American Airlines crash in Jamaica

[AKAAB]

why not just answer the question vs. posting a link?

How dare he expect you to actually look something up? This interweb thing is so taxing. If only there was someone that would give us all of the answers.

The accident finally got some coverage on the national news this evening and ABC did a report on how the airplanes are designed to handle crashes better, but never mentioned what would have happened if there had been an arrestor bed installed at the end of the runway.

 

[jonjuan]

looks like 8,900......

 

[Propsync]

I'm glad everyone is still alive, but the 'Holiday' tie is driving me nuts. Why can't you all just wear the uniform and be done with it? When I went to work, I worked, what is so intrinsically hard about that? I guess when I fly, I'll just start asking the Captain for a Coke because I won't be able to recognize the difference in the crew. What a clownshow.

 

[Fearless Tower]

Why are they retards? Usually I'd agree with you, but his time they didn't speculate on anything "as of yet" and they didn't get a stupid aviation private pilot "professional" to give a play by stupid play of what they think happened. Glad nobody was hurt, but it does look like the plane snapped in three different spots.


Net

My point was the ridiculous headline....especially coming after all the headlines about NWA 'missing' the airport.

The article was correct - they overshot the runway, but the sensational headline was just flat out stupid.

 

[ultrarunner]

Quite the drop off from that retaining wall on the other side of the perimeter road. That would explain the hull breaches....

 

[C-150ETOPS]

I'm glad everyone is still alive, but the 'Holiday' tie is driving me nuts. Why can't you all just wear the uniform and be done with it? When I went to work, I worked, what is so intrinsically hard about that? I guess when I fly, I'll just start asking the Captain for a Coke because I won't be able to recognize the difference in the crew. What a clownshow.

It is the uniform. It is written in the company SOP.

Glad to see men's fashion is one of your top priorities. Hopefully Sporty's will be able to fulfill all your needs this Xmas.

P.S. Others with your physical shortcomings have found "Jill's John" will work for certain boys also.

 

[densoo]

A Twofer--loss of pay and fatigue. One pushes you to keep going so you don't lose what is rightfully coming to you, the other affects your judgment and skills. Why the FAA allows unions and companies to come to agreements like this is beyond me. Both issues are counter-motivators to safe decision making.

American Airlines crash in Jamaica could intensify pilot fatigue debate

Thursday, December 24, 2009

By ERIC TORBENSON / The Dallas Morning News
[email protected] / The Dallas Morning News

The rain-slicked crash of American Airlines Flight 331 on Tuesday night in Kingston, Jamaica, may well intensify calls for new policies on pilot fatigue.

The inquiry into the crash – in which all 148 passengers and six crew members walked out of a plane broken into three sections – has just begun, and conclusions remain months away.

But it eerily resembles earlier incidents that have spurred the nation's air safety regulator to challenge the rules for how long pilots rest and how much they can fly each month.

And it could prompt a fresh look at Fort Worth-based American's pilot procedures and cockpit culture as investigators hunt for clues to why the plane skidded off the runway and broke up just feet from the Caribbean Sea, aviation experts said Wednesday.

No one was killed in the accident, but about 90 passengers were treated for minor injuries.

In June 1999, an American Airlines captain of an MD-82 aircraft landed the plane in Little Rock, Ark., during a thunderstorm. In the confusion, he and his co-pilot failed to set wing spoilers and braking systems that would have helped the plane slow down. Instead it ran off the runway and split into pieces. The National Transportation Safety Board pointed to pilot fatigue as a factor in the decisions that led to the accident that killed 11.

"Little Rock-ian does come to mind," said airline and pilot union consultant Robert Mann of Port Washington, N.Y.

Several elements – and perhaps fatigue – combined to create a situation Tuesday where the American jet slid off the 8,910-foot Kingston runway, which is about medium-length among airports.

Crew alertness

Flight 331's pilot and co-pilot had been on duty nearly 12 hours, approaching the maximum allowed, according to union officials.

