An Emirates Airlines Boeing 777 starting from Malpensa Airport near Milano was hit by a hailstorm 5 minutes after takeoff and was obliged to go back after discharging 10 tons of fuel. It was bound to New York.
Tullio

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An Emirates Airlines Boeing 777 starting from Malpensa Airport near Milano was hit by a hailstorm 5 minutes after takeoff and was obliged to go back after discharging 10 tons of fuel. It was bound to New York.
Tullio

Why in this day of weather radar was it allowed to take off or its route of flight not changed?

An Emirates Airlines Boeing 777 starting from Malpensa Airport near Milano was hit by a hailstorm 5 minutes after takeoff and was obliged to go back after discharging 10 tons of fuel. It was bound to New York.
Tullio

Why in this day of weather radar was it allowed to take off or its route of flight not changed?

Will have to wait for the report to find out, but the most likely answer will be stupidity and greed of the company.

Remember the Y2k bug?
It was a significant problem and would have had a severe impact on many businesses and government services. But it was known about well in advance, and so work was done to work around or eliminate the issue & the end result was there were only some instances of smaller systems having issues,
But many people being as stupid as they can be, called the whole thing a hoax & fake & waste of time & money to fix- because it was fixed and the issues it would have caused didn't occur (particularly all of those over the top end of the world tele-movies).
If an aircraft takes off and crashes/is damaged it easy to say that they shouldn't have taken off. But if they don't, in most cases it's near impossible to prove that if they had taken off that something detrimental would have happened to the flight.

And while the Captain has the authority & responsibility to not take off if they feel it is unsafe to do so, such delays can result in penalties & running in to hours of service limits & other costs & issues. And if all the aircraft before them were able to leave without issue, and the ones following, why didn't they? Time to find a new job, there are plenty of pilots looking for work, we'll get one that's not scared of a few clouds.
There's a good chance the clouds were forming up, but there was no precipitation occurring (so noting on the Radar) at the time the aircraft took off, and it only started after they had left the ground. And travelling at 500km/h+ something that happens just in front of you is hard to avoid.


But if the weather was on the Radar before the aircraft left the ground then some very hard questions need to be asked of the ATC & the plane's crew.

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Grant
Darwin NT

An Emirates Airlines Boeing 777 starting from Malpensa Airport near Milano was hit by a hailstorm 5 minutes after takeoff and was obliged to go back after discharging 10 tons of fuel. It was bound to New York.
Tullio

Why in this day of weather radar was it allowed to take off or its route of flight not changed?

Will have to wait for the report to find out, but the most likely answer will be stupidity and greed of the company.

Remember the Y2k bug?
It was a significant problem and would have had a severe impact on many businesses and government services. But it was known about well in advance, and so work was done to work around or eliminate the issue & the end result was there were only some instances of smaller systems having issues,
But many people being as stupid as they can be, called the whole thing a hoax & fake & waste of time & money to fix- because it was fixed and the issues it would have caused didn't occur (particularly all of those over the top end of the world tele-movies).
If an aircraft takes off and crashes/is damaged it easy to say that they shouldn't have taken off. But if they don't, in most cases it's near impossible to prove that if they had taken off that something detrimental would have happened to the flight.

And while the Captain has the authority & responsibility to not take off if they feel it is unsafe to do so, such delays can result in penalties & running in to hours of service limits & other costs & issues. And if all the aircraft before them were able to leave without issue, and the ones following, why didn't they? Time to find a new job, there are plenty of pilots looking for work, we'll get one that's not scared of a few clouds.
There's a good chance the clouds were forming up, but there was no precipitation occurring (so noting on the Radar) at the time the aircraft took off, and it only started after they had left the ground. And travelling at 500km/h+ something that happens just in front of you is hard to avoid.


But if the weather was on the Radar before the aircraft left the ground then some very hard questions need to be asked of the ATC & the plane's crew.

I was less thinking of the onboard radar, but much more the ground radar. Perhaps we will find out that the tower did not have it or it was down. But five flight minutes from the runway will be on the local ATC screen. Hail produces some very obvious radar returns and the dopler wind patterns are there some time before it starts falling. As there is rising terrain in most directions there is really one route; Weather on that route should be a big priority item. Thunderstorms do produce some very severe micro-burst activity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Air_Lines_Flight_191 They also produce some extreme turbulence which gets the PAX mighty upset. Stupidity seems to be the cause. No one gets canned for a ten minute delay to let a storm cell pass.

Having flown in and out of Malpensa a few times I've seen squalls develop very rapidly in the area, moving very rapidly in random directions. Neither ground or air based radar is perfect tracking or identifying this sort of event, indeed the ground based is generally better at identifying slow moving events, not those developing rapidly (just about every airline and "heavy" aircraft pilot I know has hit squalls at some time in their career, most have just been soft stuff like rain or snow, but I can think of a couple that have hit a hail squall, and those do dent the aircraft and have the potential to do damage, and generally don't show up as anything other than precipitation on the aircraft weather radar.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

A prime example of why texting at the wheel is dangerous. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-57988029

It has been said on occasions, that this thread is pointless as all it does is highlight accidents.
The No 1 reply to that was & still is - Stop, Think, Act.
If everyone did that, there would be fewer accidents.
Case in point: Cyclist jailed
He certainly obeyed those.
He didn't stop
He didn't think
He acted
Result.
A man is dead
He is in prison
There is also a further consequence - Possible deportation on his release.
What annoys me the worst - When did cycling on the pavements (sidewalks) become the acceptable "norm"?

