78 year old captain flying Jenni Rivera's plane

[rettofly]

I once took a 12 minute nap in twin turboprop, in IMC with no autopilot. I knew it was 12 minutes because I did the math on distance changed vs. ground speed during the time it took to blink my eyes.

Did I mention it was oh dark thirty on a repo leg, about 11 hours into a single pilot freight charter? I was only 56 at the time, but I told Dispatch that I was too old to do any more single pilot trips that had any chance of ending after midnight.

Controlled power naps are a must on the backside of the circadian cycle. Five minutes on oxygen during the descent helps a lot if it's available. This also helps to demonstrate "compliance" with the high altitude oxygen use regulation.

 

[jonjuan]

Hey in night freight if you don't rest you can be in big trouble.

Planned sleeping is on thing. Nodding off 10 mins after takeoff because you're old is another thing. My 80 yo grand-dad did the same thing while driving his caddy down the freeway.

 

[cldsfr79]

cldsfr79,

What an incredibly irresponsible, unprofessional and stupid post. You have no idea why that plane crashed, but you need to take a shot at older pilots because that fits your agenda.

RIP

X-rated, welcome to flightinfo.com. The land of speculation and rumor. Glad you can join us. Your post are always superior, accurate, knowledgeable, and unbiased to your positions.

1. I just posted an article.
2. There is always speculation in a preliminary cause until all avenues are exhausted, which includes pilot error.
3. I just reiterated what an executive at a company said about a 78 year old pilot.
4. I added that it could be mechanical failure: There are two main reasons why you plunge straight down from 28,000 feet at over 600 knots. 1. Flight control failure in which the 78 year old pilot was using is vast skills and knowledge to save the day, but wasn't able to overcome the catastrophic failure. or 2. someone slumped against the controls

Bad taste in my post? Yes. But I'm sure you also don't watch Fox News, CNN or read a newspaper, where opinion is added.

Post fits my agenda of talking about age? Sure. I honestly like seeing the argument young vs old. The usual argument: Young guys are inexperienced, inept, impatient, and entitled. "Retired" pilots are skillful, sharp, mentally fit and have completely healthy bodies unlike any other elderly person their age. Retired pilots are said to defy the aging process as noted by their posts.

Just to let X-rated pilot know:
80% off all accidents are caused by human error. But I'm sure when it comes to elderly pilots, it's always the 20%, which is mechanical error, that leads to the accident.
http://www.aopa.org/asf/publications/10nall.pdf

 

[Pervis]

Remind me again how old the crew was on the last fatal airline crash in the US.

 

[barnyard]

Remind me again how old the crew was on the last jet crash in the US.

 

[Club ORD FO]

3. I just reiterated what an executive at a company said about a 78 year old pilot.

http://www.aopa.org/asf/publications/10nall.pdf

Why reiterate garbage?

 

[X-rated]

Bad taste in my post? Yes. But I'm sure you also don't watch Fox News, CNN or read a newspaper, where opinion is added.

cldsfr79,

The fact that you now realize the post was in poor taste is good enough for me, but please don't try to rationalize it as a legitimate opinion. You're smarter than that, and you're supposed to be a professional pilot not a network propaganda machine. My hope is that when something goes wrong in your airplane, you don't just start pulling engines into cutoff before you know what the problem is. But, that's exactly what you did here. React first, figure out what happened later... "Well, most of the time it's an engine failure, and the engine on the left has more time on it than the one on the right, so why not just pull that one into cutoff and see if that fixes our problem".

People are dead, and you trampled on their reputations with absolutely no evidence. We all roll our eyes at the talking heads who either don't know any better, or worse, try to sensationalize a tragedy to boost ratings or promote their personal agendas. You're a highly trained professional pilot, and you know better. I would hope, if the the situation was reversed, other pilots would treat your family with quite a bit more respect.

 

[gret]

...views about the age of pilots, union discussions, etc...need to take a break today and maybe another couple of days...

 

[doh]

Should there be extra medical examination of older pilots? What age? What exams? Hearing would be one I would think. I'm not flaming, but 78?? Yip, does that not seem a little old to you?

 

[pilotyip]

Should there be extra medical examination of older pilots? What age? What exams? Hearing would be one I would think. I'm not flaming, but 78?? Yip, does that not seem a little old to you?

What did you say? Like I said I flew with a 78 year FE, he had no problem, The only way I knew he was 78 is when I looked at the seniority list and saw his birth date of 1918. I fly with a number of pilots on the war birds all in their mid 70's. They do a fine job