[Retric]

Arlines are extremely cautious around these kinds of one off events.

It’s not about the calculated risks, but the uncertainty around if they have the right information in the first place. Sure it may have broken up at 145km miles, but what if someone messed up and it actually was 14.5km etc.

[rvnx]

Main priority to prevent accidents is to migrate away from this imperial system.

[mh-]

You can forget to carry a 1 in metric, too.

[rvnx]

It won't save everything will will reduce at least two possibles routes of mistake (wrong unit, or imprecise conversion).

OP wrote "km miles", which would create an incident.

SpaceX uses metric system for that exact reason, because in the past, on Mars, accident happened because of imperial measures.

[Retric]

Yep, the point of saying “km miles” was the hypothetical uncertainty around units even for European airlines who use metric internationally. However, even within metric might be some question around units.

[dmurray]

No, airlines do not build in a safety factor sufficient to cover an important measurement being off by a factor of 10.

They don't ground flights because the pilot might load 2,000 litres of fuel instead of 20,000 litres. They don't take evasive action in case the other plane is travelling at 5,000 knots instead of 500 knots. They don't insist on a 30-km runway because the runway published as 3 km might only be 300 metres.

[Retric]

You misunderstood what I’m saying. Airlines have systems to validate the amount of fuel loaded and currently aboard aircraft that have been battle tested across decades including fixes due to past issues etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Transat_Flight_236

They don’t have that level of certainty around what altitude a rocket exploded, or other one off event.

[yuliyp]

Unlike fuel gauges, land surveys, and radar, fast-breaking news of explosions carries a significant risk of mistransmission or inaccuracy. They might know when/where the explosion occurred, but not necessarily have much confidence on how fast debris might have been ejected and in which directions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6hIXB62bUE ATC was being extremely cautious and diverting planes over quite a large area for quite some time to avoid the risk of debris hitting airplanes.

[andrewflnr]

Can you not understand the difference between a stated measurement of a runway or drain fuel requirement, and a stated location of a unique explosion that happened just a few minutes ago? Are you prepared to bet 200 lives that no one fat-fingered the number?

[Evidlo]

What if the information comes outside a system they control or organization they have no prior experience with?