks that this type of pregnancy can bring and the huge costs to the medical system and the parents, say experts.
Story continues below ↓advertisement | your ad here
“I think when the press goes googoo and gaga over these multiples, they don’t seem to understand that it’s really risky for the mothers and for their fetuses,” said Arthur Caplan, chair of the department of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania and an msnbc.com contributor.
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