the unfathomable:regional crew attempted takeoff with one engine turning

[Lear70]

you talk about pro standards, guess what, show me a crew who will volunteer to go before their own, (yeah right) on this issue or similar.

over and out...

Pro standards isn't a voluntary program. You contact pro standards about someone, pro standards seeks that person out and investigates, tries to resolve the problem, and if unresolvable, may contact the Chief Pilot's office and/or other parties if the issue is serious enough.

In this case, Pro Standards would likely have set them up to file their ASAP, broached the subject with the company anonymously to try to minimize the immediate anger and backlash from doing something so stupid, and get them into training in a way that minimized the fallout from additional discipline.

In short, Pro Standards would have been a good way to go with the understanding that you would "take it to the next level" in reporting it if pro standards didn't do a good enough job in "fixing" their apparent lack of SA. What Pro Standards might ALSO have been able to do is find out if this is a repeat offense for the CA. If more people went to Pro Standards, they'd have a log of everything this CA did (negative issues that got brought to the attention of the union - discipline, training issues, etc), and see if there was a developing trend, similar to the Colgan accident.

Pro Standards can be a pretty powerful committee that many people overlook...

 

[DrewBlows]

I never brought this up to convince you critics of anything. It was an outrage. I am way over it. they'll do an ASAP and go on. I'm sure they willl never do that again. so yes, we have all learned. No one's name or carrier name has been denigrated..but the parties involved know who they are....it was serious and scared the $hit out of the pax in the back.. i am suprised some of them didn't demand to be taken back to the gate.

someone had to challenge them on it, otherwise they may never have learned from it (the purpose of the ASAP program) and said,"boy, we got by on that one" don't ever tell a soul" but there are souls somewhere saying (like those on comair and colgan3407) thank goodness he did...you talk about pro standards, guess what, show me a crew who will volunteer to go before their own, (yeah right) on this issue or similar.

over and out...

I'm going to address this like it's true, even though I'm still not convinced this isn't flame bait...

Isn't it possible they would have learned from it without being "challenged?" Many, if not most pilots are their own biggest critics. I suspect they were already beating themselves up over the incident before you jumped in to save the day.

I don't know if you meant to do it but you have exposed this crew to disciplinary action by contracting the FAA. ASAP isn't a "get out of jail" card. It serves a purpose but if it's not a "sole source" report, the company and/or the FAA could choose to take additional action outside of remedial training. Whether or not that happens is completely at the discretion of the FAA inspector or company DO.

You continue to compare this incident to the Comair and Colgan accidents. In those accidents the pilots made unrecoverable mistakes that endangered and ultimately ended the lives of every passenger. Forgetting to start an engine is embarrassing, but would require additional action to put anyone's life in danger.

Frankly, the ERJ is an ergonomic nightmare which set's pilots up to forget to start the engine. I submit that it's nearly as easy to forget to shut off the taxi light when stopped as it is to forget to start an engine.

1. The thrust levers don't lock out when an engine is off.

2. There are 21 switches that look and feel exactly like the engine start switches (though the engine switches are guarded). This tells me that Embraer doesn't think the engine start switches are as important as the heading bug and altitude pre-select knob which look and feel different.

3. The engines are mounted close together on the tail, so there isn't a lot of differential steering needed with one engine running until a lot of thrust is applied.

4. The takeoff config warning does not check that both engines are running.

5. I've never flown the ERJ, but if it's anything like the E170 there is no CAS information that would indicate an engine is not running. Good technique tells you to check the engine instruments, but the checklist (ours anyway) directs you to check the EICAS.

This was a small mistake and nothing more, certainly not something to (literally) alert the media over.

 

[Mr Hat]

Genius,

If you really are a pilot you will be found out and I hope your name is posted all over the place. I hope you have enjoyed being able to jumpseat because your days doing that are probably limited. I sure would not want you on my jumpseat. I also hope (if this is true) the crew of that flight sues your butt for slander. You have handled this matter so pathetically. You have every right to be upset if this really happened but you are not going about this professionally. A simple conversation with the crew and pro standards within the union is how you handle this issue.

You got that right....all I need is a name. I don't want CNN calling me if I happen to make a mistake or something is percieved to be a mistake from the back.

