Without trying to minimize the depth of tragedy concerning the death of a six-year-old boy when a Southwest jet slid off the runway in Chicago, (stories here, here, and here), the traffic engineer in me wonders how an investigator would code that crash?
There are the obvious codes for collisions with vehicles, deer, lamp posts, guardrail, ditches, mailboxes, etc., but with a quick check of the Georgia Department of Transportation’s coding scheme (which is in the only one I have immediately available), the only categories that might apply are “Other Object (Not Fixed)” or “Motor Vehicle in Motion – In Other Roadway.” The next obstacle would be that the vehicle at fault is the one that is used to categorize the collision, which in this case would be the aircraft striking another “Motor Vehicle in Motion – In Other Roadway.” Again, trying to convert the police report to the collision database will be a fun task for whomever gets it, I’m sure. Without specifically requesting the crash report, someone (like me) who happens to look at the collision data for that roadway would have no idea that a 100 ton aircraft caused this wreck.
Arguably, and I’m willing to be the arguer, this collision should be entirely disregarded when analyzing the traffic safety of this road section. Yes, it’s a fatality, but the circumstances are not ones which are within the bounds of the traffic engineer to solve (I’m sure the airport and airlines would object to a 20′ wall across the end of their runway). However, it would be difficult to disregard this fatality if you were merely analyzing the crash data because you would have no idea (without special knowledge) that an aircraft was involved. Fatalities get an awful lot of attention when collision analyses are conducted so this one wreck could disproportionately affect the amount and kinds of money spent on this roadway.
My Two Cents. This isn’t something earth-shaking in the traffic community, it is merely interesting. And tragic, from the point of view of the family of the deceased.
Post script: In my experience, in cases similar to this one where weather is a factor, some police officers would tend to cite the driver of the out-of-control vehicle for failure to drive safely according to conditions. I wonder if the airline pilot received one? That is done by the officer on the scene to firmly establish which driver was at fault. This incident messes with some of the nice boundaries that traffic and safety engineers are usually safely ensconsed behind.
Leave a Reply