All over bent sheet metal.
https://abc7.com/ontario-freeway-fight-60-video-police-department/10916647/

For those in the UK that have been waiting over 3 months for a delivery, it might arrive soon(ish), Ever Given: Cargo ship that blocked Suez Canal arrives in Felixstowe

Looks like Aldi and Lidl special buys have arrived

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Old enough to know better(but)still young enough not to care

Not long back from what should have been a quick short trip to the shops. Got stopped by a couple as the guy not sure of himself in recognising me but certain of my voice. At one point we were crewmates on the Met. Over a coffee, glad that he had just retired, told of some "interesting" events on the line since I transferred to the Central (1976).
No need to mention them but he did mention a fairly recent one which reminded me of several similar ones. The difference on this one was that it was NOT an Underground train but a mainline one.

Mainline units use AWS. However, that does not work between Amersham & Neasden as Chiltern Railways use LU track. There was a SPAD. This one had an "extra" component. Driver reset tripcock. Now that is correct however, then as now, that has to be authorised. Gave a shake of the head & his wife commented "Don't you find that worrisome? Not really, we've seen worse". He sent me the link to the report.
SPAD & Trip reset
There is a lot there that I can comment on but I'm only going to mention one - fatigue.

I cannot speak for mainline, or even modern LU working.
The railway unions fought hard & long to introduce the 8 hour shift & 12 hour rest between shifts.
Move on 20+ years & I did worry about what I heard.
I used to travel daily between here & Cambridge but had to change at Ely. Often had enough time to shoot across to the other platform & grab a coffee.
The cafe owner was a former driver & came off after constantly being pressurised into RDW (Rest Day Working) & overtime when relieving crew unavailable.
Move on another 20+ years...
...sheesh.

... And going off the rails...

We have our present government 'relaxing' road haulage driver's maximum hours to allow operators to push drivers that extra hour each day for a few extra miles...

All upon the excuse of a shortage of drivers and gaps on the supermarket shelves and common sense and safety be damned.


All compounded by:

Note also how the countrywide distribution 'model' has been pushed into using mega-huge 'central' warehouses to minimize costs by taking advantage of cheap transport and integrated accounting tax concessions...


Meanwhile, my local 'old-style' local food shops seem to be unaffected for their local produce. However, that cannot feed the hungry wasteful marauding hords of city dwellers...

(And I do wonder just how much food gets wasted by the online deliveries repeat-click junkies getting the same repeat deliveries regardless of what might still be left lost in the fridge from the previous week...)


All in our only one financially greedy world!
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

... And going off the rails...
We have our present government 'relaxing' road haulage driver's maximum hours to allow operators to push drivers that extra hour each day for a few extra miles...

True & also true for management. However, the worst culprit are drivers themselves
I believe I mentioned this fact in the cafe some years ago.
"I used to ensure that come Wed that I retired for the night early so that I was rested enough to cover the rest of the week knowing that there would be a 5/6/7 hour sleep pattern on the cards". Yet...

21 The driver was not rostered to work on the day before the incident. The driver stated that he had a quiet day around the house and went to bed around 23:00 hrs, waking several times in the night, before finally waking at about 06:00 hrs on the day of the incident. He left home for work at around 14:00 hrs.

There were several incidents where turning up on a Thurs morning, got chastised by fellow drivers for being too cheerful & playing some nice tracks in the car (Shaggy 's "The train is coming" or Riley & Durrant trance instrumentals).
Edited to remove wrong & insert correct paragraph.

Getting tired & hates August...
Tower Bridge stuck open
...are we seeing a new London event on the tourist's calendar?

Sometimes, a driver just has no involvement with cause of delays.

I can picture some interesting "coyote & roadrunner" type artwork that could be put onto those raised roadway sections that are seen through those arches. :-D

Tesla Autopilot: US opens official investigation into self-driving tech

The US federal agency in charge of road safety is opening an official investigation into Tesla's "self-driving" Autopilot system.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said it was acting following 11 Tesla crashes since 2018 involving emergency vehicles.
In some cases, the Tesla vehicles "crashed directly into the vehicles of first responders", it said.

...

The agency was primarily concerned with an apparent inability of Tesla vehicles to cope with vehicles stopped in the road - specifically emergency vehicles attending an incident.
Among the list of cases was one where a Tesla "ploughed into the rear" of a parked fire engine attending an accident, and another in which a parked police car was struck.
The NHTSA said it was opening its preliminary investigation into "the technologies and methods used to monitor, assist, and enforce the driver's engagement", while using Autopilot.
It said that in the 11 crashes that prompted its investigation, either Autopilot or a system called Traffic Aware Cruise Control had been active "just prior" to the collisions.

From The Telegraph -

In one case in California last month, a Tesla car sped through a road closure into an empty police car. In another crash in Michigan, a Tesla hit a police car with its emergency lights on after an officer had stopped to investigate a collision.

Tesla made a big mistake by calling their adaptive cruise and control system "Autopilot" IMHO as it's certainly a misleading term in their case.

Cheers.

And I wonder how many of these Tesla drivers involved in the crashes were impaired by drugs/alchohol or were inattentive to the road.
Probably most of not all of them.

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