USA Today: Concerns arise over regional airlines

[B727FA]

True J. The FAA has taken what should be a purely safety of flight decision and allowed the companies to add an element of discipline to the pilot's decision making matrix.

What if...

You were preflighting your aircraft, and noticed a small fluid leak. You feel it is a safety of flight issue, so you attempt to write it up. The company tells you that you can only write up 7 items in a rolling 12 month period, and you currently have 5. Any further write ups will result in your suspention. One more than that and you will be terminated without recourse.

Pretty silly right? It would never happen and the FAA would probably poop parrots if it did.

So how is it any different when you preflight yourself? You are one component of the CRM triangle vital to safety: Hardware, liveware and software. If something is broken with your "systems" then you should write yourself up, same way you would if your FMS gave you an error message or if your airplane was otherwise tango uniform.

The amazing thing is... You can't. The management who's responsibility it is to create the conditions under which it is possible to make responsible decisions deliberately does the opposite. Adding an element of discipline to a safety decision invites disaster... Human beings, no matter how experienced or professional, react to duress at some level.

It is pretty amazing when you think about it, I believe.

For the record... I took my sick arse home today and spared my coworkers my plague.

Damn, that's good.

When I've told people about some of our days they say, "Oh gee, is that safe?" And I say, "Well, it's legal."

Insert logic here...

 

[T-prop]

Yeah, despite Jon's best efforts, no one died last year.

I nominate this for the quote of the year!!

 

[great cornholio]

Nice article but the public really doesn't care, they just want cheap tickets. It will take one (or more) major fiery crashes where the NTSB attributes the cause to fatigue and/or inexperience before anything changes. The fact is that even with all of the problems we get the job done safely most of the time and we have a good safety record. This speaks volumes about airline pilots in general. The airlines will put anybody they can find (who is willing to work for what they pay) into the cockpit to keep the planes in the air. They will say that it's SAFE because it's LEGAL and they will be off the hook if anything bad happens. It's just always been this way.

Yeah I was somewhere and somehow got onto the rest subject with some one. I said the same thing that the rules wont change until we kill enough people. Unfortunately I don't think a turboprop or RJ carries enough to get it changed. I think it will take a good solid body count of like 200 or so. Anyways we all know rest is BS. At a minimum it needs to be 8 hours behind the hotel door not away from the plane. And even if a crash does happen I'm sure the probable cause will be something like "Pilot's failure to maintain control while blah blah blah" instead of pilot too tired from stand up overnight or from being switched from night shift flying to morning shift flying or vice versa.

Look at the Corpex flight that crashed in Kirksville a few years ago. If I remember correctly they were on leg 7 or so and over 15 hours of duty, but the press decided to play up the fact that they were talking about illegal non flight specific stuff (what they were going to eat for dinner I think) below 10,000 and not the fact that after multiple legs and 15 hours of duty that even pilots get tired. But then again that killed only like 13 people so not enough to get any changes.

 

[Oakum_Boy]

Pilots aren't robots. Regionals suck. Leave now.

 

[BoilerUP]

Look at the Corpex flight that crashed in Kirksville a few years ago. If I remember correctly they were on leg 7 or so and over 15 hours of duty, but the press decided to play up the fact that they were talking about illegal non flight specific stuff (what they were going to eat for dinner I think) below 10,000 and not the fact that after multiple legs and 15 hours of duty that even pilots get tired. But then again that killed only like 13 people so not enough to get any changes.

Capt. Sasse got totally and completely smeared by the media and the USA Today following that accident. They made a mistake that was directly attributed to fatigue but all the media could talk about was them breaking sterile cockpit.

Something for us all to think about when that little birdie on our shoulder is telling us "Maybe we should just go to the hotel..."

 

[Papps]

As Judge Judy would say, "Um is not an answer!"

Maybe your airline hasn't killed any "one" but it's killed more than one career.

After a few years of working for mesa, you're probably dead inside anyway.

 

[brokedash]

Pretty good article, with lower than normal factual errors.

Odd that they didn't mention the Comair flight that took off the wrong runway in Lexington. Had the reporter researched that he would have found the NTSB ultimately pinned that accident on the pilot's non-safety-related conversation...90% of which occurred before the flight began.[/Qoute]


Thus why JO was able to get away with saying there were no fatalities.

 

[CFIse]

Nice article but the public really doesn't care, they just want cheap tickets. It will take one (or more) major fiery crashes where the NTSB attributes the cause to fatigue and/or inexperience before anything changes.

