> the controller in question was working both ground and air control simultaneously due to staffing shortages

How many planes land at LGA in the middle the night?

One controller overnight is completely reasonable.

bloudermilk 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Approximately one per minute in the 15 minute span proceeding this crash, including one that had an emergency takeoff rejection and was being maneuvered along with the emergency support vehicles that were being sent to attend to it

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inaros 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>> One controller overnight is completely reasonable

So if said controller has a medical episode?

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pc86 5 hours ago | parent [-]

"Funny" enough if this controller had had a medical emergency (or just bad sushi) and been off the radios, this wouldn't have happened because the fire truck would not have received clearance to cross the runway and wouldn't have. Or at least would have crossed like the airport was uncontrolled, been much more careful and announced itself, and likely have seen the landing aircraft.

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penultimatename 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

And if an aircraft needs to land due to an emergency? It’s amazing things work as well as they do, the system relies on only one thing going wrong at a time. This accident was an example of multiple things going wrong at the same time.

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pc86 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Every accident is an example of multiple things going wrong at the same time.[0]

I'm going to pretend to know exactly what would happen in that precise scenario but I'm confident most commercial pilots get enough training to be able to handle it.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model

	▲	inaros 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		>> Every accident is an example of multiple things going wrong at the same time. You are defeating your own argument :-) Its exactly because every accident is an example of multiple things going wrong at the same time...that you need...multiple layers of control and safety to catch it through each hole of the cheese. Like...another controller?
	▲	bombcar 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		One of the things you learn as a pilot is how to recognize that you need to go into emergency mode if you will. Call it high-alert if you want. You need to recognize when something is out of the ordinary and treat it as an emergency (perhaps not a literal pan-pan/mayday emergency) sooner rather than later, and do things that may end up to have been unnecessary (like executing a go-around because emergency vehicles were on the move). One controller on two frequencies is another example - that works fine in normal situations, but during an emergency response, perhaps the channels should be mixed; giving the pilots in the air a chance to hear the incorrect clearance onto their runway. After all, an active runway is really more of an "air" control thing than a ground one.

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inaros 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

An empty tower at La Guardia with a bunch of airplanes in the air not getting a reply to their calls is Die Hard 2 stuff. Spare me the Pete Hegseth school of ATC...

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pc86 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. The GP is literally about a lone controller in the tower having a medical episode and what would happen after that.

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bombcar 4 hours ago | parent [-]

The pilots would execute untowered approach procedures, a small airport with little to no traffic and VFR flight you may self-announce on frequency, a larger airport you go back to approach, etc.

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tadfisher 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Each of those flights should have an alternate and be prepared (have enough fuel) to divert. If there is a fuel emergency then self-announcing is likely appropriate as the plane is coming down anyway, but that is multiple things going wrong.

	▲	bombcar an hour ago \| parent [-]
		A big part of it is what category of airport it is, and plane. General aviation almost always goes to self-announce (which includes some business jets perhaps, they often land at untowered airports) but not category 135 air travel or whatever it is.

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MeetingsBrowser 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I can’t find a way to read this other than

“If we remove regulation and safety controls, things will be safer because everyone will be more careful.”

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pc86 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You should try harder, because I'm not making any comment on regulation whatsoever. There are procedures that every controller and pilot knows for how to handle loss of radio contact.

	▲	MeetingsBrowser 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Am I misunderstanding the implication in your comment that things would have been safer had there been no ATC at all? Because the parties involved would be more careful if there were no ATC?

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inaros 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

And we know how well that works: https://youtu.be/AWM0l8_F_X0?t=411

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

Normally? Zero. LGA has a curfew from midnight to six AM, April 5-December 31.

In practice? It depends. Delays have a tendency to cascade in the air travel system and the Port Authority can curtail or cancel the curfew at their discretion. How frequently do exceptions to normal ops have to happen for it to be unreasonable to use "normal ops traffic" as a justification for scheduling a single controller? Ultimately, controllers have to control the traffic that they get, not the traffic that they want/expect to get, and a system that is overly optimized becomes brittle and unable to deal with exceptions to the norm.

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rekrsiv 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Can a single human being reliably and robustly maintain a safety-critical system alone under any circumstances, ever?

Ever?

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cucumber3732842 4 hours ago | parent [-]

There are millions of people who are self employed in an industry where they could be maimed or killed if they screw up who manage to make it to retirement.

I think the better question is how you get a system in which people are only responsible for any one facet to get the same performance out of people that a painter can get out of himself when he's setting up his own ladder that he personally has to climb on.

	▲	bombcar 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The goal should always be to reduce the human dependency - where reasonable which is where all the argument is, because of the cost/benefit analysis. Mandatory scaffolding for roofing contractors would save some amount of deaths/injuries (and the related expenses) but add expenses to each job. Some roofing firms refuse to operate without scaffolding; you pay for it or you find someone else.
	▲	pythonaut_16 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I don't think the GPs point is about personal safety of workers, but rather critical safety systems that rely on one person with no backups. Like an ATC tower for a busy airport staffed by a single person on an overnight shift. A painter who does a bad job setting up a ladder is going to have a bad time, a lone ATC operator having a heart attack potentially puts multiple large aircraft full of people in danger...

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ferguess_k 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Looking at the things he needs to juggle at the same time, is it really reasonable? Any standard we are referring here? Sure such cases are rare but that's why we have redundancies for critical positions.

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MeetingsBrowser 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> One controller overnight is completely reasonable.

How many fatal accidents are reasonable in your opinion?

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caconym_ 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> One controller overnight is completely reasonable.

Do you really think it's appropriate to have zero margin for handling unusually high ATC workloads? Because we just saw what happens when you have zero margin for handling unusually high ATC workloads: people start dying.