Accident at La Gaudia last night

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One day the phone rang in my office and a guy from the Pentagon asked me if we were Okay with the X-34 landing unmanned at the Cape. I told him we certainly were. He then asked what would happen if a fire truck pulled out onto the runway at the last minute as the X-34 was landing. I replied that the X-34 probably would hit the fire truck and that we were not worried about that occurring because we actually exercised control over who got onto our runway.

It seems that the X-34 was originally going to land at Kirtland AFB and people there were hysterical over an unmanned aircraft hitting a fire truck or a busload of blind nuns or something like that. What the controversy was really about was that the USAF quit paying farmers in NM for the privilege of flying over their property. So they moved the X-34 to Edwards before they canceled it.
 
Has anyone seen any photos of the truck involved?

Seems strange to me that none have appeared. As they say in the video above it weighs 60 tons but even so it must have substantial damage. I would suspect from the CRJ nose damage that the truck may have tilted severely or rolled because 45 tons of aircraft is going to have a lot more energy - remember mass times velocity squared.
 
This CBC coverage has it. Port Authority fire truck involved in LaGuardia plane collision did not have transponder

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Two comments.

Firstly having worked a 2300-0700 shift for many years that does not mean the controller was well rested. Many shift workers wake "early" and have dinner with the family and watch tv etc before work and then go home and go to bed. Smarter people get up in time to have breakfast before going to work and then staying up for hours before going to bed so they sleep until they have to get up for work. I think the ATC are too smart to do that but everyone has to make their own work/family balance decisions.

Secondly there has been no mention of whether the fire trucks have dash cams with voice recording. Given how cheap those are I suspect that will be a requirement that comes out of this investigation. That simple low cost solution would have already provided us with a lot of answers to what went on in the truck. I tend towards the NTSB apparent view that transponders on vehicles should also be required. It may not have made any difference in this case but in a bad weather situation it would provide the ATC with information that would not be visually available. My gut feeling is that had the controller seen the whole situation on his monitor he may not have allowed the truck to cross the runway. Given his workload it equally may have made no difference.
 
Thumpalumpacus said:
The fire-truck driver should have been able to see the airplane on final and rollout. Checking approach-vector is something you ALWAYS do before encroaching a runway. ALWAYS.
Click to expand...

That was my thought precisely, Thump. Just because air traffic clears you to enter the live runway doesn't absolve you of checking that it's clear.

As is so often the case, this looks like a combination of circumstances that led to the accident. Hopefully, the investigation will get to the bottom of it fairly rapidly. In the meantime, we can only express condolences to those who were injured and to the families of those who lost their lives.
 
buffnut453 said:
That was my thought precisely, Thump. Just because air traffic clears you to enter the live runway doesn't absolve you of checking that it's clear.
Click to expand...

Just as we never assume a gun is unloaded, or the other driver will stop for his red light.

You're right, like most aviation incidents this one is likely a concatenation of missteps that, had one or two swung different, it may not have occurred.
 
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