Originally Posted by
Bucking Bar
Understood and agreed. You seem to have a greater than average understanding of the process and information.
Can you advise:
- Are the pilots IFALPA, or affiliated some way to our association?
- Is ALPA a party to this investigation?
- What dog do we have in this?
It would seem, unless ALPA has an affirmative duty, that they would avoid creating hostilities with the Board. Further, as ALPA battles the influx of cheap foreign carriers which may not be operating on the same standard as US Carriers, why wouldn't we let them sit in the proverbial hole they dug?
If you review the Board's work on the Gulfstream G650 accident, the Board went beyond the actions of the crew to the complete lack of a safety culture at Gulfstream. The Board was unusually critical of program management at the senior levels of the organization ... the Board, on the basis of objective data went beyond the "what" of the accident to the "why."
This Board, more so than in the past, is a friend of pilots. If the pilots were some how deficient, we should want to understand why, identify the patterns and seek corrective actions applied also.
Many industry insiders have opined the culture at these carriers undermines safety. Cheap, unqualified, pilots are promoted. Those who seek a higher standard are fired. Seems like ALPA would be all for shining a flashlight in this corner.
I know nothing more than reading. You have an extreme isolationist view on this. Go back and read my words. I am concerned about the precedent this could set for future information release. Finding out if another airline has safety issues vs being an advocate for pilots and safety training are two different things. If you had crashed and the NTSB was Tweeting partial information before they even spoke with you, how would you feel? This isn't about today. The NTSB is setting a precedent on limited and very narrow communication for the rest of the non-English speaking world. We shouldn't be concerned about pilot rights in this country because these pilots were Asian and from another airline. Really? How are the Korean pilots going to treat you if they thought you didn't want to help their pilots through a tough time? Are they going to broadcast your accident investigation in English? Are they going to let the NTSB come and watch? We're not talking about blood chits here. This is a job where other countries take your passport (time for second passport) so that you can't leave while they decide your fate. We shouldn't help other pilots because they may have made a mistake? Safety is about learning. Would you not help a car crash victim because they were tourists and made a mistake by driving on the wrong side of the road? We all need to know what happened and the NTSB will tell us. We don't all need to be part of the circus leading up to that. ALPA issued a warning not to rush to conclusions based on an incomplete picture. They did that because we don't want the same thing happening to us the next time. You write about the law constantly and argue that information to the public is more important than a fair trial?
The press didn't even cover the school in Africa that had a gunman kill 29 children because we were talking about a crash that nearly everyone survived. Where's the outrage for dead children in Africa...? As fascinating as the crash is, we have a job to do and part of that job is not to judge others in a way we wouldn't want to be judged.
How fickle can this forum get? It goes from ALPA should have spoken up to ALPA shouldn't have said a word. There's no winning when every response is the opposite just because. This forum has become so solemn and gloomy that even the other board sucks now because the guys here have gone there to rain on everyone's parade. I've never seen so many people screaming for a response then sh18ing on the response. I am all for safety and factual information in context but (and this is the kicker here) on a webboard full of black helicopter tin foil wearing pessimists, you guys are questioning whether the NTSB may go too far on the future in publicizing your life in the even of an incident to satisfy a honey boo boo audience?