WSK on Pilot Banter, Training Records, & Crew Rest / Commuting

[Lear70]

This was all over the news this AM. Even Joe Scarborough on MSPMS was swept up in the building "outrage" and proclaiming that he wouldnt alllow his family on a regional carrier until the FAA "speaks to this." Will somebody please remind Joe that his chances of being killed driving home on the Jersey Turnpike were 100 times as great. He missed that part...

I don't blame him... I don't put my family on an RJ or turboprop, either, and don't particularly like getting on one myself. This is why.

Let's take a really close look at the last 4 PCL/Colgan accidents.

3701: Both pilots were GIA, the CA was an idiot, the F/O was low time and just along for the ride. Both dead.

MKE: Both pilots were GIA, completely avoidable accident, complete hull loss, lucky they didn't kill anyone.

TVC: That one was just bad luck, the CA was an exceptionally-bright Check Airman, but the F/O was a new-hire low-time guy (unknown if he was GIA or not) and again, was along for the ride. Something about a 15+ hour duty day comes to mind about this one as well.

BUF - Colgan - The CA was a screwup (5 checkride failures??!!), and the F/O was so completely inexperienced that either she initiated a flaps retraction on her own or listened to the CA if/when he commanded it (an experienced aviator would have said "FU, not putting the flaps up in a stall"), or the gear for that matter. I *KNOW* that's not a training screwup, how many times have we all heard "DO NOT CHANGE CONFIGURATION UNTIL THE AIRCRAFT IS CLEAR OF ALL STALL INDICATIONS AND ACCELERATING"?

So we have GIA graduates and/or gross inexperience in 6 of the 8 pilot positions, a training and hiring culture known to have "issues" (hiring GIA pilots straight out of school with 500 hours is not the smartest move), and fatigue in 3 of the 4 crashes.

And yes, anything less than ATP minimums at a Part 121 carrier is "gross inexperience". You fly for an airline, you should have to hold an ATP, with the associated minimums that are required. The puppy mills need to go away, and I hope this accident brings that fact to light.

Methinks Phil's going to be doing some pretty smooth carpet dancing to keep PCL from getting slammed hard by the feds and Capital Hill after 4 accidents in as many years.

 

[Papa Woody]

The one guaranteed outcome:

The gov't/airlines/lawyers will make whatever changes are necessary to blame the pilots the next time as well!

 

[Captain Morgan]

I don't blame him... I don't put my family on an RJ or turboprop, either, and don't particularly like getting on one myself. This is why.

Let's take a really close look at the last 4 PCL/Colgan accidents.

3701: Both pilots were GIA, the CA was an idiot, the F/O was low time and just along for the ride. Both dead.

MKE: Both pilots were GIA, completely avoidable accident, complete hull loss, lucky they didn't kill anyone.

TVC: That one was just bad luck, the CA was an exceptionally-bright Check Airman, but the F/O was a new-hire low-time guy (unknown if he was GIA or not) and again, was along for the ride. Something about a 15+ hour duty day comes to mind about this one as well.

BUF - Colgan - The CA was a screwup (5 checkride failures??!!), and the F/O was so completely inexperienced that either she initiated a flaps retraction on her own or listened to the CA if/when he commanded it (an experienced aviator would have said "FU, not putting the flaps up in a stall"), or the gear for that matter. I *KNOW* that's not a training screwup, how many times have we all heard "DO NOT CHANGE CONFIGURATION UNTIL THE AIRCRAFT IS CLEAR OF ALL STALL INDICATIONS AND ACCELERATING"?

So we have GIA graduates and/or gross inexperience in 6 of the 8 pilot positions, a training and hiring culture known to have "issues" (hiring GIA pilots straight out of school with 500 hours is not the smartest move), and fatigue in 3 of the 4 crashes.

And yes, anything less than ATP minimums at a Part 121 carrier is "gross inexperience". You fly for an airline, you should have to hold an ATP, with the associated minimums that are required. The puppy mills need to go away, and I hope this accident brings that fact to light.

Methinks Phil's going to be doing some pretty smooth carpet dancing to keep PCL from getting slammed hard by the feds and Capital Hill after 4 accidents in as many years.

Abso-friggin-lutely! Don't be so quick to not get on an RJ though. There are plenty of experienced people out there. I would be more discriminating about what regional I get on, but I wouldn't worry about good RJ companies: Comair, ExpressJet, RAH, Skywest, Piedmont, etc. I would stay away from Pinnacle, Gulfstream, Colgan, Great Lakes, and the like.

 

[dh82dvr]

Boy I agree.

