Letterman "Top 10" NWA overflight

[kmox29]

So at what point do you get your license revoked? Being out of radio contact for 20 minutes? 10 minutes? 5 minutes?

They didn't have their licenses revoked becuase they were simply NORDO. It that were the case, the FAA would be swamped with emergency revocations.

I'm pretty certain the REASON they were NORDO and the fact that no one monitored the aircraft for a good 1 to 1.5 hours are the reasons for the revocation.

 

[Lear70]

I agree. Being out of radio contact and having that serious of a loss of situational awareness for OVER AN HOUR, resulting in the overflight of their DESTINATION, and then ANOTHER 100+ miles, preparing to scramble fighters in a response to a possible terrorist attack, re-routing dozens of aircraft not knowing what the flight was going to do next, and probably putting them well into their reserve fuel isn't exactly a MINOR infraction. Where's the cut off for when it becomes an unacceptable safety violation? 10 minutes into your reserve fuel? 30? Flame out?

Reckless? Not necessarily, because it wasn't deliberate. Careless? You betcha, and I'll be VERY shocked if they get their jobs back now that the flying public in general is aware of it. Being the first known "Laptop violation" you can bet the FAA will want to set an example hard and fast as well.

Not to mention that if there WAS a policy about laptop usage on the deck and those pilots WILFULLY VIOLATED it while jeopardizing safety at the same time, they will be hard pressed to win in arbitration. To win a termination grievance you have to prove that the company was WRONG in their accusation (i.e. it didn't happen like they accused), or that the policy for which they were fired was non-contractual, or that other crewmembers aren't being held to the same standard, whether it's pilots, flight attendants, mechanics, gate agents, whoever and it's therefore not a terminatable offense unless they terminate EVERYONE who does it.

In this case, it's gonna be a tough one for ALPA to win, or even THEIR OWN attorneys fighting for the licenses... I'm very thankful for the F/A who called up. Another 20 or 30 minutes, depending on their contingency fuel status, and they could have been in real jeopardy. Very not cool.

 

[kmox29]

Lear,

Good post. I would add that it wouldn't be too hard to prove that they were intentionally not monitoring the flight and its progress. I think that's what got them the revocation. The FAA felt that their actions were not unintentional as they willfully violated company policy and knowingly engaged in activity that was not directly related to the flight.

Just my thought.

 

[Lear70]

KMOX, you're right, but on a 3+ hour flight, no one stares at the instruments the entire time, you monitor.

People eat, read, and yes, even getting on your laptop wouldn't be out of the realm of reasonability IF it wasn't BOTH crewmembers and IF you weren't so completely distracted you pretty much STOPPED FLYING THE PLANE COMPLETELY!

If they had been on their laptops but hadn't lost situational control, it's NO different than taking 20 minutes to eat a crew meal or something else non-essential to flight. It's the way they did it, BOTH of them not flying the plane that's going to likely cook their bacon here.

 

[bizicmo]

Normally I don't think the letterman top 10 is funny, but I thought this one was pretty good. I actually laughed at it.

 

[Bringupthebird]

I get the part about losing situational awareness. What I don't get is when did mobs and pitchforks replace due process and innocent until proven guilty.

What overriding social need was served by a public emergency revocation?

Why have ASAP? All it does is deny the public it's right to justice!

 

[kmox29]

Lear,

Once again, I agree with you. I remember my flying days before I came to the dark side of the force. On those long flights you find ways to keep occupied. I think you hit the nail on the head when you wrote about BOTH pilots not flying the plane.

 

[kmox29]

What overriding social need was served by a public emergency revocation?

Why have ASAP? All it does is deny the public it's right to justice!

I don't know that an "overriding social need" was served by the revocation. I definately think there was careless operation of an aircraft involved and you might be able to argue reckless operation. The FAA has the right for emergency revocation when public safety is involved.

That being said, when the FAA does revoke a certificate, they usually have GOOD reason to do so. Now, with the political/public climate after Colgan, I think politics had some part in the revocation, but I also think there's more to the story than we're hearing.

ASAP is a great program. However, I'm 99% certain that ASAP would not have protected them. There are certain criteria that must be met with ASAP, one of which is no 'intentional' disregard for safety. I doubt that they could get past that one.

 

[Av8tor]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5slRZr7zM4

 

[GuinessGuy]

With the "laptop use" being the cornerstone for there lapse in SA, a search warrant and a computer nerd can look to see if the laptops were even on, and what they were looking at..........the laptop story and the fear of no cockpit laptop use will go away......they were saw'in some serious logs.........
If they were smarter, they should have fessed up, said we had both fallen asleep due to fatigue. If they had an easy schedule and the lack crew rest was bogus, then claim they both suffer from sleep apnea and are trying to work with a disability.
The FAA does not require sleep apnea to be divulged or discused on a medical.

 

[SKYWRJGUY]

I DO think this is the FAA attempting to make a bold statement to the public about how 'serious' they are about safety. I also think the punishment is likely out of line given the outcome. Still, guys were buffoons no matter how you slice it, and the Letterman stuff was funny.

I'm Bald, from NJ [originally], and a Pilot. I'm open season for jokesters if anything ever comes my way...

 

[erichartmann]

I think Lear hit it on the head. It wasn't the fact that they were NORDO per se, it was the length of time they were NORDO, the fact that they had so lost SA that they apparently did not recognize they were NORDO until an FA attracted their attention, the fact that they were so out of the loop that they over flew their destination without realizing it while NORDO, etc. One has to wonder exactly how far they would have gone had the FA not intervened.

One could argue that they didn't intentionally lose SA, but by intentionally engaging in an activity that they arguably should have know might harm their SA I think it can be argued their actions were, in fact, careless and reckless, thus the ER.

We might also consider that while these guys got a big scare, and a suspension might sufficiently reinforce it for them, the ER is get the attention of the rest of us as to how serious this situation was and how much worse it could have been.

Nobody got hurt, but it certainly wasn't because of the professionalism and skill of these two

 

[rudder]

Every single pilot has on at least one occasion lost radio contact due to frequency change issues.

Some pilots have commenced descent to destination late due to distractions, inattention, or poor planning.

Few if any pilots (until now) have overflown destination completely oblivious to their position.

The only technology that should have been contributory to this incident is a misprogrammed FMS. Apparently by the crew's own admissions that was not the case. I would suggest that their own statements, whether factual or not, have been their undoing.

 

['72Gremlin]

I'm just curious: What is jetBlue's policy on laptops in the cockpit. Aren't they issued to each pilot?

 

[Vingus]

Only one laptop allowed to be used at a time.