Ameristar Being Sued?

[pilotyip]

Military Standards

If this happened in a military unit, 2 fatal crashes with pilot error as the cause in a two year period. The CO, the Ops Officer and the Chief of Standards would all be relieved of there positions and their careers would be effectively over. As former squadron Safety Officer, I have been briefed on this happening in more than one case. The CO's primary job is overseeing his pilot force on a personal basis, ensuring standard are kept, and those who can not or do not comply are relieved of their position.

 

[PilotAg]

The high and mighty pilotyip has spoken. Let all others bow down in awe to his grand wisdom. I was wondering when you were going to jump in on this. I figured you would have piped up well before now, seeing we are dealing with a tragedy in all. Thanks for your wonderful insight. I never thought about that before. We will now start to do training. We will now start to govern our pilot actions. I can't believe we never thought of that before. I truly hope and pray USA Jet never has anything tragic happen to them, for where will you sit then when you fall off your high chair?

 

[Mr Freeze]

bandit110

I am talking statistically. I was trying to make a point. They have a better track record than others mentioned in this topic. Read between the lines. Any accident resulting with a loss of life is tragic and is something we all hate to hear about.

Ameristar pilots have the most demanding flying job I have ever heard of. Active Aero and Cherry Air pilots have it tough as well. All of these guys deserve a pat on the back for the weather they have to deal with. Flying in the North East and Canada during the winter season in a Falcon 20 or 20 series Lear (especially) is a challenge. I forgot to mention that most of the flying is done in the middle of the night.

Night Freight flying especially single pilot 135 is as tough as it gets. Every year we read about accidents and it really hits home. Remember the two 400series cessnas that went down with heavy icing last winter. Unfortunately we will probably read about the same thing happening again this year.

My prayers go out to the fams and friends of thoes who lost a loved one.

P.S. For the single pilot guys, if icing is reported as light to moderate, dont go!!! and never listen to the couriers.

 

[cruxx@9]

Frieght just sucks

Look ya'll, I've only been flying on demand freight for 8 years and in those on the pager 8 looooong years of my life. I have experienced a few different companies. Some were good to fly for, some, well let's just say I learned how to fly smart. I am still slaved to the evil, evil task master (pager) still flying at night in 40 year old jets. Yes, I have flown for Ameristar, and yes there are those who know who I am. I have a lot, a lot of respect to my bretheren who still fly for Ameristar, Grande Air and Cherry. Those of us who fly against all odds and complete the mission. How those companies have not lost more jets just amazes me. This is a tribute to those captains who are pushing the envolope every night and day. Kudos to you! The biggest problem is the FAA does not reconize what a difficult job we have. Not only are we battleing old airplanes, bad wx, poor mx (most companies, not every company), and strict timelines, we battle the FAA. If they had any balls at all would go after some of the less than desirable 135 operators (not the pilots) that blattenly "bend" the rules to meet thier agendas. Believe it or not there are a very few 135 companies that do have very good mx and obey the rules. Even flying for a safe operator, the FAA and the NTSB still leave too much grey area for the owners to abuse the pilots. There is no other professional industry in the world that would allow the professional employees to be coerced as part 135 flying allows. I emplore every part 135 pilot to go to the FAA website to put in suggestion about how screwed up the regs are. Look at Part 91 (k) this is the new fractional regs. This is what the 135 regs "should be". They basically say if you are on call you are on duty. Same as 121 scheduled operations, for the most part. The owners have gotten away with way too much already, some have gotten away with blood to make their profits off our backs! Anyway, is Ameristar unsafe? It is only unsafe as the captains allow it to be. I was a captain there and I didn't feel a warm and fuzzy, so I left. Unfortunatley I didn't have the nuts to do anything about it when I was there. You the skipper have the ultimate say if your aircraft goes out or not. Ameristar has lost two jets in a little over 2 years, Grande Air, 2 jets in 1 **CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED** day! There are a few operators, knock on wood, that have lost none. Why? Because the company uses strict SOP, respects the captains authority to make final decisions, be it mx, wx or fatigue. If the FAA won't punish the operators or change the rules, then the only other option is a total part 135 union that includes every pilot on the pager. Ameristar, USA Jet, Cherry Air and Grande Air. Let's face it, the 36 hour days are a bit much. Freight delays? Is this what the FAA inteded by an unforseeable delay? I'm not talking to the new jet pilot that is blinded by "jet time" I'm talking to ya'll that have been doing this long enough. How many of ya'll have fallen asleep on final? How many of ya'll get through a 30 some hour day on nicotine and caffine? FedEx says from 2200-0600 one leg flights should be limited to 11 hours of duty. If more than one leg is flown the duty time decreases. Now I ask my freight dog friends, how many times have you flown 4 legs or more and ended up in a lovely border town waiting on the customs paperwork or some sh@$. And think about this, FedEx is a scheduled operation. Not getting up at in the morn and being up all day to get paged one hour after you fall asleep. Yes, I too believe the pager is light activated...when you turn off the hotel light the pager will come to life. I'll get off my soapbox now. Hope I have inspired my freight dog bretheren. Let's get back to the topic, I'm sure the Moderators will appreciate this. Is Ameristar at fault? It's tough job no matter how you cut the cake. I do believe it may be tougher at Ameristar and Grande. And that's all I have to say about that.

