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ExpressJet/DOT

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piav8r- I deliberately neglected to address the crew's responsibility in the matter as I am only commenting towards the incompetency of the Mesaba ground crew and how their actions reflect about 90% of the Mesaba stations I deal with.
 
I don't buy the blame game towards Mesaba. There was an NWA flight on the ground at the same time. They had no problems getting their people off the plane and into a bus. A bus, with seats made available to the XJet flight, I might add.

Ok, believe the first news article printed versus the multi-week investigation that accessed all information, including recorded conversations between the pilots and ground services. I am sure the investigators are trying to cover up ExpressJet errors and are throwing Mesaba under the proverbial bus. That makes so much more sense!

NW may have offered bus seats, but if that message was never relayed to the captain, as evidenced by recorded conversations, then the fault lays with the person charged with properly relaying the message.

No doubt the captain should have just made things happen, but if she was in contact with operations, and ops continually communicated that it was not possible to offload the pax, then it is reasonable to expect the operations staff to shoulder the majority of the blame. The captain was working off of information provided. Garbage in, garbage out.
 
"Minneapolis Center this is Xjet, 1234, we are declaring an emergency on the ground in Rochester due to the fact that we are unable to safetly accomodate the passengers in our aircraft."

"Xjet 1234, will you require medical personnel?"

"Center, negative. If anything, maybe just some food and a lav dump... but it's an emergency"

( :laugh: )
 
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Wow... just more proof the media consistently gets it wrong, there is always more to the story and that we shouldn't prejudge anyone. Having said that, while the Mesaba ground staff might be negligent here, I'm sure there is plenty of blame to be shared by all parties involved, including Delta. I'm sure there is even more to the story, as to how the Mesaba rep came to this conclusion. Perhaps, the ground staff were al busy with the NWA/DL flights and didn't have time? Who knows... there's 2 sides to the Mesaba angle here. Sounds like Mesaba tried to work with them, but I guess we know the end game and how it turned out. Maybe I was a little quick to initially post. I had no idea the Startrib has links to the tapes etc...

MaxQ - what airline do you fly for when you encounter XJ stations? If it's Pinnacle... wow, pot calling the kettle black?
 
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"Minneapolis Center this is Xjet, 1234, we are declaring an emergency on the ground in Rochester due to the fact that we are unable to safetly accomodate the passengers in our aircraft."

Next, the flight crew says the same thing on Rochester CTAF (118.3), and Unicom (122.95) and finally the operations frequency. Adding that if no help is seen in the next 5 minutes, their net phone call will be to 911.

Declaring an emergency would be a terrible idea. You're already on the ground, what more could ATC do for you?

What the Captain should have done is use her Captain's authority to find a solution to the problem. This is evidently beyond the grasp of some on here, but Captain's authority and declaring an emergency are two totally separate things.
 
piav8r- I deliberately neglected to address the crew's responsibility in the matter as I am only commenting towards the incompetency of the Mesaba ground crew and how their actions reflect about 90% of the Mesaba stations I deal with.

Fine then Max Q, I deliberately took offense to your whole post because you felt the need to correlate the ALLEGED actions of one XJ GROUD employee across the entire company, including I might add:

"National media exposure first... next is bent sheet metal and finally loss of life. You dumb bastards."

Had you not posted on a public forum that the ALLEGED actions of ONE groundsperson would lead to bent sheet metal and loss of life is ignorant at best. Since you didn't explain further I can only assume you meant to lump grounds personel, and a professional flight crew in the same category.

And if you have had a problem with XJ stations in the past, go through channels at your company to bring them to the attention of XJ management and things will change. If you aren't willing to do that... you have no right to complain.

There are WAY to many inconsistencies in this story, mysterious other flights that were able to get bussed at the same time, etc...
 
Fine then Max Q, I deliberately took offense to your whole post because you felt the need to correlate the ALLEGED actions of one XJ GROUD employee across the entire company, including I might add:

"National media exposure first... next is bent sheet metal and finally loss of life. You dumb bastards."

Had you not posted on a public forum that the ALLEGED actions of ONE groundsperson would lead to bent sheet metal and loss of life is ignorant at best. Since you didn't explain further I can only assume you meant to lump grounds personel, and a professional flight crew in the same category.

And if you have had a problem with XJ stations in the past, go through channels at your company to bring them to the attention of XJ management and things will change. If you aren't willing to do that... you have no right to complain.

There are WAY to many inconsistencies in this story, mysterious other flights that were able to get bussed at the same time, etc...

piav8r- I am speaking directly to those ground stations occupied by underpaid and under-trained ground handlers, whom in many cases, have no desire to provide timely assistance to any piece of equipment not painted in red. None of my posts require further explanation by customers and crew who deal with these stations on a regular basis.

I can understand your reluctance to accept the above statement by the DOT as fact but I can assure you, these allegations come as no surprise to many of us in the business.

You get what you pay for.
 

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