[throwawaygimp]

@dang "Mid air just north of KAPA- all parties OK" is the more appropriate headline on reddit.

As an aviator my stress levels are only just coming down now from seeing this headline and clicking expecting there to be deaths.

[Grustaf]

What is KAPA and do people know what it means?

[t0mas88]

The ICAO airport code as used for navigation. They're different from the IATA 3 letter codes that most passengers know. US airports start with K, European with E (e.g. EF for Europe-France).

Often for large airports the code is very similar to the IATA code for passengers, e.g. KJFK for JFK and KSFO for San Francisco. But not always, as in EGLL for London Heathrow which is LHR in passenger codes.

[papercrane]

> European with E (e.g. EF for Europe-France).

EF is Finland actually. The first letter is region code, and Europe is divided into multiple regions. Northern Europe is E, Southern Europe is mostly L (so France is LF).

Wikipedia has a nice map showing the different boundarys on it's ICAO airport codes page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICAO_airport_code#/media/File:...

[t0mas88]

Haha sorry, you're right bad example.

[Denvercoder9]

> Often for large airports the code is very similar to the IATA code for passengers

This is mostly only the case in the United States, since it has a single-letter K prefix, so they can append the 3-letter IATA code to make a valid 4-letter ICAO code. In the rest of the world the second letter of the ICAO code is used to designate countries, so the 3-letter IATA code cannot be appended.

[NovemberWhiskey]

>US airports start with K

ICAO-registered U.S. airports in the contiguous 48 states start with a K. Alaskan and Hawaiian airports start with a P and other U.S. territories get other different initial letters depending on their region (e.g. TJ for Puerto Rico or NS for American Samoa).

[tialaramex]

KAPA is the code for Centennial Airport in Denver. It's likely many US pilots would either know what that is or be trivially able to look it up, non-pilots not so much.

[mnw21cam]

It's the code for the particular airport they were about to land at. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Airport

[quickthrower2]

Tbf it wouldn’t be the first abbreviation / jargon in a HN title