It’s not an imminent collision alert, it’s a “plane where it’s not supposed to be” alert.
I don’t know how many scenarios currently are configured for an audible alert, but the thing is, when you make too many alerts important enough to be audible, then no alert is important. Operators will start instantly muting the audible before even thinking about the actual alert, and that means they could get distracted by something they’re already working on and completely forget to address the new alert.
Yep, this has led to plane crashes before. Alarms that are going off when they aren’t important get silenced, and then aren’t audible when they ARE important.
The investigators had spoken with other MD-80 pilots, and learned that many pilots found it a nuisance to hear a take-off configuration warning (“Slats … Slats… Slats…”) while they were simply taxiing. It was so common for pilots to pull the P-40 circuit breaker that the area around the circuit breaker was smudged from routinely being manipulated.This circuit breaker also controls some of the stall warning sounds. This coincided with the missing sounds from the CVR of the incident flight.
It’s not an imminent collision alert, it’s a “plane where it’s not supposed to be” alert.
I don’t know how many scenarios currently are configured for an audible alert, but the thing is, when you make too many alerts important enough to be audible, then no alert is important. Operators will start instantly muting the audible before even thinking about the actual alert, and that means they could get distracted by something they’re already working on and completely forget to address the new alert.
Yep, this has led to plane crashes before. Alarms that are going off when they aren’t important get silenced, and then aren’t audible when they ARE important.
Edit: I’m not sure why I was downvoted. Here’s an example.