The NTSB has been pissing and moaning about fatigue for years, since about 1990 in fact when they added it to the "most wanted improvements" list. The NTSB ain't going to get this done.

The airlines whine that without the flexibility to work the living daylights out of their crews they can't operate profitably and so that's that.

 

[John Pennekamp]

Capt. Sasse got totally and completely smeared by the media and the USA Today following that accident. They made a mistake that was directly attributed to fatigue but all the media could talk about was them breaking sterile cockpit.

Something for us all to think about when that little birdie on our shoulder is telling us "Maybe we should just go to the hotel..."

That's because the media doesn't report news, they create news. They spin stories to dovetail with the issue they want to present. So instead of reporting on pilot fatigue (boring) they report on the immaturity and unprofessionalism of those darn kid puddle jumper pilots.

 

[tittyjet]

Let's hope they don't find flightinfo.....

That's because the media doesn't report news, they create news. They spin stories to dovetail with the issue they want to present. So instead of reporting on pilot fatigue (boring) they report on the immaturity and unprofessionalism of those darn kid puddle jumper pilots.

......if you're right, they'd have a fukking field day with this site.

 

[Vspeeds]

The real problem that should be addressed is the the airlines hiring 200-500tt hour pilots to fly airliners at the regionals. I would rather have an experienced tired pilot than an inexperienced low time fully awake pilot at the controls. JMHO

Ain't that the TRUTH!

 

[B727FA]

Pilots aren't robots. Regionals suck. Leave now.

It's not a "regional" thing...AA in LIT ought to have proved that.

 

[B727FA]

The real problem that should be addressed is the the airlines hiring 200-500tt hour pilots to fly airliners at the regionals. I would rather have an experienced tired pilot than an inexperienced low time fully awake pilot at the controls. JMHO

Low time drivers were hired in droves in the mid-60's, too.

 

[WickedPissa]

I loved the part about the Pinnacle flight being at an "unauthorizd" altitude. I used to work for Pinnacle, and there was nothing in the FOM at the time prohibiting flights at that altitude. Furthermore, they received a clearance from ATC to climb there.

Nothing unauthorized about it. Foolish, maybe, but certainly not unauthorized by any stretch.

You hit the nail on the head Mr. Inexperience. "they received a clearance from ATC...". So I guess if ATC says we are allowed to do something, I guess the aircraft must be capable. how f'ing dumb are you people?

 

[ASA_Aviator]

You hit the nail on the head Mr. Inexperience. "they received a clearance from ATC...". So I guess if ATC says we are allowed to do something, I guess the aircraft must be capable. how f'ing dumb are you people?

He didn't say the aircraft was capable, he said it was authorized. There is a difference.

(Disclaimer - - In no way am I suggesting that what happened with that accident was okay, or that they were being professional. I'm just agreeing that they were not "unauthorized" to be there.)

 

[Papps]

You hit the nail on the head Mr. Inexperience. "they received a clearance from ATC...". So I guess if ATC says we are allowed to do something, I guess the aircraft must be capable. how f'ing dumb are you people?

He said it was foolish but not unauthorized. What part about that statement was incorrect. After the accident, the CFM was changed so that it is unauthorized as well as foolish.

 

[av8er2]

There should be concerns! It is all headed in the wrong direction.

 

[tittyjet]

You hit the nail on the head Mr. Inexperience. "they received a clearance from ATC...". So I guess if ATC says we are allowed to do something, I guess the aircraft must be capable. how f'ing dumb are you people?

I've known Ernest for a long time; I have flown with him. I can assure you - he is ANYTHING but "inexperienced". You, however, are a rube who needs to work on reading comprehension.

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

I loved the part about the Pinnacle flight being at an "unauthorizd" altitude. I used to work for Pinnacle, and there was nothing in the FOM at the time prohibiting flights at that altitude. Furthermore, they received a clearance from ATC to climb there.

Nothing unauthorized about it. Foolish, maybe, but certainly not unauthorized by any stretch.

Would the performance, if the pilots chose to reference it, have allowed the altitude....?

In addition, what altitude were they paid to fly the jet? What reason did they have to deviate from the flight plan directed altitude?

Sounds pretty unauthorized to me...


Thread hi-jack?

 

[flynryan15]

"It's safer to fly an airplane than it is to take a shower," said Jonathan Ornstein, chairman and CEO of Mesa Air Group, which operates regional airlines. "No fatalities last year. That speaks for itself."

Oh my God. That's the stupidest sh** I've ever heard. How does this guy take a shower? Standing on his fu***g head I assume.

Hopefully in a rain shower with frequent lightening!!!