Collision Avoidance
So on Friday I flew back from a beautiful day in San Francisco to a really crappy night here in New York. After holding pattern for 45 minutes off Long Island, we came in for a landing. The pilot announced that we were entering “final approach” and told the flight crew to be seated.
Then, at about 1500 feet, our engines suddenly rev’ed and the plane went into a sharp climb. In less than a minute we had climbed to 2800 feet (love those TV’s in Jet Blue). My heart was pounding. I really wanted to be off the plane.
The pilot said something vague about weather, traffic and that we would be “re-sequencing”, without really explaining what had just happened. After another twenty minutes of dicking around in air we finally landed. I briefly considered kissing the ground.
I mentioned the incident today to my Mom, who went out and clearly spoke about it with one of my uncles - the one who works building collision avoidance systems at Boeing. It then made it back to me that I most likely experienced such a system in action.
My understanding is basically the system noticed two planes are about to smack into one another, and causes one of them to suddenly shift course. Such as climb 1500 feet in a minute.
So, two things: one, I’m happy the plane was so equipped and that the system worked. Thanks to whomever builds those things (my uncle or the competition) for saving my life.
Two, my general un-enthusiasm for flying has been re-doubled. “Hey, let’s strap ourselves in a tube and push it along the end of a sustained explosion, flying 400 miles an hour!” Why the fuck do I keep climbing into those things?
