I just went to the YouTube site and read some comments.

Holy cow.

Apparently Scott Manley had some negative things to say. This person's video seems to be the response.

Something's not right. I don't care for the Dead Internet Theory but some of those comments are just too far out there. I doubt they're generated by AI, but they aren't what normal people say either. I'd feel that way even if there were no controversy.

Hook

54 minutes ago, jon b said:

My concern is not about the response, which I would agree worked as planned ,nor for the actual rocket explosion which as you say was way up high, but for the absolute chaos that ensued afterwards as crews were oblivious to any potential airspace closures and so contingency plans were not in place.

 

Right, so not enough notice of airspace closures was in place. Would that be down to the FAA or ATC or airlines? 

 

59 minutes ago, jon b said:

Iberia 379.

This poor crew after a 9 hour flight from Madrid arrived in the area at midnight on their body clock,with presumably their standard fuel reserves and were faced with the short notice 90 minute closure of both their destination , alternate airports and surrounding airspace.

The captain had no choice other than to declare a mayday and penetrate the closed ACTIVE DRA in which presumably by definition and spacex/ FAA calculations debris was still falling, as he’d run out of options. The captain ultimately has the authority to depart from any regulations where they deem it necessary for the safety of their aircraft.

So this aircraft was indeed in harms way, but he had no option.

 

I meant in terms of falling debris. But yes,  dodgy for that flight, indeed.

 

What do you think can be learnt, Jon, how can they do better in future. There will be many such test flights and no doubt more failures and debris to deal with?

 

 

I think personally future launches of this nature will be handled differently, with precautionary NOTAMS about potential airspace closures for DRA issued in advance.

 

26 minutes ago, martin-w said:

Right, so not enough notice of airspace closures was in place. Would that be down to the FAA or ATC or airlines? 

Thats not really anyone’s fault as it wasn’t known the thing was going to explode, they won’t close the airspace hundreds of miles away on the basis that it might happen, as chances are it won’t , where do you draw the line?

As I say because of the chaos that ensued after this event I can foresee these launches being handled differently in the future with a NOTAM stating the POTENTIAL for disruption and flights should consider loading contingency fuel, or some such wording.

No, once again I’m not upset by the handling of this , everyone responded well to the unforeseen and unfortunate hand they’d been dealt.

What I’m upset with is a qualified pilot going public to say this was all a routine non event, nothing more dramatic than  diverting around a thunderstorm. Listen to the RT, clearly this WAS NOT a non event. And then going on to blatantly imply with some authority that pilots and commentators who voiced concerns were either misinformed or under qualified.

People are then taking this onboard and making comments along the lines of “she’s an airline pilot, those pilots saying this was dangerous were just local pilots who don’t know any better.”

I find that all deeply offensive to the professionalism of the crews,AT controllers and ground ops personnel who got caught up in this unfortunate incident by circumstances completely beyond their control.

And add in to the mix that there’s potentially an agenda for downplaying this event..I find it quite repugnant really.

Edited January 24, 20251 yr by jon b

50 minutes ago, jon b said:

“she’s an airline pilot, those pilots saying this was dangerous were just local pilots who don’t know any better.”

 

Yeah, I think I recall  she implied that in the video regarding Scott Manley. 

I’m paraphrasing but I read a comment on the YouTube video comments section to that effect referring to “ local pilots”

I’m not familiar with who Scott Manley is ( other than him being referred to as a pilot who can also fly planes 😂) I’ll look up his video.

He has a space flight channel, Jon.

 

https://www.youtube.com/@scottmanley/videos

 

 

Edited January 24, 20251 yr by martin-w

1 hour ago, jon b said:

I think personally future launches of this nature will be handled differently, with precautionary NOTAMS about potential airspace closures for DRA issued in advance.

I suspect part of the problem was that the FAA's procedures were based almost entirely on decades of launches out of Florida where the rockets quickly head out over open ocean with far fewer aircraft potentially affected. These launches out of Texas, on the other hand, have the potential to affect far more aircraft, as we saw with this launch, as well as there being islands where debris could potentially fall. As @jon b says, they will likely put out more NOTAMs to better inform the airlines of the risk.

23 minutes ago, jon b said:

I’m not familiar with who Scott Manley is ( other than him being referred to as a pilot who can also fly planes 😂) I’ll look up his video.

He has his own Wikipedia page, as well as the YouTube channel linked above.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Manley?useskin=vector

10 minutes ago, martin-w said:

He has a space flight channel, Jon

Thanks, I just finished watching the video you linked to there, I thought he explained very well the point I was making that the DRAs were not NOTAMed.

Also he explained about the gap between DRA3 & 4, I had presumed it may have been due to the parabolic nature of the rocket. Apparently not, the gap was due to changes in jurisdiction of the airspace. So the danger still existed but a DRA not issued. That’s a little concerning as I went straight through there !