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