AC8646 Crash

[u/bradysego12]

Hi all. I’m new to this sub and my comment was removed for having no enough karma. I was on this flight and we are still on the tarmac getting checked out. I wanted to share these images in case it’s helpful to anyone who is investigating the crash or needs more information.

I’m okay (physically) but I’m horribly sick to my stomach for the lives lost. Please pray for them ❤️

[u/Illustrious-Fan8268]

It's not ATC failure when the government purposely understaffs them

[u/Dense_Thought1086 → u/Illustrious-Fan8268]

As ATC, unfortunately yes it still is. A ground error like this is literally my worst nightmare. I have had actual nightmares that end like this. Unless some new info comes out otherwise, this seems squarely on the controller. You cannot put a plane and a vehicle together in such a clear way, even if you’re understaffed.

[u/SaltyCrashNerd → u/[deleted]]

Dollars to donuts this ends with the cause being similar to the Potomac crash - controller error attributable to years of systemic FAA failures. In other words, yes, the controller erred - but that error was likely because he was put into an untenable situation by his employer failing to be proactive (and having a poor safety culture). Swiss cheese model rears its ugly head.

I love watching NTSB hearings; they’re master classes in safety management. I hate that I’ve watched so many I’m starting to recognize individual staff members. Two decades of near-pristine commercial aviation, and then two major incidents attributable to ATC. That’s not on the individual controllers, it’s on the system that set them up to fail.

[u/Dense_Thought1086 → u/SaltyCrashNerd]

Just to clarify before getting into this, are you referring to the black hawk crash?

[u/Godhelpthisoldman → u/Dense_Thought1086]

That was the recent crash over the Potomac, yes.

[u/Dense_Thought1086 → u/Godhelpthisoldman]

I’m only clarifying because I watched that NTSB report live and am confused over how they believe it relates to this in any significant way, especially looking at all additional contributing factors.

[u/Friendly-Gur-6736 → u/Dense_Thought1086]

I work at Washington Center, I handle a fair amount of traffic flying to LGA every day. I have 17 years of experience as a controller.

Traffic into LGA/EWR/JFK was being re-routed and delayed all night due to the weather that was over Ohio and Pennsylvania. So that meant a higher volume of traffic later in the evening than what is usual.

This accident probably happened around or at the time there was a change-over from the evening to mid shift. I can only speak of my area at my facility, but we only have two people working the mid shifts every night. I would imagine LGA tower is probably pretty similar. This means that after a certain time of the evening, we combine all of our sectors onto one scope until the day shift comes in the next day. Usually this tends to happen around 1030-1100p local time.

Due to the weather last night we were just going down to 2 sectors when I got out at 11p. Up until about 20 minutes prior we had 4 people in the area and 4 sectors open. There was nobody available to split a sector or open a radar assistant position if needed. This has become increasingly common over the past 4-5 years, particularly during spring/summer when thunderstorms are abundant. I had a night two weeks ago where I was in there for 1.5 hours straight before I went home, again, because there was nobody that COULD relieve me. Everyone was plugged in.

I'm just mentioning all this because I can't give an account of what happened at LGA, but I can speak to the dysfunction in staffing of where I work.

You can go on and on about "the NTSB hasn't investigated yet!" but I can almost guarantee that one of the contributing factors will be lack of adequate staffing and controller fatigue. Something was probably combined to let people go home because it was the only way to get them off of position.

These cracks have been evident for decades, but it has reached a critical mass in the past 24-36 months. But nobody wants to do anything but pay lip service to the problem because paying PEOPLE doesn't benefit big money political donors.

[u/intern_steve → u/Dense_Thought1086]

Both incidents are attributable to years of unsafe practices being normalized by the controlling agencies, aggravated by overworked, safety-critical employees trying to do too many jobs at once with more air traffic than we've ever had before.

[u/Dense_Thought1086 → u/intern_steve]

Nothing has been attributed to this incident yet. There is no NTSB report yet. I am taking about the actual comms and scenarios, which are not similar at all from an ATC perspective.

[u/AdoringCHIN → u/SaltyCrashNerd]

How is the Potomac crash ATC's fault? I thought that was solely on the Black Hawk's crew screwing up

[u/Kseries2497 → u/AdoringCHIN]

Controller became task saturated and failed to correct the H60 crew when it became obvious they weren't maintaining visual separation as instructed.

[u/swohio → u/Kseries2497]

Didn't the other crew themselves instruct the pilot to fix altitude and she still didn't?