FAA Revokes the two NWA Pilots licenses

[Superpilot92]

I totally agree....punishment does NOT fit the crime here. They could have also been studying the USA Today...no difference if it was a laptop. Except...yes...no earbuds required for a USA Today.

I agree that they shouldnt have the tickets revoked. Fired and ticket suspended, yeah but pulling their tickets for good is extreme. However the issue here isnt so much because of the laptop. The FAA is saying that they willingly and intentionally disregarded safety. The computer is the small part in this situation as far as they are concerned. The issue is that they flew for almost an hour and a half without talking to anyone, over flew there destination by 150 miles, disregarded the aircraft that entire time, and lord only knows how much fuel they had when they landed. The choice to use the laptop contributed to those events which is whats going to get these guys in the end.

 

[JustaNumber]

The pilot who condemns loudest and hardest is the one I would be more suspect of personally. Condemning these guys does no good. Maybe they did screw up, but think about it. Those guys are no different than any of us.

Just like the accident pilot who didn't get up planning to be in an accident, these two guys didn't get up figuring this would happen. They were selected and trained and checked and monitored just like airline pilots everywhere, just like us.

It's just plain sad, my heart breaks for these guys.

I hear and understand what you're saying. I bet many of us could have at some point in time let our guard down and the situation, under the wrong circumstances, could have gotten out of hand. Being human sucks sometimes.

That being said, if you were in charge at the FAA, and you honestly wanted to do the right thing, what would you have done?

I think the FAA did what it had to, in the interest of making an example of these guys. They had to show the public that they can trust the FAA to keep everyone safe, and they had to send a message to the rest of the piloting community that maintaining situational awareness is absolutely critical to flight safety. It's a shame that two people have to be made an example of, but hopefully the system will become a little safer as we are all reminded to keep our guard up a little more.

 

[Bringupthebird]

What happened to the NTSB and FAA not commenting on an ongoing investigation? Instead they grandstand the whole thing and feed the media frenzy.

Someone needs to hold the FAA accountable for rubberstamping merger integration policies and allowing airlines to train by memo while they figure out what they want to be. Saying that pilots should be agile enough to adapt to multiple procedure changes in the corse of a short time because some geek in IT can do it, is ridiculous.

Those that thought a couple guys blowing past their destination put passengers at risk have obviously not gone through any mergers in the modern era (by that I mean with the FAA taking it's marching orders from company HQ). The FAA's dysfunctional delusion of oversight has put far more passengers at risk than any one pair of pilots.

 

[Jabwmu]

What happened to the NTSB and FAA not commenting on an ongoing investigation? Instead they grandstand the whole thing and feed the media frenzy.

Someone needs to hold the FAA accountable for rubberstamping merger integration policies and allowing airlines to train by memo while they figure out what they want to be. Saying that pilots should be agile enough to adapt to multiple procedure changes in the corse of a short time because some geek in IT can do it, is ridiculous.

Those that thought a couple guys blowing past their destination put passengers at risk have obviously not gone through any mergers in the modern era (by that I mean with the FAA taking it's marching orders from company HQ). The FAA's dysfunctional delusion of oversight has put far more passengers at risk than any one pair of pilots.

Completely agree.

 

[JustaNumber]

First off, what these guys did was stooopid and unprofessional but the punishment does not fit the crime. This is a kneejerk reaction to save face for the FAA. Should they get a suspension, time off and a fine?? Absofreakinglutly. But revocation, no freaking way. Lets look at some recent
accidents/incidents over the last few years. AA in LIT, Capt is dead and the Fo survived. Is the FO still at AA and if so why no termination or revocation? How about the two guys in BDL? How about the SW Mdw boys, or Burbank, Lcc yahoo shooting his gun, the UAL FO and crew of 4 that could not handle an engine failure in SFO, and the numerous FDX accidents over the last few years. Are any of these pilots still employed? If so, then this punishment is too severe.

I think the main question that the FAA has to ask is, did the crew INTENTIONALLY do something unsafe in a careless and reckless manner? The examples you gave above, while involving failures in judgement, crm, procedures, etc., did not quite rise to that level, while this crew in question did.

In your examples, the pilots could be retrained as necessary and no further harm would have been incurred. In this case, imagine the ramifications of just slapping them on the wrist. The flying public would lose a great deal of faith in the system, and would feel their safety was not being taken seriously. The piloting community would feel emboldened to try to just explain away our future lazyness. I hate to say it, but I think it had to end this way.

 

[lurker]

Anybody happen to know what their landing fuel was?

sorry if it's been discussed before, but I haven't seen any mention to it

 

[scoreboardII]

Justa is right. Justify to all those pax who are making a joke as they board these last few days (ten fold the number that make cracks about flying drunk when they nab a pilot after drinking) that it's OK to use your laptop, overfly a destination, violate a few regs on what you can do while flying a 121 spec aircraft, an FOM, basic CRM, disregard your aircraft position and fuel status. Please try to justify that and how do you retrain someone who does those things? You don't, they slipped through the cracks, good riddance.

They should be fired, and lucky they don't end up doing time.

 

[BILL LUMBERG]

Well, at least this takes the heat of the Delta crew that landed on the taxiway........

Real Class A-hole!!!

Yeah, maybe somebody could fly into a hailstorm, or bail out some people on the runway while the plane burns up or even ship some oxygen generators again to take the heat off these guys too...

Save your anti-Delta BS for your cockpit pals......

 

[dondk]

I hear and understand what you're saying. I bet many of us could have at some point in time let our guard down and the situation, under the wrong circumstances, could have gotten out of hand. Being human sucks sometimes.

That being said, if you were in charge at the FAA, and you honestly wanted to do the right thing, what would you have done?

I think the FAA did what it had to, in the interest of making an example of these guys. They had to show the public that they can trust the FAA to keep everyone safe, and they had to send a message to the rest of the piloting community that maintaining situational awareness is absolutely critical to flight safety. It's a shame that two people have to be made an example of, but hopefully the system will become a little safer as we are all reminded to keep our guard up a little more.

Good point... but you are then sort of comparing Sully to being the image of the FAA when things go right and these guys where the FAA goes wrong.

the only problem with that is the FAA had no control over these pilots, these guys fall firmly on the hands of the operator.

I would be more of the opinion that the revocation order started somewhere in MSP or ATL and DC is taking credit through the news media.
I would not be surprised if a company higher up was lobbying hard to the POI to do the revocation. This is more about image and not just the FAA's image.

To conclude, If I was in charge of the FAA, I would love to hear from their management. Then again, I am a pilot, I know behind every screw up there is usually a management hand somewhere that contributed to it. Whether less than stellar training to idiotic policy updates, to questionable scheduling/maintenance/dispatch practices. It may end up at the pilot(s), but it usually did not start there.

 

[Tref]

Hope I never fly on your plane.

Yeah, me too. At least, not until you've been home to see Momma Troll for a hug.