The wall is there to prevent an overrunning aircraft from ramming into whatever’s behind the wall. It’s obviously not meant to stop a heavy jet at that speed, but for a smaller or slower aircraft, it could mean the difference between arresting the plane as softly as possible under the circumstances, and crashing the airplane anyways into trees, the localizer antennas, or public roads with cars and people on them, in a place that airport rescue and firefighters can’t easily reach.
I was completely incorrect about that specific airport. The mound is part of the localizer antenna, which was not visible on the video. More: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzmptA6s-1g
Why not have something softer/gentler deceleration than a hardened barrier? A gravel trap like you see for overloaded trucks at the bottom of steeps hills for instance? It’s still going to suck and likely disintegrate the aircraft a lot, but like the Azerbaijan 8243 crash shows, you can have a hard landing off runway not end with 100% catastrophe.
To date, EMAS safely stopped 22 overrunning aircraft, carrying 432 crew and passengers aboard those flights.
Seems that this isn’t a new tech but can be hard to retrofit at airports with limited space. Cool to see a list of airports that do have it installed though
In some cases, it is not practicable to achieve the full standard RSA because there may be a lack of available land. There also may be obstacles such as bodies of water, highways, railroads, and populated areas or severe drop-off of terrain.
No system can be 100% safe. You either don’t have the money or space or time for every system that could possibly mitigate crashes. Especially with how rare stuff like this is, it doesn’t always make sense. Cost Vs efficiency Vs safety is an equation balanced by the individual all the way up to the government everyday. Everything is a trads-off.
As a non-capitalist the very concept of “this would save a lot of lives, but it costs too much” is extremely off-putting. I know it’s the world we live in, and obviously this argument can be taken to a ridiculous extreme, but building a solid wall is clearly not the answer. As soon as designers/engineers start putting a price on a life we’re into pretty shitty territory.
There seem to be a lot of runways out there with walls, buildings and friggin’ ravines at the end.
I get that it can’t always be easy to find suitable land that can cater to long, flat runoff areas, but it certainly feels like a calculated risk to skip it, given how (relatively) frequent overruns are.
Probably not a good place to have a wall.
The wall is there to prevent an overrunning aircraft from ramming into whatever’s behind the wall. It’s obviously not meant to stop a heavy jet at that speed, but for a smaller or slower aircraft, it could mean the difference between arresting the plane as softly as possible under the circumstances, and crashing the airplane anyways into trees, the localizer antennas, or public roads with cars and people on them, in a place that airport rescue and firefighters can’t easily reach.I was completely incorrect about that specific airport. The mound is part of the localizer antenna, which was not visible on the video. More: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzmptA6s-1g
Agreed, but-
Why not have something softer/gentler deceleration than a hardened barrier? A gravel trap like you see for overloaded trucks at the bottom of steeps hills for instance? It’s still going to suck and likely disintegrate the aircraft a lot, but like the Azerbaijan 8243 crash shows, you can have a hard landing off runway not end with 100% catastrophe.
I was incorrect, it’s not a safety feature. This video shows that it’s actually where the localizer antenna is mounted.
There are runways with crushable concrete at the ends, but I’m not sure that does much for something skidding across without gear down.
https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/engineered-material-arresting-system-emas-0
Same link addresses a lot of your questions, I think
Seems that this isn’t a new tech but can be hard to retrofit at airports with limited space. Cool to see a list of airports that do have it installed though
No system can be 100% safe. You either don’t have the money or space or time for every system that could possibly mitigate crashes. Especially with how rare stuff like this is, it doesn’t always make sense. Cost Vs efficiency Vs safety is an equation balanced by the individual all the way up to the government everyday. Everything is a trads-off.
As a non-capitalist the very concept of “this would save a lot of lives, but it costs too much” is extremely off-putting. I know it’s the world we live in, and obviously this argument can be taken to a ridiculous extreme, but building a solid wall is clearly not the answer. As soon as designers/engineers start putting a price on a life we’re into pretty shitty territory.
Sorry, I misclicked in the asset placer… 😭Won’t happen again. - Respectfully, GOD.Edit: Oh fuck, didn’t realise that it wasn’t a test site.
There seem to be a lot of runways out there with walls, buildings and friggin’ ravines at the end.
I get that it can’t always be easy to find suitable land that can cater to long, flat runoff areas, but it certainly feels like a calculated risk to skip it, given how (relatively) frequent overruns are.