Go out to all those adversely impacted by last night’s plane collision in Washington, D.C. - I have flown through Reagan National Airport more times than I can count. It was a hub for US Air for a long time, and then later for American Airlines when US Airways bought them out and kept the American name when merging the two operations. As my home is in the New York Capital Region, for many years I would fly out of the Albany International Airport on a weekly basis - although less often the past few years.
US Airways (later American after their merger), being one of the major airlines flying out of Albany, it was my preferred travel partner. This meant that I would normally fly through either Philadelphia, Reagan National, or Charlotte whenever traveling as they are the airline’s hubs in the Eastern US; Charlotte is my preferred hub, but I have spent many hours sitting in the Admirals Club at Reagan National watching the Potomac out the windows when traveling through there. As such, this perhaps hits closer to home for me than for some; it is fairly easy to imagine myself as being on the plane involved in this incident. I never flew out of the Wichita airport, but I did fly from Kansas City to DC many times.
Being in the logistics industry, and with my specialty being transportation, I have a fair amount of experience investigating transportation accidents over the years. As such, I can tell you that I do have my own opinions as to what happened and the cause of the accident. But it is just that - my opinion based on limited information. Unlike the Orange Asshat in the White House, I will not speculate publicly as to the cause of the accident, and I will certainly not use this tragedy to push my own ignorant political agenda. The fact that he did comes as no surprise to me.
A tragedy that should stir him to being supportive of those who are suffering, to reassure the traveling public, and to provide whatever support is needed to those professionals who will be doing their jobs to determine the true cause of the tragedy, is just another opportunity for him to appear in public, polish his own knob, and push his political agenda by laying blame on everyone except those truly responsible!
The true travesty here is that we are stuck with a putz like Trump at a time like this. God help us for the next four years.
Comments
Shut Down
While I also have my suspicions regarding the cause, I wonder if this might finally provide a good reason for shutting down National. It is just a bad location. Too many airports in the US have been surrounded by city development. I remember staying at my brother's apt. in Dallas and hearing the flights from Love Field flying close overhead. Airports need to be located outside metro areas, with exclusion zones around the them preventing any residential or commercial development from encroaching on them. It is just potentially too dangerous for any number of reasons.
The orange one's comments just add more fuel to the fire of his unfitness for office. He just can't help using any occasion at all to try and push his agenda. That he frequently makes up his "facts" just adds more nonsense to the dialog.
My heart goes out to the families and coworkers of those lost.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Although I understand your point regarding the location…….
Of some airports, you need to keep in mind that many airports were originally built outside of the “metro zone”. It isn’t usually economically feasible to build an airport within a city as the property is worth too much. However, cities - or at least the suburbs, have a way of expanding outward and encroaching on or even surrounding the airport.
A case in point is the Albany International Airport which is my home airport. The land upon which the airport was built was originally either totally undeveloped or farmland. In fact, some years back when the airport was expanded, there was a delay of about two years because the family that owned the farm surrounding the airport didn’t want to sell the land. They finally came to a financial settlement allowing for the expansion of the airport, and the former farm fields were incorporated into the airport as either additional runways and taxiways, or as additional parking.
However, since the airport was originally built, surrounded by woods and farm fields, “civilization” has expanded out to surround it. At first it was primarily light industry and logistics - a soft drink bottling plant, trucking company terminals, warehouses, and the like. However, as the population continued to grow, houses began cropping up on the inexpensive land around the airport; some pretty expensive homes in fact.
And, as usually happens, the idiots who decided to build their million dollar homes right outside of the airport grounds then decided to complain about the noise and the traffic. In fact, they actually tried to sue the airport, the county, and the state. Luckily enough, the suit was heard by a judge with more than a modicum of common sense. He threw all of the law suits out, stating that as the airport was there before the houses were built that the homeowners should have been aware of not only the potential traffic in and out of the airport, but also of the flight paths of the planes and the noise which an airport generated.
There are always idiots willing to build or buy a home somewhere without first looking at the potential issues with it - and then complain about things. There is a fairly well-to-do housing development a few miles from my house which opened up a few years ago. After a year or so, the people who bought homes in the development began to complain about how difficult it was for them to get out of the development and onto the main road which runs by it; it is a primary road which has a fair amount of traffic on it, especially during the normal commuting times. Traffic which was there before they bought their new homes. But they still raised hell, and eventually the county put in several traffic signals along that road in order to placate the homeowners. So now, everyone has to go from 55mph to a dead stop every time one car decides to leave the housing development. A trip from my house to the nearby interstate, which is only five miles from my home, previously took less than ten minutes. It now routinely takes 25 minutes or more; basically, these idiots who bought an expensive home and then thought about the logistics of getting in and out, have increased everyone’s commute by a quarter hour or more.
