Air Canada flight hits fire truck on runway at LaGuardia Airport

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LaGuardia: Two pilots killed after plane and ground vehicle collide at New York airport - follow live

Forty-one passengers and crew were taken to hospital, the Port Authority Executive Director says as the airport remains closed until further notice.
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09:11​


More now from Garcia, who says the sergeant and police officer who were inside the firefighting vehicle are in a stable condition in hospital "with no life-threatening injuries".

"I visited them both in the hospital, as has the chairman, and they were able to speak and we're notifying their families", says Garcia.

She adds that all of the people who were on the plane have been accounted for.

Garcia says she can't speak to their injuries at this time but some of them are serious.
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martinbayer said:
It's truly sickening how the current USG is blithely disregarding/ignoring fundamental infrastructure problems. But sadly no surprise there...
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It's not this administration's fault entirely either. This was a problem that was literally decades in the making. You can also add congress as one of the culpable parties.
Quite frankly the poor bastard working the tower may well be responsible but he's every bit a victim as the dead and injured
 
GK. Dundas said:
It's not this administration's fault entirely either. This was a problem that was literally decades in the making. You can also add congress as one of the culpable parties.
Quite frankly the poor bastard working the tower may well be responsible but he's every bit a victim as the dead and injured
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Oh, I completely agree - this as well as countless other recent "mishaps" is a systemic issue borne out of utter neglect of the air travel infrastructure over decades. But this current administration is the one left holding the bag for what is happening *right now* because of utterly misplaced "priorities". American policy inaction...
 
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Speaking of the Mover and Gonky show,
I had an irresistible urge to reply to a comment on "No time to react"

@PeaceAnd-Prosperity
1 hour ago
“Mishap” (on this video) should not be used when there are fatalities.

@scottfw7169
15 minutes ago
"Mishap" is officially documented by DoD as exactly and specifically the correct word to employ when there are fatalities and Mover and Gonky come from the DoD environment. Air Force Safety Center in their Mishap Investigation Process material states a mishap is, "Any unintended occurrence in the Air or Space Force that results in death, illness, or property damage is considered a mishap and requires an investigation" See also document DoDI 6055.07 Mishap Notification, Investigation, Reporting, and Record Keeping, June 6, 2011, Incorporating Change 2, June 11, 2019, which is used by USN, USAF, USMC, on pages 45 and 46, in Part II. Definitions, defines Classes A through D mishaps with Class A mishap being, "The resulting total cost of damages to Government or other property is $2 million or more, a DoD aircraft is destroyed (excluding UAS groups 1,2, or 3) or an injury or occupational illness results in a fatality or permanent total disability."
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In 1990s I applied at a Kansas City location, and FAA office? for the Air Traffic Controller job but ended up not passing the medical.
I do maintain a low key interest in the ATC situation.
So, I'll drop these here;

https://www.gao.gov/blog/while-thou...ntrollers-theres-still-shortage-we-looked-why

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/air-traffic-controllers-and-why-there-arent-enough-of-them/

https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/c...ffic-controllers-strike-benefits-and-pay-1981

will quote a bit from that 3rd reference,
Case Study Details
Database Narrative

On August 3, 1981, nearly 13,000 of the 17,500 members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO), a United States trade union, staged a walkout and strike. The union intended the strike to address four main concerns:

Rank and filers maintained that their work was seriously undervalued and under-rewarded
That their work week was unreasonably long, especially in comparison to the hour worked by their overseas counterparts
That the FAA’s approach to supervision and to union-management relations undermined morale and the safety of the system
And that the FAA neglected serious deficiencies in staffing levels and hardware reliability.

However, in a move to focus on solely economic goals rather than a revamped work culture or genuine self-management, PATCO President Robert Poli demanded a wage increase of $10,000 a year for controllers, a reduced 32-hour four-day workweek, and a better benefits package for retirement. Controllers maintained that their demands deserved consideration, and pointed to the highly stressful nature of their job as proof. They also believed that they held the upper hand; since if they were not on the job, airplanes would have a hard time flying passengers and goods anywhere.

In actuality, negotiations between PATCO and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) –which employs air-traffic controllers—had begun as early as February. However, the federal government had balked at the package, which had a $770 million price tag. When the FAA put forth a $40 million counteroffer, including a shorter workweek and slight pay hike for some controllers, PATCO members rejected it. When contract negotiations proved unfruitful, PATCO members finally walked off the job on the morning of August 3. About 6,000 flights – nearly half of the daily load—were immediately cancelled.

Four hours after the strike, President Ronald Reagan strode into a press conference in the White House Rose garden and issued one of the defining statements of his presidency, in which he declared the PATCO strike to be in violation of a 1955 law banning strikes by government unions, and ordered members back to work. “They are in violation of the law,” he said, “and if they do not report within 48 hours, they have forfeited their jobs, and will be terminated.” It was true that the controllers, as federal employees, were in violation of the no-strike clause of their contracts. Nevertheless, government unions had declared approximately 22 unauthorized strikes in recent years without incurring penalties—including two ‘sick-outs’ staged by air traffic controllers in 1969 and 1970. Until President Reagan’s ultimatum, union members hadn’t even considered him an adversary, but rather had purely seen the strike as one against the FAA, an unfair employer. PATCO failed to foresee that the administration would not honor the ‘historically accepted’ guidelines for treatment of illegally striking workers.
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https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-02-591

