Anyone got any comments?
I thought it was amazingly realistic, even if the probability of all the circumstances occuring is thankfully very small.
Tony
(As Dec 19th is my birthday I wont be on/around/inside the M25 this year!)
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It looked as if a lot of the scenarios were based on real events, with slight tweaks.
Biggest of which was putting them all on the same day.
Unless I've finally lost the plot :-)
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If the road situation got that bad would the police not just give up on investigating the initial accident and just get the motorway open again?
I recently worked on contract for NATS and I tell you now, they would close down the skys before things got as bad as they did. Most of the staff live close to West Drayton, so they could easily walk in. Was just poetic license on part of The BBC. Remember recently when a guy was found at Gatwick with a grenade? They closed the airport without regard for commercial interests. They would do the same if air traffic safety was compromised.
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Scary, but I do agree with Phoenix that they would have started cancelling fights or even closed the skies. Also, they seemed to switch tack from blaming operator tiredness to blaming flawed procedures.
In the Radio Times a panel is invited to comment on how we should improve transport. Most of them seemed obsessed with increasing bycicle use. Which planet did they all step off?
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AJH,
Spot on. The recent M-way unsalted road chaos with people not getting home was a big influence.
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I also thought the bit about Old Trafford being more or less completely empty just before kick-off a little contrived.
Were they suggesting the 60,000 people expected were all coming from the South ? What about the local NW population.
Also, the London-centric viewpoint grated (again).
London/M25 is clogged up so that means the whole of Britain - but I take the point that the programme was trying to show how a ripple effect might have knock-on effects througout the country - I just think they could have expanded this somewhat....
Otherwise a gripping fictional account ....
JD
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This seemed to me to be a case of examining everyones major incident plans, Taking a worst case scenario they hadnt planned for, and lumping them all together to happen at the same time.
Highly unlikely. You cant plan and more importantly, you cant budget to cover such a highly inflated series of events all at the same time. Any country or authority anywhere in the world would struggle.
In fact it was so highly inflated that even as a piece of entertaining fiction it streched credulity to the point where I lost interest.
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A lot of catastrophes are the result of an accumulation of small errors, not serious in themselves, but if happening at the same time result in disaster.
Had to chuckle this morning. One of the girls in the office had watched the programme and thought it was a documentary. "I don't remember all that. Did it happen while I was in Thailand?" No dear, in LaLa land.
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It was interesting. Unrealistic, but the chain of events was convincing.
What happens in real life in the event of airspace being closed down, if there are planes wanting to land?
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What happens in real life in the event of airspace being closed down, if there are planes wanting to land?
Sorry Mods to go off-motoring, but ...
All flights must have a fuel safety margin to get to an alternate landing strip - in the UK, I'd assume they'd all divert to Belgium/France/Netherlands.
This is in case of a technical problem at the airport/ bad weather /terrorist attacks etc.
On Long-haul flights, on-the-way alternates have to be chosen - if for example an SAA flight gets to the equator, and there is not enough juice to get to Cape Town with the safety margin as well then they'll put down in some godforsaken dump to fill up with fuel.
This happens more often than you'd think, as they take off ex-Europe and hit bad weather en route, which guzzles fuel.
One day, let me tell you about my unplanned weekend in Windhoek, courtesy of SAA...
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Look how quickly they got all the aircraft on the ground in the USA on Sept 11th. Would not be a problem to close down any of the UKs major airports.
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And the point of this daft programme was, exactly what, to show us that if a lot very nasty things were, amazingly to happen all at once it would be, er amazingly nasty. A pointless waste of time for all involved.
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The problems of 'go-arounds' is quite common at Heathrow, I live close enough to be able to hear one. It's unmistakable when you hear all engines dial up for a rapid ascent.
What the programme did very well was highlight our transport system. Airports are running close to capacity, Heathrow at peak times is running at full capacity. What is often overlooked is our air-space is already saturated, I live near West Drayton too and it's common knowledge that the air-traffic control workers retire earlier and earlier now.