 

[pilotyip]

cruxx at 9

Cruxx at 9's training program is different than any of the other 135 operations, he is trained to 121 standards. This does give him more tools to operate safely in the on-demand business. His training program looks like this: All of his training is done under Part 121 N & O; the DA-20 has 5 weeks of full time ground school, 50 hr Basic Indoc, 12 hr CRM, 8 hr general emerg, GPS 4 hr lab, 4 hr int'l procedures, 8 hr Haz Mat, 2 hr Special airport, DA-20 sytems 72 hrs, including 16 hours of CPT, prior to starting sim training, which runs one week and 25 hours for F/O's. All DA-20 F/O's receive 25 hours of supervised IOE prior to being released to line operations, we observe 100 min time in seat for pairing restrictions and in the past have turned down trips because of only low time pairs available. Our safety record speaks for it self and is the standard for the industry. No training is done in airplanes on ride along legs. We have had pilots go to major airlines and tell us, except for fancy bells and whistles, the training cruxx at 9's company was as good as they got at their major. No pilot has failed training at his next job, we had some wash out of IOE at their next job, but all passed their initial PC's. At an unnamed national passenger operator, 50% of the washed out of DC-9 training, His company had a 100% pass rate based upon their Training at Cruxx at 9's company . Some pilots hired by a large player in the business waived all testing and sim evals for his pilots, because of the known quality of their Training. Safety is no accident, it comes from a comprehensive program of enforced procedures, and removal of pilots who do not fly the profile.

 

[TWB]

B]This does give him more tools to operate safely in the on-demand business.[/B]

It is essential to follow SOP all the time. When your tired, the only tool we have is to follow good habit patterns. However, you will never have a tool to help us stay awake all night long on little or no sleep. The FAA took notice a few years ago and imposed the rule of - on call means - on duty for scheduled 121 operations. Hopefully, during their reveiw of part 135 and part 125 regs., the FAA will identify these areas for change. We are empowered in this effort. Go to the FAA website and let them know how you feel about this issue.

 

[mar]

Good discussion

Cruxx@9--Great post. But I have one comment.

You wrote: "The biggest problem is the FAA does not reconize what a difficult job we have."

I think they know it. I think their 'inattention' is driven by a simple lack of resources.

Prior to Sept 2001 I really thought the FAA was going to step up to the plate and crack the nut on flight and duty time/fatigue problems.

Well we all know what happened next and where the FAAs attention has been ever since.

The bottom line is: The FAA will always be concerned less with third-tier bottom feeders (like us) than with the big shiney passenger carriers...

...mostly because the media don't know and don't care we even exist.

By the way, I agree with Pilotyip: Training solves most problems. Second to that is rigorous recruitment/selection techniques.

 

[PilotAg]

Pilotyip - it is funny to see how you rave about cruxx@9's training program as it was a different company yet you two work together. I believe I have flown with cruxx@9. If what you are saying is true, then companies like American, United, FedEx, USAirways, Continental, Southwest, Delta, Airtran, Eagle, Comair, Northwest, and a lot more need to step up and improve their training programs and their recruiting process because look at how dangerous they are. Maybe they can use your training program as a model. When I get over at Southwest, I'll be sure to tell them about your program. You guys are unbelievable.

 

[cruxx@9]

Pilot Ag

Hey buddy....be sure to take me with you to SWA. Just to be clear...I wasn't bragging about working for PilotYips airline. I was just stating that this is a tough job no matter where you work. One of my points earlier is that the FAA does not regulate evenly with the non sked's. Some compaines get away with well let's just say anything. While other companies are under the microscope for everything. Does Ameristar break the rules...not really, they just do the bare minimum of the reg...as most other non skeds. I blame the FAA for not imposing a better rule system to keep the greedy owners from pushing the pilots and equipment so far. I don't want to make this a slam session for any air carrier, but there were a few reasons I left Ameristar. I wish the FO, Lisa, the best as everyone does. If her lawyers, if that is even a true rumor, can find Ameristar at fault then I hope TW has to pay, but I doubt there was anything wrong with that airplane. Hopefully the CVR will have some insight to the last few seconds of ol' el diablo. Was there still a CVR in 666? By the way PilotAg, when you go to SWA, hope you can still have these "discussions" with PilotYIP. Don't forget about all us bottom feeders when you are swiming at the top!

 

[PilotAg]

That comment wasn't for you. I do understand what you are saying. This is just a bad time for guys to try to tell me what the problem is at Ameristar and they don't even work here and how much better their company is. We are dealing with a lot right now and you have to be a complete idiot to think we are not trying to prevent these things from happening nor are we trying to stop this from happening again. I will PM you when I get a chance.