 

[Mr Hat]

I never brought this up to convince you critics of anything. It was an outrage. I am way over it. they'll do an ASAP and go on. I'm sure they willl never do that again. so yes, we have all learned. No one's name or carrier name has been denigrated..but the parties involved know who they are....it was serious and scared the $hit out of the pax in the back.. i am suprised some of them didn't demand to be taken back to the gate.

someone had to challenge them on it, otherwise they may never have learned from it (the purpose of the ASAP program) and said,"boy, we got by on that one" don't ever tell a soul" but there are souls somewhere saying (like those on comair and colgan3407) thank goodness he did...you talk about pro standards, guess what, show me a crew who will volunteer to go before their own, (yeah right) on this issue or similar.

over and out...

Yeah....we live in the 2000's....there's this thing called FOQA. Then there's that whole "gotta submit an ASAP for an aborted T/O" thing.....and the fact that the tower watched them abort and may follow up on why they aborted. They almost certainly would have gotten away, free to screw up another day!!! HAHAHAHAH!!

Look dude....I'm not thrilled with your going to the FAA but thats not even the problem since a mistake like this will almost certainly end up involving them ANYWAY. As soon as they submit that ASAP for the aborted TO, the feds know about it.
But the media? How many crashes have you watched on TV where the media had it totally wrong? They don't care about saving lives or safety.....they only care about scaring the hell out of everyone in the name of ratings. They are the scum of the earth....and you gave them ammo that may scare one of YOUR future passengers into driving instead on their next trip. Then United loses money, not the regional.....EVEN if the flight was supposed to be operated by one of the regionals.
What the pilots of your free flight did was wrong....a horrible gross error.....YOUR error in contacting CNN was no less gross or horrible. The airlines don't need this bad press. Thanks for taking us back a notch.

 

[skyguy40]

I am not sure if this guy's aim was to cause harm to the crew ( This is what I think)and that's it. Or was there more to it (changing rules for that greater good). I am ok with fixing problems, I just think he went about it all wrong. Sweeping it under the rug wont fix many things and screaming the sky is falling may not fix many things either as the focus will be lost. I flew the ERJ many years ago, it is posible to have one engine running and have the T/O config say: take off ok. I've done it to see if it would let you t/o with just one engine running. It will! Maybe a good fix is to have that changed. Yes its engineering but I think it could be done.
All I'm saying is, how does one go about changing the problems that we are faced with each week? EX: I just finished a trip on day six and my duty time was around 15 hours when I was back in base. Not much has changed, we still operate by the same old rules.

 

[hou757]

I never brought this up to convince you critics of anything. It was an outrage. I am way over it. they'll do an ASAP and go on. I'm sure they willl never do that again. so yes, we have all learned. No one's name or carrier name has been denigrated..but the parties involved know who they are....it was serious and scared the $hit out of the pax in the back.. i am suprised some of them didn't demand to be taken back to the gate.

someone had to challenge them on it, otherwise they may never have learned from it (the purpose of the ASAP program) and said,"boy, we got by on that one" don't ever tell a soul" but there are souls somewhere saying (like those on comair and colgan3407) thank goodness he did...you talk about pro standards, guess what, show me a crew who will volunteer to go before their own, (yeah right) on this issue or similar.

over and out...

I've yet to hear one person support what you did on this thread. Everyone on here seems to be your critic. YOU made a mistake contacting the media about this. I hope you man up to it and not communicate any facts from this point on to the press. Allow the union and company involved along with probably the FAA by now to handle this situation.

 

[CX880]

He should have done what he did. Think of the children in row 3.

 

[say again]

I never brought this up to convince you critics of anything. It was an outrage. I am way over it. they'll do an ASAP and go on. I'm sure they willl never do that again. so yes, we have all learned. No one's name or carrier name has been denigrated..but the parties involved know who they are....it was serious and scared the $hit out of the pax in the back.. i am suprised some of them didn't demand to be taken back to the gate.

someone had to challenge them on it, otherwise they may never have learned from it (the purpose of the ASAP program) and said,"boy, we got by on that one" don't ever tell a soul" but there are souls somewhere saying (like those on comair and colgan3407) thank goodness he did...you talk about pro standards, guess what, show me a crew who will volunteer to go before their own, (yeah right) on this issue or similar.

over and out...

This proves the idiot you are.

 

[SLUF4]

If you wanted to help them you should have done so privately and not gone to the feds and the media. What good will that do?

 

[Dan Roman]

If you wanted to help them you should have done so privately and not gone to the feds and the media. What good will that do?

It proves he is more worried about getting himself as much attention as he can rather than worried about correcting and learning from someones mistake. It's a sickness in our society that has become much worse thanks to 24 hour cable and "reality" TV.