Heathrow hasn't had a serious accident since the late 1950s and the CAA statistically forecasts an air-collision following a go-around every 20 years. The BBC tried to get their hands on a NATS report for research purposes for the film and CAA got very cagey to release its findings (complied 10 years ago). When they finally got their hands on the report the BBC researchers had their worse suspicions confirmed and a large amount of their findings went into this docu-drama.
Sure it's might be far-fetched when the trains and tube are on strike when a major air collision occurs but in reality, Heathrow, and god forbid, is long overdue an aviation accident.
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There have been several cases of airlines being fined on arrival at Heathrow where they have not had enough fuel for a divert to an alternate, and therefore breached CAA rules. Some did not have enough fuel for a "go around". Fuel costs money, to burn and to haul around not used, so they cut it as fine as possible.
And its true that there has been several near disasters at Heathrow, one of which was a plane that lined up to land on the A4 just north of the airport thinking it was the runway. Now that would have caused traffic chaos (to get it back onto a motoring thread) possibly spreading out onto the M25. This scenario (because it nearly happened) is planned for. Had this occured on the day of a transport strike? Then yes it would have been worse. BUT this would have had to happen during rush hour. (the plane that tried to land was not during rush hour).
My point being in the prog, too many things happened at just the right time (or wrong time if you like) to be credible.
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"The problems of 'go-arounds' is quite common at Heathrow, I live close enough to be able to hear one. It's unmistakable when you hear all engines dial up for a rapid ascent"
The worst go-around I've ever experienced was at Arlanda in the grip of winter. Turned out an earlier plane had not cleared the runway and the decision to have another go made for an unpleasant minute or two. All engines bellowing at full welly, distinct nose up attitude, no sensation of acceleration or climbing. Too close to a stall for my liking.
After that the rental car mob could have given me a Trabby and I'd have been ecstatic!
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I thought the traffic being kept on the M25 was nonsense.
How many exits are there ? more than one i think ;-)
Also the woman saying lorry drivers speed up when they have been delayed. Thats impossible because their limited to 56 MPH.
As for the GO-around system at Heathrow... surely the tower should inform both planes not to turn until instructed ?
I guess the general point of how this countries infrastructure is woefully inadequate and is straining all the time under the pressure was well made.
LOL Alfafan !!
I wonder how many people turned on their TV's half way thru that programme and thought it was real ?
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Also the woman saying lorry drivers speed up when they have been delayed. Thats impossible because their limited to 56 MPH.
Had an interesting chat a few weeks back with a work colleague whose dad is a lorry driver. You are correct in what you say however:
Similarly to the tachograph, the speed limiter is often on an individual circuit which has one fuse in the fusebox. Guess what happens when you remove the fuse... Similar practices are used for drivers driving over the legal timr limit - they simply stop for a 10 min break, pull the fuse out the tacho and then do another 4 hours driving. Stick it back in again at next break.
Noone is any the wiser and from what I am led to believe very common practice.
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no one is any wiser....<<
but VI and Plod are when they do an in-depth investigation on past charts. Mileages from odometer and average speeds are at odds.
DVD
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As a spoof I thought it was quite good. It clearly wasn't meant to be a serious forecast of doom.
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No, it clearly was. Perhaps you were watching something else Dave? :)
It would be irresponsible to screen a program in this way, if there wasn't any justification of a serious core message.
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I watched the programme with interest. Apart from the plane crash which really was the perfect end to a perfect day! I was starting to think that this was becoming a scenario for a Chief Constables promotion board.
Seriously though 2 of the right type of incidents on the M25 at almost the same time and at peak time could bring the area to a grinding halt. This could isolate either incident from the appropriate emergency help and cause stalemate with severe knock on effects.
As for the knock on effects as far as Manchester and further - well a little bit of artistic licence perhaps.
I chuckled when the bobby had implemented the detour and found roadworks that could not be passed and then met head on another detour from another force area. You may laugh!!!!!!!????. How often have we questioned wether or not left and right hands are working together?
I have seen this happen on a far smaller scale where a main arterial road is blocked and then the same happens on a detour and a town/city becomes gridlocked - it does not take much we are running to capacity. Obstructions have to be moved quickly and efficiently but this takes time. Transfer loads from tankers and lost loads can be a time consuming nightmare.
Fullchat
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