One thing that I think is worth mentioning, is the fact that a large number of airlines don't do real training, they do checking. I'm not excusing difficiencies that might have taken place in this event. Howerver, in the name of the mighty bottom dollar, the only real training most of us get, is while we are newhires and during upgrades.

In most cases while going into PCs, we are expected to perform without any fresh training whatsover. Yes, most of us survive these events. Some of us may even like it. But do you really learn anything new? Are you trying to learn, or are you merely trying to survive? I would argue that the latter applies to a big percentage of us.

Accidents have decreased over the years. It's not because we now have super pilots. It's because automation has improved and CRM has become a way of life. I'd argue that this two factors alone are the biggest reasons why our safety record has improved. Most of our training however has not evolved. AQP should be mandatory for every 121 operator. If you can't afford it, tough! If that's the case, you don't deserve to be in business.

But as usual, the FEDs will clamp down on pilots. They may make it more difficult for us to commute. They may make checkrides even harder. But they won't stop companies from over stressing crews. Nor will they make companies properly staff their airlines. In other words, business as usual.

Good point here. I have always thought that the whole recurrent check ride does not achieve much other than proving we can come in and check the boxes. I think this should be a training event. Don't prove you can pull off one V1 cut but do several. Practicing these events would be far better than what we currently do.

Pilots and commuting will be blamed and rules changed. The FAA and airlines will operate as business as usual.

 

[BoilerUP]

Abso-friggin-lutely! Don't be so quick to not get on an RJ though. There are plenty of experienced people out there. I would be more discriminating about what regional I get on, but I wouldn't worry about good RJ companies: Comair, ExpressJet, RAH, Skywest, Piedmont, etc. I would stay away from Pinnacle, Gulfstream, Colgan, Great Lakes, and the like.

Comair took off the wrong runway.

Expressjet has busted P-56 gawd knows how many times, not to mention landing at the wrong airport at least twice that I know of.

RAH had a crew use the wrong minimums to fly an approach to a contaminated runway in CLE.

Even the "good" companies f-up sometime...

 

[waveflyer]

This is a training issue- said it on the other thread- a video explaining tail ice is not enough. We should be seeing this in the sim- and then practice recovery of ice induced stalls w/o knowing which one it will be, tail or wing. It certainly appears tail ice was in this guy's head during the recovery- hence the flaps, and hence not giving it full power. - and with just a video- i don't blame the guy for screwing it up. With as many ice accidents and mishaps turboprops have had- we got the research done- now it's time to look at training. The idea that turboprop pilots don't practice these is unforgivable.

 

[lionflyer]

Comair took off the wrong runway.

Expressjet has busted P-56 gawd knows how many times, not to mention landing at the wrong airport at least twice that I know of.

RAH had a crew use the wrong minimums to fly an approach to a contaminated runway in CLE.

Even the "good" companies f-up sometime...

Air Wiskey smacked up AC 470 pretty good. I don't know if it was ever returned to service.

 

[rightrudder]

Air Wiskey smacked up AC 470 pretty good. I don't know if it was ever returned to service.

She is back in the air. And she flies like she was in an accident, you have to use a lot of trim.

 

[fam62c]

Set the speed bug to the proper speed and at all times either be on the bug or accelerating/decelerating to the new selected speed. The Captain had plenty of experience to know this; fly the plane and if you can't remember anything else maintain heading altitude and airspeed. I haven't followed this closely enough to know of they if were using the autopilot or not. If they were using the AP and there are no autothrottles it seems like they simply went to idle and never put the power back in as the plane slowed below the desired speed. It sounds like nobody was really flying the plane.


I think that crew experience and training may be less of an issue here than simply failing to pay attention to what they were doing. Let's not forget that lack of attentiveness and situational awareness has caused highly experienced major airline crews to kill people by: flying into mountains, flying into the ground, running out of fuel, attempting to takeoff with flaps up, aborting TO's above V1, continuing approach/landings/TO's during severe convective weather, accidently crossing active runways while another plane was taking off, attempting TO with substantial surface ice contamination, etc. You can be the best, most experienced pilot in the world with a perfect training record and a spotless career but if you stop paying attention or get distracted at the wrong time you can still have an acccident. The consequences of our mistakes can be very high.

 

[CA1900]

One thing that I think is worth mentioning, is the fact that a large number of airlines don't do real training, they do checking...

Absolutely the truth. In six years as a commuter captain, I had twelve checkrides and zero training. I would fly to the sim, do the check (same profile, every time), and fly back to my domicile. This was all done on the same day, so I would only "waste" one duty day checking a box for the FAA. If any actual learning took place, it was unplanned.