I am not opposed to progress, or the growth of a community, but ignorant people never think about the infrastructure. All they care about is the purchase cost without worrying about the world around them.
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
Presidential / Governmental Fleet
The press said "Gold Top" helicopters. Does that mean that the President's helicopter is serviced at the Army base?
Just from the News, it sounds like that Airport stopped being safe a long time ago. Time to shut it down, or at least sharply limit the traffic there.
I’m not sure where you got the idea……
That Reagan National is so terribly dangerous. Yes, it is a busy airport - but in and of itself it is not dangerous. The danger comes from the fact that the US Army insists on flying helicopters out of a base directly across the river from the airport. And to make it worse, they fly them directly under the flight path going into the two main runways at Reagan National. And yes, the Army uses that base for VIP flights amongst other things.
But I have been in and out of that airport hundreds of times without a single issue. From a person who routinely flies eight or more commercial flights per week, I have never had an issue flying through there.
It is not my favorite airport - but that is mainly due to the fact that all of the smaller, regional jet flights go out of one gate. This makes for a very crowded gate as you get a lot of people sitting around waiting for their connecting flight. You have to wait upstairs for your flight to be called, then go downstairs to wait some more, then take a bus out to your plane, walk across the tarmac, and then walk up a portable set of metal stairs to board the plane. Not my favorite way to board in shitty weather, but it works I guess.
Plus, you should know not to take for granted everything you hear on the news, lol. After all, the Orange Asshole tried to convince us the collision was caused by DEI hiring at the FAA!
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
To reiterate
I didn't say that National is dangerous. But given it's location the potential is there. It has the no fly zones around it. Three, if I recall what I heard last night. Then it has the military base constantly flying through it's flightpaths. Add in Andrew's, which is the base for the president's air fleet, plus other governmental air travel. And there is the density of urbanization around it. What has happened in the past is of no consideration to me, I'm looking to the future.
And National certainly isn't the only airport with these type of problems. So looking to the future, we need to start taking all this in consideration when envisioning ways to reduce the potential loss of life if an incident occurs. Just as the Interstate highway system has restricted access, we need to consider restricting the areas around airports. For no other reason than it's a good idea.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
I'm well aware
That encroachment is the primary cause of the growth of urbanization around airports these days. That's why I mentioned exclusion zones around any new airports. And I didn't make any reference to National's safety record. But the fact remains that the potential for large number of civilian injuries or deaths due to the increasing growth of urbanization around airports exists and will likely get worse. Imagine the crash of an Airbus 380 only a mile or two from LAX. Maybe unlikely but not impossible. There are a lot of things we can do to decrease the fatalities that can occur in civil aviation. This just happens to be one of them. DFW was constructed well away from both Dallas and Fort Worth for precisely that reason. Then there is the bonus that land is likely to be cheaper.
Yes, this is tangential to the recent crash. But look at how much of the area around National is heavily populated. It is entirely possible that the crash could have happened only a mile or two away and could have caused hundreds of casualties on the ground. Why take chances?
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
I lived in New Orleans in 1982…….
When there was a major crash at the airport there. The cause of the crash was wind shear which caused a plane to pancake into the ground shortly after takeoff. The crash killed over 180 people, and the plane went down in a suburban housing development roughly a mile from the airport.
Louis Armstrong Airport, the New Orleans Airport, is actually located in Jefferson Parish, not Orleans Parish. For those not familiar with the term, a Parish in this case is essentially the same as a county - the term coming from Louisiana’s French roots versus the English roots of the majority of the country. So basically, the airport was built in the next county, nearly 15 miles from New Orleans. It is actually closer to Kenner than New Orleans.
Yet when the plane crashed it took out 11 homes - which would have been worse, but the pilot tried to put the plane into the West Metairie Canal rather than crashing into the center of a populated area. The crash was slightly less than a mile from the end of the runway. My point being that this airport was actually built well away from the city on what was essentially swamp land previous to the construction, yet people still built homes near it. No matter where you build an airport, people will encroach upon it - whether because the land is cheaper, or it is convenient to the airport, or just to get away from the city, the reason doesn’t really matter.
There is no way to build an airport without homes eventually being built near it. The same is true of any form of transportation. If it isn’t convenient for people to use, it is pointless to build it. Whether it is a highway, a railroad, a seaport, or an airport, it has to be convenient to access or it will never be used. Hell, even NASA built their launch pads miles away from anything on the east coast of Florida - yet the people who worked there built their homes as close as possible. I know - my father worked there during the Gemini and Apollo programs and I grew up only a few miles away in Cape Canaveral, and later in Merritt Island.
People are inherently lazy, and they will always try to make their commute times as short as possible. It takes me some 25 minutes to drive to the airport, and I complain about the fact that it used to only take about 15 minutes constantly, lol. Since the pandemic, there has been a significant number of people moving into our area which has increased commute times considerably. I still find it hard to believe that people drive to our airport from a large portion of New York State, as well as Vermont and Western Massachusetts, as it is the most convenient airport for them to reach. I cannot imagine having to drive well an hour or two to reach an airport, yet many people have to.