"You really have to look at how long these guys are on duty," said Sam Mayer, a spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association, which represents 9,000 American pilots.

On Dec. 13, fatigue may have played a role in a botched landing of an American jet in Charlotte, N.C., where pilots clipped one of the MD-80's wing tips on the ground and the wheels briefly left the runway. No one was injured in the incident, which is under investigation.

Mayer added that American doesn't pay pilots whose trips get interrupted and who can't complete the flying they signed up for. The pilots of Flight 331 were on their first day of a multi-day sequence of trips that, had they diverted the plane to another city, would probably have jeopardized their ability to fly out the rest of the sequence. Not completing trips can cost pilots thousands of dollars in lost income, Mayer said.

"Our pilots shouldn't have to sacrifice their principles to get paid," he said.

The Federal Aviation Administration is expected to issue formal guidelines that change pilot rest rules, probably cutting the maximum time they can be on duty in a day or over several days. The push for more pilot-friendly rules comes as fatigue is likely to have factored in the February crash of a turboprop plane in Buffalo, N.Y., that killed 50.

 

[jonjuan]

."Our pilots shouldn't have to sacrifice their principles to get paid," he said

Certainly sounds as though he's inferring his pilots do sacrifice principles to get paid. Then again, maybe he's just talking about the over 60 crowd still in the cockpit.

 

[GuppyWN]

There you go. Let's let morality get in the way of safety.

I appreciate the union coming to the defense of the crew but throwing the fatigue and morality card before the investigation might not set well with the general public.

Gup

 

[Whataburger]

why not just answer the question vs. posting a link?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quOb84Hq-pA&feature=related

 

[OCP]

So AA doesn't get cancellation pay?

 

[densoo]

Certainly sounds as though he's inferring his pilots do sacrifice principles to get paid. Then again, maybe he's just talking about the over 60 crowd still in the cockpit.

Organizational Behavior Theory and Butterfly Effect.

As much as we'd like to believe we are john-wayne independent, behavior is greatly affected by an organization's rules and the direct connection to what those rules reflect the intent of what authority permits and desires in behavior. The Milgram Study is probably the best known regarding this.

Stanley Milgram, a social psychologist, sought to test whether it is true that situations can be created in which normal, moral people will obey an authority figure who orders them to harm another
A research participant was recruited and led to believe he had been hired to be the research assistant who was to administer the learning task to a research participant (actually an actor working on the project) and to administer shock to the "participant" every time he made a mistake
The shock meter (actually a fake) showed levels of shock up to a lethal level. The "participant" had his arm strapped to an electrode which supposedly (but not really) delivered the shock
The actor had a script that directed him to respond as though he were receiving the level of shock the participant thought he was delivering.
Milgram varied the conditions under which people were asked to administer (what they thought was real) shock to another.
When the authority figure ordering delivery of shock was right there beside the subjects and the "victim" was out of sight, and when the research was done in a prestigious university lab, about 2/3 of the subjects delivered shock up to the llethal" level when the researcher ordered "I know what I'm doing. The study must go on!"
Subjects clearly knew better, and would not obey orders when the researcher was not there insisting on obedience.
The subjects were shaken and upset, and were very relieved when their participation ended and the researcher introduced them to the person they thought they were shocking, and explained that he was an actor and that the shock was not real. [some required psychiatric care to understand how they could have in effect killed someone just because a person in a lab coat asked them to. Kind of shakes you to the core]

When the company says don't take the gas that you know you need because it may affect your retirement, some people actually do it. When they say "the snow will just blow of the wings" some will actually do this.

 

[ImbracableCrunk]

I was told that we have the liberals to thank for the removal of rain repellent. Supposedly it is considered a hazardous material and not good for the environment. I don't know how true that is, but supposedly those are contributing factors to why it has been removed.

Hooray! You've won the coveted "'Libtard' First-Use Award."

Do you know how the guy in the following story voted?

