Pinnacle family members sue NWA!

[KeroseneSnorter]

They had never been given the training and had NEVER heard of the 'core lock', which was known about at Bombarbier and GE.

Core lock is not some great mystery of RJ engines. Every jet engine on the planet will do the very same thing if abused such as these engines were.

Why do you think a hot start is treated with such respect? Because even a little over temp limits can damage an engine, what these guys caused to happen in their engines was way way beyond what you might expect in the worst hot start.

As somebody else stated, you cannot abuse the equipment and then expect it to perform as advertised 5 minutes later. Machinery does not work that way. If you think it does then maybe you should question your competency to be sitting in the left seat.

Remember, metal fatigue is cumulative. If you abuse a piece of equipment, it may not quit on you, but you have weakened it so that it may fail on some poor slob later, who isn't abusing it. The same is true of internal engine parts. It just so happens that these guys abused it bad enough that it failed on them and saved the next unsuspecting slob from having to deal with their mess.

 

[NYCPilot]

It just so happens that these guys abused it bad enough that it failed on them and saved the next unsuspecting slob from having to deal with their mess.

That's a good point. It seems like they didn't care to show any TLC to that jet. And had they successfully reignited, in an effort to cover up the mishap, I wonder if they would have reported it to maintenance. The next flight would probably been a revenue one where the engines could have quit without any possibilty to restart due to the earlier damage.

 

[PCL_128]

You can't tell me that neither had EVER received ANY training in high altitude operations or swept wing characteristics.

Pinnacle's training in high-alt and swept-wing aerodynamics is practically nonexistent, and that's even after this accident. Unless you came from flying jets previously, then you'd have to learn everything on your own. Pinnacle doesn't seem to care about teaching anything at all about these sorts of operations, which is a real problem when you are hiring 1000 TT CFIs and BE-1900 drivers.

Our company has a minimum climb speed limitation of 250/.70. Did PCL not have such a limitation prior to this accident?

No, in fact, we did not. That limitation was adopted only after it became apparent that this accident was partly caused by flying at altitude with too low a speed. Thankfully, the FOQA program will now pick up deviations from this limitation also so that the ALPA "gatekeeper" can educate pilots that aren't adhering this limitation for whatever reason.

 

[Carl_Spackler]

Coffin corner is not a problem in the CRJ.

 

[100LL... Again!]

A truly professional airman seeks out as much information about his operational environment as possible, instead of simply assuming that groundschool taught them all they ever needed to know.

A little judgement and self-study might have prevented this.

Although that actually leads to a sort of chicken-and-egg situation:
Those who are responsible and cautious enough to seek out such information probably are not likelyy to engage in foolish behavior either.

Therfore it still boils down to personality, temperment, etc. We need some way to test for that.

Children+Machinery=Fatalities.

 

[81Horse]

Do aircraft limitations mean nothing?!? Can I go load my airplane up to two times max takeoff weight, then go pull 5Gs, then have my family sue every company that manufactured a component in that airplane because the wings snapped off?

Why, yes -- I believe you can.

 

[redflyer65]

Long Time, I would have never gotten myself into the position they did, its just not in my nature. Have I made some mistakes flying along the way, absolutely. But none that was as periless as these guys. I have learned from my mistakes and I'm trying my best to learn from theirs. I understand that the engines overtemped. But the manufacture came upon the core lock during test flying and NEVER attempted a windmilling relight. They ALWAYS left the APU running for the restart. How many times do we have the luxury of leaving the APU running? How about never. They say the engines should restart after a core lock event, it takes a matter of minutes for the engines to be "un-locked". So what happened exactly? I would like to know. Unless you put the manufacturer on the stand, you will probably never know.

PCL128 is dead on when it comes to high altitude training. If it cost too much, it probably won't be done. Period. Did it come back bite them, I think so. Another example would be the unions attempt at instituting FOQA. The comany resisted at every turn, time and time again. If the pilots had known FOQA would track their activity, maybe, just maybe they wouldn't have down the stupid things they did. Now miraculously we have FOQA.

To give another training example......When does the shaker come on during stall manuevers at 10,000ft? For those of you that don't know, its the top of the snake. When does it come on at say FL370? You wouldn't know any different if you went through training at PCL. It comes on just below the green line (supposed 1.27VS). During the hearings, it came out that the shaker comes on quicker at higher altitudes more so for engine protection and NOT for wing protection. I had never heard this before. Do we have the manufacturers training manuals? No. Is there more to learn? Definitely.

