Could Infra-red sights have helped to calm the chaos caused by fog at Heathrow?

Question

The whole problem was low visibility, or am I mistaken? It just occurred that if the pilots had those kind of heat goggles, and there were heaters or flares on the runway for them to navigate by the fog wouldn't have been such a big problem. Would it work, or do they use something like that already?

Answer 1

Pilots can take off and land through the fog, but to be safer you will need more time in between those causing delays and cancellation anyways.

The biggest problem is the tower. They control the traffic of the airplanes going from the gate to the runway and back. They need the visibility. From a first person stand point your solution helps, but from a third person on the tower it is much harder. What the tower thinks is just heat vapor from an exaust may be hiding an actual airplane and there could be colissions.

Most fog related accidents are caused by the tower not the planes.

Answer 2

take off and landing are done by beacon the prob is movement of the plane the pilot is 40 odd foot off the ground and vehicles
disappear also human traffic tends to get squished by big planes
moving a large plane filled with fuel around a hazardous area in fog would be foolish

Answer 3

My Dad said to dig a trench each side of the runway, fill it with petrol and set fire to it. Apparently that is what they used to do during the war and it helped to evaporate the fog. Now I know why they invented all these health and safety rules!!

Answer 4

All these ideas would need testing over years of time to pass health and safety... but I guess it's possible. The main concern for airports is the safety of passengers.
The really reason so much panic was caused because some passengers refused to travel due to bad weather.

Granted in the futrue the major aiports must do so much more to ensure that so much panic and fuss isn't generated.