From Seattle Times:

[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Boeing ultimately paid O'Harren $317,000 in compensatory damages and legal fees, after a six-year fight, for injuries O'Harren suffered when he was sprayed in the face by a windshield rain repellent called RainBoe. [/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Invented by Boeing in the mid-'60s, RainBoe became standard equipment on jetliners. It was usually stored in a canister inside the cabin, within arm's reach of the pilot. Sometimes the canister leaked. [/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Boeing to this day contends RainBoe is nontoxic, though 95 percent of it is a solvent, Freon 113, which has been blamed in at least 12 deaths in industrial settings. [/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]At a 1990 trial, Schaeffer produced substantial evidence that Freon 113 attacks the human central nervous system, causing disorientation, motor-skills impairment and sudden heart attack. Schaeffer also established that there was a pattern of RainBoe canisters leaking. [/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Led by Gerard, Boeing's defense team disputed that RainBoe was toxic, denied the company was aware of any instances of it leaking and tried to portray O'Harren as a malingerer, court documents show. The case swung in O'Harren's favor when the company finally produced reports, years after Schaeffer first requested them, indicating one airline had reported 55 RainBoe leak incidents in a five-year period. There was a service history of problems, after all.[/FONT]

 

[Colonel Savage]

Why didn't they just move the rainboe cannister to the nose gear wheel well area? It could be serviced from there by mx as easily as the cockpit. Beats looking for a runway at night thru a rain streaked windshield.

Rainex anyone?

 

[LJ45]

rain X is approved by Learjet for the Lear 45 and it works great on the glass. Without it we can't see.

 

[luckytohaveajob]

Hopefully the accident will be fuel for the fatigue fire not another pointless rain ex argument.

If you want rain ex on the wind screen put a bottle in your flight bag. Prior to flight open the window. Apply liberally with paper towels from the lav. Close the window. Fly the flight. Repeat above steps as needed between flights. Or if your to lazy to do the above write it up and have mx do it for you even if your at an outstation but good luck with the pencil whipping mx.

American 331 landed half way down a runway off an ILS. An accident like this is not about Rain Ex. It is about poor decisions during critical phases of flight no common to accident free pilots fatigued by a stressful day of diversions and weather.

Keep your eyes on the ball and quit looking in left field giving the CNNtards, USA Scare Today, and any other paid for government official an excuse to keep a bad system dangerous.

 

[aa73]

So AA doesn't get cancellation pay?

Nope, unless it is within the last 7 days of the month... and even then you have to put yourself on "makeup" flying list (line pilot's type of reserve) and make a reasonable attempt at flying a trip that does open up.

It sucks.

 

[SuperFLUF]

....American 331 landed half way down a runway off an ILS. An accident like this is not about Rain Ex. It is about poor decisions during critical phases of flight no common to accident free pilots fatigued by a stressful day of diversions and weather.

Keep your eyes on the ball and quit looking in left field giving the CNNtards, USA Scare Today, and any other paid for government official an excuse to keep a bad system dangerous.

How do you know they landed "half way down a runway"?
If they did land outside the touchdown zone, there could be many contributing factors. One could be that they couldn't see **** in heavy rain at night and thus did not know they landed outside the touchdown zone or how much runway was remaining?

Certainly, many factors will come to light. Dismissing a link in the chain to concentrate on another, does not work toward eliminating or minimizing ALL of the casual factors.

How do you think the Feds look upon you putting rainX you bought at the autoparts store or grocery store on the windshield? It certainly is not a fix to the problem, no more than pilots guzzling energy drinks are a solution to the fatigue problem.

 

[SpauldingSmails]

Doesn't look bad.

That should buff right out.

Ah Frank, they aren't losing an airplane, they're gaining a cabin trainer.

 

[bubbers44]

Nobody knows where they touched down. They were both very good pilots so dought that happened. I know waiting for the facts is hard but since we have no data we will have to be patient. The fact nobody died is great news. I stand behind the pilots.