I think the understaffing concern is less about “there should have been more people there at that specific time” and more about “understaffing leads to overwork, which leads to tiredness, which can lead to carelessness”.

Obviously all we have to go on is the ATC recording, but _could_ the ATC controller have more ‘actively’ warned the ARFF vehicle not to cross the runway? I think the answer is Yes.

But this is all 20/20 hindsight – I don’t want to pile on the ATC controller or the vehicle occupants. It was a tragic horrific thing, but it wasn’t an ‘accident’ – there was a causal chain, and I think understaffing MAY well have been a link in that chain.

Hindsight- if only that Capt had looked just a little further down the runway @“100” and seen those rotating lights he would have a chance. In another life we always practiced “Go Around” at50-100ft and don’t you know it was “a truck on the runway”. The CRJ has a GE engine with “approach Idle” with full flaps & gear extended. That means the FADEC has full power immediately available regardless of full flap and gear down. The jet would continue its immediate downward trajectory but it would have been a bounce and go.round in 2?seconds. The size of the aircraft doesn’t matter.

Going forward I think every pilot that spies an emergency vehicle waiting to cross gets a pass for canceling a landing with a “Go around”.

I don’t know if another Twr controller was needed departing 13 and landing 4. unless one for landing and another for tkoff – or simply more breaks on shift.

The ONE controller is doing an important job. Just like the one pilot flying the plane during landing: It’s a life-or-death job. Pilot is a good example. command max roll when at say about 10m and the other pilot is helpless before “everybody dies” is inevitable. Less extreme examples are possible.

In general people are pretty reasonable at such jobs.

Not only does this impact vehicle operator situational awareness, it impacts greatly the ability to initiate critical initial fire suppression and rescue duties. Most airports must wait for off-site resources to arrive to reach the staffing levels needed to perform adequate fire/rescue/medical operations.

This is an issue that’s mostly ‘under the radar’ but one that the flying public and aviation professionals need a greater understanding of.

As an armchair pilot, it seems to me that PROXIMATE ‘blame’ (which sounds awful to say about anyone involved in a fatal collision), goes 75% to the vehicle driver and 25% the ATC controller on duty. The ATC controller should have done a better job, and the vehicle driver should have been much more aware of what was going on around them, and, if in ANY doubt, not to cross an active runway.

Obviously then we work back to look at the lack of training for vehicle drivers and the overworkedness of ATC controllers, which then goes back to the underhiring of ATC, which goes back to financial constraints etc., which can be traced to a lack of mandatory federal budget for ATC…

That should have read “That said, whomever was riding shotgun on the fire engine should have been paying attention to activity on the runway…”  It apparently isn’t possible to edit a post to correct an error.  🙂