SWA Question tma when you broke a reg. !!!!!!!

[kilroy]

"Have you ever violated any regs ??" Now how do you answer this in an interview without looking like some kind of cowboy. We,ve all done it, but to what extreme do you tell them without making yourself out to be a raving lunatic in the sky.. What were some of then answers you guys have giving at a interview

 

[Rhino]

try this...

I think the question was "tmaat when you broke a regulation or company operating procedures..." I used a time when we, in the name of safety of flight, landed with less than the prescribed amount of fuel, but were on deck with more than the FAA mandated reserve. Taking weather at destination and our divert into account, yada yada yada...

I'm sure you can come up with a reasonable time when procedures were broken, but not at the expense of safety.

 

[avoidingmyboss]

This is always a good one I over flew the white house once. How about I flew under a few bridges. Altitude, what altitude? FAR's are for airplane geeks. Or say does hauling drugs count? I wasn't buzzing a farmer I was crop dusting. And no I don’t have a permit to do pipe line.

Seriously just say something like “I've forgotten to turn my transponder on before take-off. I can't think of anything else inadvertent I've done but I know I have busted a reg. before.” The key is we all have done something inadvertently and probably have never been called on it.

 

[FarginDooshbahg]

I used a time when we, in the name of safety of flight, landed with less than the prescribed amount of fuel, but were on deck with more than the FAA mandated reserve.

The "FAA mandated reserve" is for departure only. You only have to have legal FAA reserves at brake release. After that, all bets are off. You can use this fuel however you see fit. You can hold, you can divert, etc. You most certainly DON'T need to land with it.

 

[Lear70]

Chase and a few others could probably have some better answers, but what I've been told is that the best stories come from emergencies:

A time when you left a clearance limit (which is breaking a reg) for an RA that was close,

Maybe on 9/11 you were flying and received the "LAND IMMEDIATELY - TERRORIST ACTS IN PROGRESS" ACARS message and had to divert and couldn't get back in touch with the company before you landed because they were overwhelmed with people doing the same thing, so you declared an emergency to do so but broke the reg that says you have to notify the company of a diversion to a non-planned airport.

Using a story that takes safety of flight into account before regulatory compliance, a declared emergency, then required phone calls and reports afterwards to explain the event properly to the FAA and company showing that you play by the rules, seems to be the best response to this one that I've heard...

Good luck!

 

[kilroy]

Thanks for the info ..... gave me some great ideas. Unfortunatly (or fortunate) I flew for air ambulance for 4.5 years so I have tons of scarey stories. Just needed some direction didn,t want to scare them to bad..

 

[RVR300]

Kilroy,

Just make sure it has a happy ending.

 

[Jack Schitt]

Just tell them you broke 250 kts. below 10,000. That's SOP for Southwest.


BONUS QUESTION: What do you consider a safe taxi speed?

ANSWER: Slightly below V1

 

[RVR300]

>Just tell them you broke 250 kts. below 10,000. That's SOP for Southwest<


You're dreaming.

 

[Hugh Jorgan]

How about a violation of a reg out of conservativeness

I flew an old plane for a while that had essentially no electrical redundancy and only 1 vor needle and one UHF radio. It wasn't much of a stretch to imagine the scenario of being NORDO in IMC. Handheld navigational devices were unauthorized, but I carried one in my helmet bag just in case. Never had to use it (although maybe I "verified" it's backup capability on occasion), but it was there and it was technically a violation...hard to call one a cowboy for providing oneself an out in case the day goes to $hit.

 

[SWA/FO]

At the end of your story tell them you were "on time" and saved "500 pounds of fuel".