Vindicated, but ANGRY
There's a reason I call this blog my "soapbox." And right now, I'm going to get up on it and shout to the world.
Back in the late nineties, I was the supervisor at a NWS weather station in Astoria, Oregon. My observers and I were operating from 6 A.M. to 10 P.M., and our job was to augment the readings taking by the Automated Surface Observation System (ASOS,) because the thing just wasn't good enough by itself. Basically, the machine is designed to give current weather readings at an airport–cloud ceilings, current weather (rain, snow, fog, etc.) wind speed and direction, pressure, etc. Unfortunately, it takes a very small sampling because there are a limited number of sensors–in Astoria, there were two.
When the government, in its infinite wisdom (and desire to cut jobs) decided to close the station (meaning, fire human observers and let ASOS run on its own,) I caused a stink. A big one. I got senators and congressmen involved, forced them to have to fly to Oregon to talk to me, forced NWS personel to fly to Washington to talk to congress, etc. My stink made the news, and boy, was I ever in trouble. But damn it, I was convinced that ASOS was going to kill someone.
Well, guess what?
Now, I don't know the full story, and the news report doesn't give all the details, but apparently (word from those there) the ASOS indicated that the ceiling was approximately 400 feet, and the helicopter pilot decided to go below the ceiling for better visibililty. Problem was, ASOS was reporting ONLY the weather directly over the sensor. Elsewhere, the ceiling was lower, so the pilot, instead of finding that 400 foot ceiling, found water.
A human observer would have noted in the observations that the ceiling was lower to the west (or east, or north or whatever.) So if my sources are correct, human staff might have prevented a tragedy.
Back in 1999, I warned everyone who would listen that it was only a matter of time before this happened. It makes me sick that I was right. :evil:
UPDATE: I have confirmed that at 7:55 A.M., the ASOS DID report a ceiling of 400 ft. and 5 miles of visibility. The crash happened at 8:20 A.M. I also want to make clear that while the weather report may have been a contributing factor to the crash, there are likely other factors…pilot error, mechanical failure, etc.
It’s like so many things in this country; there’s this push to remove the people who -oh, I don’t know- actually know what they’re doing and replace that discretionary knowledge with automated systems or (almost worse) procedures. Why have a real person there to make sure the information is accurate? Why allow a principal to make decisions based on his knowledge of a student or the circumstances? Automated systems and procedures are better, right?
Geez, I couldn’t even say that with a straight face.
Tell Karen hi!
