Check this out... another idiot!

erkme73 · Jul 25, 2017

I was standing on Hillsborough Ave in Tampa the other day as a huge Delta 767 flew right over the fence as it came in for a landing. The airplane was, at best, 30-40' over my head. I had some time to kill (waiting on friends to arrive at the neighboring bowling alley), so I took my two kids (4 and 2.5yo), walked the fence to the point that was in line with the center of the runway. It was so close we could feel the blast of air, and the noise was deafening (I probably would not have done it had I known how loud it was going to be). My kids freaked.

I say all of this because I was close enough to literally hit the airplane with a rock. There is a sidewalk along the fence, and even a bus station no more than 20' from the approach center-line. Imagine all the potential damage someone could do if they wanted to.

Life is unsafe. Life is unfair. If someone wants to do harm to others, they will. No amount of regulation or collective punishment will prevent that from happening. Clearly the guy filming the video is an idiot of the highest caliber - but we need to keep this in perspective and realize that the knee-jerk reactions and calls for action amount to nothing more than collective punishment - and that never works.

ascension · Jul 26, 2017

erkme73 said:
I was standing on Hillsborough Ave in Tampa the other day as a huge Delta 767 flew right over the fence as it came in for a landing.
The airplane was, at best, 30-40' over my head. I had some time to kill (waiting on friends to arrive at the neighboring bowling alley), so I took my two kids (4 and 2.5yo), walked the fence to the point that was in line with the center of the runway.

I think you have misjudged the altitude of the airplane as it flew over you.
A normal approach uses a glide slope that has the airplane 50' over the threshold, which was well beyond where you were, unless you were standing on the runway.
You either misjudged its altitude or there was something seriously wrong.

gnirtS · Jul 30, 2017

I suspect someone doesn't realise how big a 767 is and therefore how high it was.
Standard 3 degree glideslope will have him just over 300ft high for each nautical mile from touchdown. And 50 over threshold.
He'll have a decision height of a few hundred feet and abort if the approach isn't right and if he did break minimums that would trigger an immediate Accident investigation which would be public.
In other words, the 767 is a big plane. It was much much higher than estimated. That's why the icao mandate a minimum of 3nm separation from a 767 due to the wake vortex.

erkme73 · Jul 30, 2017

919' from where I was standing to the edge of the concrete end of the runway.

ascension · Jul 30, 2017

[QUOTE He'll have a decision height of a few hundred feet and abort if the approach isn't right and if he did break minimums that would trigger an immediate Accident investigation which would be public.
[/QUOTE]

No to quibble, but this is not correct. Decision alts in flat areas like that are almost always 200' AGL. Tampa's is, though they have some special procedures that go lower.
Still, if visual, the DA doesn't exist, though companies have their own policies.
Nor would busting mins trigger an accident investigation.

gnirtS · Jul 31, 2017

That depends massively where in the world you are. Breaking minima or decision heights in lots of places will immediately trigger an investigation (or in other locations, an internal investigation at least).