William Langewiesche writes as though he is an airline pilot. Though he is often vaguely referred to as a former "commercial pilot," the only real biography I can find of his hardly alludes to it:
He quit his job after two years, and considers the next decade of his life his time in the wilderness. Though he never stopped writing, he saw few things published, and flew airplanes commercially to pay the bills; hating it all the while. By the time he broke into the Atlantic he was 36. (sfgate.com, 2007)
Who flies airplanes commercially for a little while to "pay the bills"?
Anyways, the article I'm referring to is from the current issue of Vanity Fair (the one ALPA's latest fastread was about). It transcribes much of the CVR tapes from the last 40 minutes or so. Quite honestly, the presentation of the CVR transcript makes it look like both CA and FO didn't know shi t about their airplane. They were fumbling around with the FMS trying to figure it out, and they didn't know where the IDENT button was. One of them was trying to figure out some Embraer software on a laptop, unsuccessfully, and so needless to say, they didn't notice the TCAS OFF or Transponder STBY messages. The article also describes how they were fumbling around with a digital camera, trying unsuccessfully to figure out how it works (leaving the reader with the assumption that these two poor bastards couldn't figure out how to do damn near sh*t when it came to anything at all--let alone the airplane). The camera mention was journalistic icing on the cake.
The publication of CVR tapes shouldn't be allowed. And I agree with the latest ALPA newsletter.
This article could cause a lot of problems with public perception. Not that it really matters anyways. From the point of view of the article, as soon as the airplane took off, it was "let's try to figure out how to fly this airplane...oh shi t, how do you do this? Hey how does this part work?" Not exactly flattering. The GOL 737 pilots, who I think we can agree have the least blame, if any at all, weren't spared, either. Apparently they were "flirting" with flight attendants, looking at pictures, and having a grand old time.
You can read the article free online.
Not a huge fan of this style of journalism, but this article seems to be getting a lot of attention.
He quit his job after two years, and considers the next decade of his life his time in the wilderness. Though he never stopped writing, he saw few things published, and flew airplanes commercially to pay the bills; hating it all the while. By the time he broke into the Atlantic he was 36. (sfgate.com, 2007)
Who flies airplanes commercially for a little while to "pay the bills"?
Anyways, the article I'm referring to is from the current issue of Vanity Fair (the one ALPA's latest fastread was about). It transcribes much of the CVR tapes from the last 40 minutes or so. Quite honestly, the presentation of the CVR transcript makes it look like both CA and FO didn't know shi t about their airplane. They were fumbling around with the FMS trying to figure it out, and they didn't know where the IDENT button was. One of them was trying to figure out some Embraer software on a laptop, unsuccessfully, and so needless to say, they didn't notice the TCAS OFF or Transponder STBY messages. The article also describes how they were fumbling around with a digital camera, trying unsuccessfully to figure out how it works (leaving the reader with the assumption that these two poor bastards couldn't figure out how to do damn near sh*t when it came to anything at all--let alone the airplane). The camera mention was journalistic icing on the cake.
The publication of CVR tapes shouldn't be allowed. And I agree with the latest ALPA newsletter.
This article could cause a lot of problems with public perception. Not that it really matters anyways. From the point of view of the article, as soon as the airplane took off, it was "let's try to figure out how to fly this airplane...oh shi t, how do you do this? Hey how does this part work?" Not exactly flattering. The GOL 737 pilots, who I think we can agree have the least blame, if any at all, weren't spared, either. Apparently they were "flirting" with flight attendants, looking at pictures, and having a grand old time.
You can read the article free online.
Not a huge fan of this style of journalism, but this article seems to be getting a lot of attention.
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