Cyprus-Forum.com

[Cypriotatheart]

I also prefer Larnaca to Heathrow. However, I would not grumble that there were delays because of that fog. If a plane had an accident everyone would have questioned why it had flown! The Airlines can't win there. Don't forget Cyprus gets fog. I have been waiting for arrivals at Larnaca and they had to be landed at Paphos. The best for them was that they were able to get off at Limassol.

[Pete_D]

I have a friend who is an air traffic controller in the UK. He was reassuring me that flying in fog is actually very safe because if the air is foggy there is little or no wind and hence no turbulence. And the fog does not affect any electronic transponders, only visibility, but since machines e.g autopilot are safer than humans (they do not suffer from human error) then this is ok too. But the problems come when handing to the control tower at the airport, and on the ground, hence the slots between take off and landing are extended somewhat. And this is the sole cause of the delays. But flying in fog is safer than most other weather conditions, apparantly.

Pete

[rawk]

I have a friend who is an air traffic controller in the UK. He was reassuring me that flying in fog is actually very safe because if the air is foggy there is little or no wind and hence no turbulence. And the fog does not affect any electronic transponders, only visibility, but since machines e.g autopilot are safer than humans (they do not suffer from human error) then this is ok too. But the problems come when handing to the control tower at the airport, and on the ground, hence the slots between take off and landing are extended somewhat. And this is the sole cause of the delays. But flying in fog is safer than most other weather conditions, apparantly.

Pete

What about computer error?

If it reads the ground to air height wrong? Where are you?

Coming into land 10 or 20 feet higher than it is?

Diehard 2 had a similar scenario.

Rawk

[Pete_D]

Yes computers can go wrong, and people can also make mistakes but statistically speaking it is much more likely for a person to make a mistake compared to a computer. I presume (and hope!) that avionics software has a lot less errors than the software we write at work (which goes into mobile phones).

Pete

[skyvet]

Firstly, thank heavens for Cypriotatheart who brings some good old fashioned common sense to this subject!
Nobody likes to be delayed at airports (or anywhere else for that matter) even aircrews. We're given a duty time, and we like to stick to it as much as anyone else. We have lives to lead too, and it's equally as boring and frustrating for us to be stuck on the ground when we should be in the air as it is for the passengers. True, modern aircraft are equipped with the finest avionics available, and each "computer system" is monitored and backed up by another "computer system", and in case the back up fails, there is often a third one - just in case! But at the end of the day, what a pilot relies on above anything else is his/her eyesight! Much has already been said about this subject, and all I would say is; remember Tenerife on March 27th 1977! A total of 583 people lost their lives in a crash ON THE GROUND, IN FOG! The airport was already overloaded because of about 50 extra aircraft that had been diverted from (I think) Palma, Majorca following a terrorist bomb explosion at that airport. I would virtually guarantee that every single one of those 583 fatalities would have sooner endured a delay rather than the fate that awaited them that day.
Agreed, it's frustrating, but believe me, it's better to arrive late than not at all!
Sorry if this reads as condescending - it's not meant to! After all, on the flight deck, we're closer to the crash than you!

[Kikapu]

Firstly, thank heavens for Cypriotatheart who brings some good old fashioned common sense to this subject!
Nobody likes to be delayed at airports (or anywhere else for that matter) even aircrews. We're given a duty time, and we like to stick to it as much as anyone else. We have lives to lead too, and it's equally as boring and frustrating for us to be stuck on the ground when we should be in the air as it is for the passengers. True, modern aircraft are equipped with the finest avionics available, and each "computer system" is monitored and backed up by another "computer system", and in case the back up fails, there is often a third one - just in case! But at the end of the day, what a pilot relies on above anything else is his/her eyesight! Much has already been said about this subject, and all I would say is; remember Tenerife on March 27th 1977! A total of 583 people lost their lives in a crash ON THE GROUND, IN FOG! The airport was already overloaded because of about 50 extra aircraft that had been diverted from (I think) Palma, Majorca following a terrorist bomb explosion at that airport. I would virtually guarantee that every single one of those 583 fatalities would have sooner endured a delay rather than the fate that awaited them that day.
Agreed, it's frustrating, but believe me, it's better to arrive late than not at all!
Sorry if this reads as condescending - it's not meant to! After all, on the flight deck, we're closer to the crash than you!

Your points are well taken. Actually, it was a bomb scare at the Grand Canaria island ( Las Palmes ) when all these flights were diverted to Tenerife. It seems that, the collision of the two 747's between Pan Am and KLM was going to happen, no matter what that day. Everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong for those two aircraft. Accidents are a product of chain reaction of mistakes or misfortunes. They had it all that very sad day.

[skyvet]

Thanks Kikapu. You're absolutely correct that the "accident" appears to have been inevitable. The point is that lessons seemed to have been learned from that tragedy, and whilst the aviation authorities are sometimes construed by the travelling public as being intent on making their journey as difficult as possible, the truth is that everyone in the industry (at hands on level anyway!) treats safety as the first, second, and last priority!
Thanks also for correcting me regarding Palma and Las Palmes - as soon as I read your post I realised that you were spot on! I claim grey hair as the cause of my fading memory!
Regards.

[Niki]

Firstly, thank heavens for Cypriotatheart who brings some good old fashioned common sense to this subject!
Nobody likes to be delayed at airports (or anywhere else for that matter) even aircrews. We're given a duty time, and we like to stick to it as much as anyone else. We have lives to lead too, and it's equally as boring and frustrating for us to be stuck on the ground when we should be in the air as it is for the passengers. True, modern aircraft are equipped with the finest avionics available, and each "computer system" is monitored and backed up by another "computer system", and in case the back up fails, there is often a third one - just in case! But at the end of the day, what a pilot relies on above anything else is his/her eyesight! Much has already been said about this subject, and all I would say is; remember Tenerife on March 27th 1977! A total of 583 people lost their lives in a crash ON THE GROUND, IN FOG! The airport was already overloaded because of about 50 extra aircraft that had been diverted from (I think) Palma, Majorca following a terrorist bomb explosion at that airport. I would virtually guarantee that every single one of those 583 fatalities would have sooner endured a delay rather than the fate that awaited them that day.
Agreed, it's frustrating, but believe me, it's better to arrive late than not at all!
Sorry if this reads as condescending - it's not meant to! After all, on the flight deck, we're closer to the crash than you!

I was criticising Heathrow airport rather than airlines. The fog had lifted by the time we were there.

The problems are associated with the way the airport is run with self check-in and no clear information what to do or how to do it and when you ask the very scarce member of staff half of them can't talk English well enough to explain which is the irony compared to Larnaca.

The queues are positioned right by the entrance so you can't even get in the door and there are so many queues on top of one another you don't have a clue where you're supposed to be. Hence the being in the wrong queue for half an hour twice and believe me I wasn't the only one.

Then the wondeful baggage reclaim area that was total chaos with computers not working, people getting extremely cross with each other and the announcer getting things wrong - again no sign of any staff to help. We also were an hour and a half late boarding the plane as apparently the previous passengers had left such a mess they had to get extra cleaning staff - but I hadn't mentioned that as it wasn't the airlines fault.

Niki

[Kikapu]

I claim grey hair as the cause of my fading memory!
.

Hopefully you will lose the Grey Hair before losing all your "grey matter".

[titantrigger]

We used to find Larnaca airport quite amusing on a Wed and Sun in the summer seeing the bemused arriving and the state of some of the burnt to a crisp still in beach clothes. Only funny if we were picking up or dropping off family not quite so if we had to fly on those days