And will quote a bit from this 4th reference

FAA Needs to Better Prepare for Impending Wave of Controller Attrition
GAO-02-591 Published: Jun 14, 2002. Publicly Released: Jun 18, 2002.
...
In June 2002, GAO issued a report (GAO-02-591) that found a pending wave of air traffic controller retirements at FAA. The report also found that FAA was unprepared to deal with this wave of retirements and recommended that FAA identify the number and timing of hires necessary to ensure that facilities have an adequate number of certified controllers available to perform needed duties as well as determine and plan for the expected attrition levels at each facility. In December 2004, FAA issued a 10-year workforce plan for its air traffic controller workforce, which included responses to GAO's recommendations. In the plan, FAA states that it has established a facility-by-facility retirement loss model and will use the model's data to create annual hiring targets for each facility. Further, the plan states that FAA will refine the model regularly and place more emphasis on developing accurate facility level data, which will be used to establish priorities for assigning controllers to the facilities in most need of additional staff. If carried out, this plan should help FAA avoid long-term staffing shortages at particular air traffic facilities. These actions can be directly attributed to GAO's recommendation.
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https://www.ksl.com/article/17920846/air-traffic-controllers-retiring-at-alarming-rate

and quote a bit from this 5th reference,

Air traffic controllers retiring at alarming rate
By Steven Law, ksl.com contributor | Posted - Nov. 3, 2011 at 11:39 a.m.
...

But America’s air traffic controllers continue to retire in large numbers. This rate of retirement will continue in the coming years with 2,870 air traffic controllers expected to retire during the next five years.

According to the FAA’s projections, two more large waves of air traffic controllers will reach the mandatory retirement age of 56 in the years 2018 -2021 and the years 2036 to 2039. Salt Lake City International Airport shows similar percentages, but Salt Lake is slightly behind the national curve. Its large wave of retiring controllers is just beginning, with two controllers retiring in the past year and 10 more due to retire in the next two years.

The same FAA report that forecasts these large waves of coming retirements also recognizes the need for hiring plans designed to phase in new hires in a manner that will lessen the large retiring and hiring spikes and level out the experience level.

On paper, everything looks fine, with the FAA hiring more people than are retiring. But having two years experience is not the same as having 20 years experience.

In recent years, before the wave of retirements, the eight controllers in the tower may have more than 20 years of experience each, but with these highly experienced controllers retiring, that level of experience is diminishing, some shifts quite sharply.

“There are days when the experience level of air traffic controllers is diminished greatly,” said Gary Lemmons, a recently retired air traffic controller of 25 years. “There are crews when the average seniority may be two and a half to three years and you may have three of these controllers who are not yet fully certified in all positions.”

But, Lemmons added, there is always an experienced supervisor in the room with them.
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https://sustainablemedia.center/air-traffic-control-understanding-americas-controller-shortage/

The Retirement Wave: A Perfect Storm

The industry now faces a significant demographic challenge that threatens to reshape the entire system. The FAA projects that 25–30% of the current controller workforce will reach retirement age within the next decade. This translates to approximately 3,500 to 4,200 controllers leaving the system, many of whom were hired after the 1981 PATCO strike and are now approaching the mandatory retirement age of 56.

The Training Pipeline Challenge

The FAA has responded to this impending crisis by ramping up hiring efforts, bringing on 1,500 to 2,000 new controllers annually. However, the replacement process is far more complex than simple hiring numbers suggest. New controllers require two to four years of training before becoming fully certified, with high-traffic facilities demanding additional specialized training. Not all trainees successfully complete this rigorous certification process, adding another layer of uncertainty to staffing projections.
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These comments on that recent video are quite interesting, most interesting, unsettlingly interesting,

@MrTommyKimes
1 hour ago
First, let me say I love your channel. In this video you say the controller was well acclimated to the mid-shift. In the two facilities I was stationed we worked a different shift every day. Our last shift of the week was a midnight shift. It's possible the controller worked a 7am-3pm shift on Sunday morning and then returned for a 11pm-7am shift on Sunday night. That type of shift rotation is brutal.
14
@CWLemoine
56 minutes ago
That's incredibly stupid and dangerous. Wow.
12
@lasjbucholz
31 minutes ago
@CWLemoine This is how it is done across the NAS. At my facility the controllers work 2 nights, 2 days and a mid or 2 nights and 3 days. The mid-shift is always on the controller's Friday and it follows a day shift that the controller worked that same day. For example, when I worked I would gwt to work at 5:30 am and leave at 1:30 pm. I would go home, try to get a few hours, then back to work at 10 pm and work until 6 am the next morning.

I can say from direct experience that well-rested is not a true statement.
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My native/birth/first language is German. Even after living in the USA for over a quarter century, I still consider myself fully conversant.
My second school language is Latin. While it was claimed to be helpful in learning Mediterranean languages, I never saw/reaped any benefit.
My third school language is English. Need I make a point?
My fourth school language is French. Enough said.
But I realize I digressed from the core topic of this thread, so I offer my sincere apologies, and mods, feel free to delete as you desire...
 
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Scott Kenny said:
Those shift rotations should be illegal.
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It wasn't as messed up as that ATC shifts circus but for several years in the previous century I worked for an auto auction where my schedule was overnights for 3 to 5 days a week & then daytime for the dealer auction day.

Thing about the semis transporting the automobiles was that they got there whatever time of day it was that they got there from wherever they departed from.
If a dozen rigs hauling rental company lease returns got there every hour overnight then they unloaded every hour overnight and left to go wherever they were going next.
Some did park their rigs outside the gate and sleep until daylight, but most wanted to unload right now and be done with it.

After several years of being on that schedule I realized what it was doing to my body and mind and quit without remorse.
 
Reminds me of a feller placed as Welsh minister. He did not even learn the Welsh Anthem FFS. He was an embarrassment and remains that way to this day, IMHO.
 
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