Originally Posted by
PaxBritannica
a) Well, apparently not.
Yeah, that's what "notwithstanding" means. In spite of the current incident, it is normally pretty easy to tell if a runway is a runway and if it is clear at night.
b) And you can see everything with absolute clarity at night?
No, but it's normally pretty good. Look, I'm a night freight pilot, I do a lot of it, often into largish airports that have only one controller. If the controller falls over dead, it would be of little consequence. We'd all go-around, change to approach, talk to him for a bit while they sorted things out then go and land.
The whole point of aviation safety measures is to minimise the possibility of system failure. Belt and braces and belt and braces. There's a line where there's no real safety gain for extra safety measures. It probably wouldn't increase safety much to have ten controllers in the tower at 23.30. It's probably pointless to have five. But one controller? To go with a single point of failure on the basis that the chances of failure are low and only a few a/c would be affected?
This is not how aviation safety is supposed to work.
Is it just SFO? What other safety measures are shaved to the bone for reasons of cost-cutting, hubris or machismo, that this trusting, fare-paying passenger doesn't know about?
You just don't seem to understand that not only are the chances of the single controller falling over very slim, but the
consequences of a single controller falling over are minimal. It just wouldn't matter, therefore there is no need to go totally belt and braces over it.