SkyBoy1981 said:
Okay....so tell me, TIS, what are your thoughts behind the crash of Delta 1141 at DFW airport back in August of 1988 that killed 12? It was a revenue flight...and those pilots were both quite seasoned (PIC was 48 with several thousand more hours than you have). If I recall they were discussing the dating habits of flight attendants as they were taxiing out? Even went as far as to discuss how bad it would be if they were to crash and their CVR made public? In the midst of it all they forgot to extend the slats and, as we all could guess, a 727 isn't going to get off the ground without them.
Without getting too detailed I think they violated the sterile cockpit rule and proved that it might actually be a good idea to adhere to it.
SkyBoy1981 said:
I'll agree with certain things you've said here, as you seem very knowledgable on the subject. Blaming it on the "attitudes" of the younger generation though just doesn't hold up historically.
We're not talking about historically here. We're talking about PCL-3701. They brought the wrong supplies to the party and they paid the ultimate price for it. We know they did this because we have a thirty minute recording of it.
There are obviously a good many EXCELLENT pilots coming up through the ranks right now. My comments are not pointed at them. However, there are also a good many out there who are in too much of a hurry to get someplace they don't understand the seriousness of.
We live in a society that shifts the burden of blame everywhere but where it belongs - on those who do the dumb things that cause problems. With this comes an attitude in some that nothing's really that big a deal. This is the atmosphere in which those who will inherit this industry from people like myself have been brought up and it's rubbed off on more than a few of them. Not all of them, mind you, but more than a few.
In aviation everything you do as the operator of an aircraft is a big deal. There are very few other professions where the simple act of doing your job means that people's lives are in your hands. Every decision you make can have a poor outcome that will not just affect you but also quite a few other people. That's serious and so it's worth doing well. To do it well you have to learn it well.
There are too many folks out there who think that minimum time to the big glass room at the front of an airliner is what the whole program is all about. If that's a criticism of a younger generation then so be it but it's a recipe for admitting bad decision making, either out of ignorance or stupidity, into places and circumstances where neither has a place.
It's manifested in airman records that show people getting their MEI as a starter instructor rating with 25 or 30 hours total multi time, when multi-engine training is not a beginner instructor activity. This is usually followed up by getting the other two CFI endorsements within a week or two. Do they all go out and start teaching in everything under the sun? No, most don’t, but there is always a small number who THINK that they CAN, even if they’re not, and they’re the problem children.
It’s manifested in airman records that show pilots failing half of their checkrides on the way up the ladder and STILL winding up in command of airliners despite the concerns of their training instructors. It's manifested in airline training records that show FOs with less than 1000 TT sitting in the right seat of a jet going seven to eight times faster than they've ever gone in a plane they were flying before.
Being put into advanced situations before you’re ready for them in the business world means, at worst, that you might end up looking like a fool. The same cannot be said for aviation. People can end up dead because you ended up looking like a fool.
TIS
