How would you exactly "digitize"? While that sounds like a nice idea in theory it's the same as "digitizing" road traffic.

In the end the air traffic system is a highly complex but also a highly reliable system, especially when you compare accident rates.

I am sure the working conditions of ATC staff might be improved - but being both a pilot and a programmer, I know that there is no easy digitalization magic wand for aviation.

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njovin 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The Runway Status Light system already does this via automated monitoring of traffic from multiple systems: https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/rwsl

I'm sure the NTSB report will cover why this didn't stop the accident. Presumably either the system wasn't working as-expected, or the fire truck proceeded despite the warning lights since they had clearance from the controller.

The system is only advisory at present, so if the truck did see a warning light and proceeded anyway, they were technically permitted to do so.

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ApolloFortyNine 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>In the end the air traffic system is a highly complex but also a highly reliable system, especially when you compare accident rates.

1700 incursions a year, and other articles mentioning multiple near misses a week at a single airport [1]. It is safe in practice, likely largely due to the pilots here also being heavily trained and looking for mistakes, but it seems a lot like rolling the dice for a bad day.

>I am sure the working conditions of ATC staff might be improved - but being both a pilot and a programmer, I know that there is no easy digitalization magic wand for aviation.

I didn't say it'd be free. Just hard to believe radio voice communication is the best way to go.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/08/21/business/airl...

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thomas_witt 4 hours ago | parent [-]

[flagged]

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SpicyLemonZest 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The problem with the analogy is that aviation has no equivalent to "maintain a safe following distance" or "pull over and come to a stop". If a plane is on an active runway, or in flight, it's generally compelled by physics to keep moving forward one way or another. An automated system that prevented the truck from entering the runway would have been great, but an automated system that falsely reported a truck on the runway might have caused a disaster by forcing the plane into dangerous maneuvers to avoid it.

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guzfip 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Lmao the one hope I have for this country is that I know for sure that the American people will rise up to put a violent end to techbros once they try to “ ban non self driving cars”

	▲	thomas_witt 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		And I suppose people flying an 40 year old Cessna 172 will share the same feeling if someone wants to "digitize" it.

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ApolloFortyNine 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

There is a ton of tech in airplanes we don't require in every car, your 'argument' here is nothing more than strawman I refuse to entertain.

	▲	dpark 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		What tech do you suppose we’d put in an airplane that would stop a fire truck from driving onto the runway? Gatling guns?

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coryrc 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> While that sounds like a nice idea in theory it's the same as "digitizing" road traffic.

Traffic lights instead of mad max intersections are better.

Then there's subway Automatic Train Control.

I don't know that Air Traffic Control staff don't have computer systems for establishing which plane owns what airspace. They at least did do it manually already following specific processes, so it can be at least augmented and a computer can check for conflicts automatically (if it isn't already). And, sure, ATC could still use radio, but there could be a digital standard for ensuring everybody has access to all local airspace data. Or maybe that wouldn't help.

Your ground vehicle wanting to cross a runway could have the driver punch "cross runway 5" button (cross-referenced with GPS) and try to grab an immediate 30 second mutex on it. The computer can check that the runway is not allocated in that time (i.e. it could be allocated 2 minutes in the future, and that would be fine).

But, as pointed out elsewhere, obviously some of this is already present: stop lights are supposed to be present at this intersection.

	▲	bryan_w 17 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		The problem is knowing before today how to handle the case where a ground vehicle isn't across the runway in those 30 seconds.

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PunchyHamster an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's already digitized, he's clueless. The ATC knows where vehicle was and where the plane is going, it looks as simple case of mistake or maybe not watertight enough procedures

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throwway120385 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

I'm sure they've started all of this a few times over the past decade. The problem is in the US if you can't start and finish a project like that in less than 2 years then it's effectively dead in the water. The last time we "modernized" ATC was closer to the 90's than today, when there was still some general political will to make our government agencies modern instead of tearing them to pieces.

	▲	nradov 21 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		The FAA NextGen program has been running for literally decades. They have made some progress but there's a lot of work left to be done. https://www.faa.gov/nextgen