As for the issues with closed airspace over Washington D.C., and the multiple airports in the area, I understand your point - but it is not unique to Washington. There are three major commercial airports, multiple heliports, and multiple military bases in the vicinity of New York City - and many other metropolitan areas around the world. It is something which is only going to get worse going forward. But the fact is that no one who travels regularly wants to have to commute to an airport that is far enough away to be outside of a populated area.
Not only does that defeat the purpose of flying to save time, but no matter where you build it, the employees will want to live close to it. Including the people who run the airport, the people who maintain everything at the airport, the people who deal with the rental cars and the parking, the people who work in the restaurants and shops, the people who support the people who work at the airport, etc., etc., etc……. and eventually you have another city surrounding the airport.
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
Airports
I appreciated the comments of the US air traffic investigators who were clearly not going to be bamboozled into premature comments. The crash and fatalities are clearly quite dreadful, and certainly Donald Trump's comments do not help. There is clearly an enormous demand for air transport and there is little prospect of that lessening any time soon.
We have our own discussion going on here with the building of Heathrow's third runway. Houses demolished and thousands of people disturbed by traffic and noise; against the creation of many thousands of new jobs. Heathrow is just one of six International airports, and several small ones in the London area, and more just a short distance away. I seem to remember on my rare visits to the USA, being told that the whole of Britain would fit inside New York State. Surely the development of airports has to stop at some time, and the existing ones might be improved by moving them to new rural locations. I certainly hope so.
A Partial Solution
Is not to have military facilities near commercial civilian airports. The military can generally be much more flexible in movements except when there are emergencies.
However, I think the comments about encroachment are much more relevant. Before WW2 London's main airport was at a place called Croydon, about 10 miles from the centre, and at that time, semi-rural. Nowadays Croydon is another built-up suburb and the main airport is at Heathrow, which is again facing encroachment. However, there are no military facilities close by, so, hopefully, a situation like that faced in Washington won't occur.
Exclusion zones are at least part of the answer, but how long they will last under the relentless pressure of urban development remains to be seen. Sydney in Australia is about to develop a second airport some thirty miles from the city and already the complaints are under way from the few residents already there.
I guess another solution is the development of very-high-speed trains which will replace air travel for distances up to several hundred miles/kilometres. The Chinese are doing it. How long before we follow suit? This is not suitable for hubs like Hong Kong, Singapore and Dubai, where virtually all flights are international.
Your thoughts on high speed rail……
Are well taken - but there are inherent dangers with rail as well. Dangers which obviously multiply as speeds go up. Ask the people in Palestine, Ohio how safe they feel rail traffic is. History shows plenty of rail accidents, including accidents involving passenger trains. As it also does with highway transport.
As I have already stated, all transportation has inherent dangers built into it - whether we are talking about people or cargo, there are always dangers. And those dangers increase the busier our systems become, and the faster our transport systems move.
But what we are talking about here is, as you so eloquently stated, encroachment. No matter where you build your transportation hub, people will move closer simply due to convenience. And eventually it will spur deaths. Look at the explosion of the SS Grandcamp in Texas City, TX in 1947. The ship was carrying ammonium nitrate, and it’s explosion and subsequent fires killed over 500 people, injuring nearly 4000 more. The blast caused a 15 foot tidal wave in Galveston Bay, pushing multiple vessels up onto dry land. It created a mushroom cloud which rose some 2000 feet into the air, actually destroying two small planes which were flying in the area.
The blast also destroyed homes in the surrounding area, leaving over 2000 people homeless.
My point here is that although we are currently looking at the dangers inherent with air travel and the location of airports, the bigger issue is that no matter what mode of transportation we are looking at, and no matter what the dangers may be, there will always be people who live nearby who will be impacted by any incidents which occur.
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
I wanted to make a quick comment here…….
I have noticed that a lot of the responses to my original comment, including my own responses to others, have focused on the issues of busy airports located near population centers, etc.
I want to reiterate the fact that my primary point in my original blog was that this is undoubtedly a tragedy, but what makes it worse is the fact that the moron sitting in the White House and his ass kissing cronies have tried to play this tragedy up for political gain, less than 24 hours after the deaths of 67 people.
Rather than acting Presidential, rather than working to console those who have lost loved ones, rather than worrying about the fears of others in this country due to this terrible accident, he has tried to make political hay out of this incident. Rather than waiting for a professional investigation to determine the actual cause of the collision, he has immediately jumped to multiple conclusions - all of which feed into his political desires and work to stir up his political “base” of ignorant, redneck assholes.
Trump is a disgrace to this country, and a disgrace to the human race.
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus