Originally Posted by
Someone Somewhere
This feels like an alarm fatigue/ever-brighter-light problem. If you make aircraft lights even brighter, you'll start asking questions about other safety lights in the area and going round and round in circles.
Visual management of traffic isn't really acceptable, especially at night against a backdrop.
Not sure how an approach like this one can be flown with an ILS, even a GPS based approach I have my doubts to be able to fly that precise, etc.
I think, the better option would be to not rely on "bright lights" but suitably illuminated big surfaces, IE an airplane should illuminate its own surfaces. For this particular case, that might not have made a big difference, given the near head-on approach for a long time.
Originally Posted by
Someone Somewhere
I really hate to say it, but I kind of have to agree. See above. This helicopter path may as well be a taxiway crossing an active runway, with the same levels of risk. Why are they allowed to loiter on the runway path; why are they allowed into the approach corridor with an aircraft on approach?
Can I argue this is the 'fatal runway incursion' everyone has been warning the US is going to have?
This accident was certainly "setup" in the procedures defined in this area, heavily relying on Humans not making (altitude (settings)) mistakes and Humans detection opportunities, for which we all know, the human is not really that well-designed for from scratch.
For this case, the helicopter corridor was designed to be below the approach path, though when the human makes even a small mistake and/or the weather makes the approach path a bit lower, things can go haywire quite easily.