 

[DetoXJ]

How slow did they get in the climb? I remember some insane slow speed like 190 KIAS or .53 Mach. Something like that. Stupid!

 

[GoingHot]

How slow did they get in the climb? I remember some insane slow speed like 190 KIAS or .53 Mach. Something like that. Stupid!

From the NTSB report:

The altitude levels off at about 36,400 feet and the airspeed increases to slightly above 200 knots. Then the altitude continues to increase to approximately 41,000 feet, the airspeed bleeds off to about 165 knots, and the pitch and AOA continue to increase to about 6 and 5 degress, respectively. After the altitude levels off at 41,000 feet the airspeed continues to bleed off to about 150 knots as the pitch and AOA continue increasing to about 7.5 degrees at about the same time as the stick shaker activates and the auto-pilot
disengages.

 

[mesaba2425]

Pathetic. I hope their families spend 10s of thousands of dollars in lawyer fees and then have it thrown out of court. The pilots screwed the pooch, plain and simple.

 

[loverobot]

Pathetic. I hope their families spend 10s of thousands of dollars in lawyer fees and then have it thrown out of court. The pilots screwed the pooch, plain and simple.

Having been through my share of regional ground schools, I can say one thing is for sure: the most knowledgeble pilots don't teach ground schools. Ground school is a sanctuary for expecting mothers, recovering drunks, and most other forms of medical issues. I cringe at the idea of going back to several more weeks of ground school, and I nearly faint at the idea of having to teach one. One place I worked had INTERNS who didn't have enough flight time to fly the line teaching ground schools. The blind leading the nearly blind.

Face it. These guys were screwing around at 410 because they didn't even know enough that they didnt know. Whos fault is that? Pinnacles, and every other cost cutting regional airline out there.

Sue their asses off.

p.s. they lost thier sons, now you wish them to be broke as well. geeezzz.

 

[Long Time Gone]

oops....double clicked.

See below.

 

[Long Time Gone]

PCL128 is dead on when it comes to high altitude training.

To both of you....

Fair 'nough. Thanks for the answers. It's a shame that the training was/is non existent. Would've saved lives, maybe. Then again, from what I've heard about Rhodes, maybe not.......unfortunately.

I've done the Dual Failure in the sim in the -700. Trust me, it's an eye opener. Huge difference, I understand, but still the same. Even by following the checklist to a "T", the aircraft entered the rapid-relight envelope prior to restart, and we didn't regain power until about 10000 ft. For those of you who have never done it in the sim, request and insist on it during your next LOFT/recurrent flight training/etc.

 

[Long Time Gone]

Face it. These guys were screwing around at 410 because they didn't even know enough that they didnt know. Whos fault is that? Pinnacles, and every other cost cutting regional airline out there.

Sue their asses off.

p.s. they lost thier sons, now you wish them to be broke as well. geeezzz.

Why is it that you're only the 2nd person here that sees it that way?

Things that make you go HHHMMMMMMMMMMM.........

 

[Nancy Pryor]

Face it. These guys were screwing around at 410 because they didn't even know enough that they didnt know. Whos fault is that?

Theirs. Simple as that. A professional pilot is expected to know these things, and should want to know them and seek the knowledge even if it's not spoon fed to them in ground school. That's what professionals do, perhaps not by definition, but certainly in attitude.

What is it with this attitude that someone only needs to know what is spoon fed to them in school, and no more? I suspect it begins with the "train to pass the test" approach taken in many high schools and flight schools. Teach and learn the bare minimum just to pass a test, then move on to the next layer of shallow knowledge built on the resulting weak foundation. It's somewhat less prevalent in colleges, and that's one more good reason (along with learning some critical thinking skills and perhaps more maturity) to make a college degree a mandatory requirement for airline pilot hiring.

Pinnacles, and every other cost cutting regional airline out there.

Maybe they cut costs, but that doesn't excuse these two idiots their immature, incompetent and dangerous behavior. Blaming their attitude on the quality of training at the Pinnacle training department is absurd, as is blaming Pinnacle for not teaching about core lock - it would be really nice if Pinnacle had unlimited time and budget to teach this stuff but this has nothing to do with whether these two idiots should have been deliberately overriding safety systems in an empty CRJ until both engines compressor stalled and overtemped the hot sections - should Pinnacle have a special class for that, or should they assume a higher level of maturity in their line pilot candidates?