Originally Posted by
rickair7777
Well in this case it's not the job, it's what's in the back that determines the level of safety acceptable to the government.
The FAA is not providing passenger pilots a higher level of safety than cargo pilots...they are providing passengers with a higher level of safety than boxes.
The pilots in either case are just along for the ride. There are more dangerous aviation (and non-aviation) jobs than 121. I guess they take the view if loggers, electrical linemen, etc can be in daily danger, why not pilots?
But keep lobbying, the squeaky wheel might get some grease. One can argue, correctly, that a loaded widebody poses a danger to people on the ground as well as the pilots.
It's been a long time since I traded DC-8's for BRTs (big red trucks), but it still makes me crazy when I hear the media/general public refer to airline pilots vs "cargo pilots" as if they are two different classes of people doing 2 different jobs, as NBC did last night on nightly news, deserving of two different levels of safety.
And while I do not in any way paint all FAA employees with one brush(I believe the rank and file are dedicated to their job) I do believe that the upper levels of the FAA, in bowing to pressure from industry lobbyists and our beloved Congress and accepting 2 sets of rest rules, made a politically based decision to wantonly and willfully compromise safety in lieu of commerce.
They are the same aircraft, with the same crew sizes, flying in the same NAS, using the same airports. There is just no damned difference between the two jobs. Doesn't matter if it is babies or boxes in the back. It should be the same set of rules.
For what it is worth, it is the same in my industry, only the third rail is staffing and not rest rules. Municipalities routinely ignore safe staffing levels because they just don't want to pay for more firefighters. So I'm left to make command decisions on whether to commit my company to a situation based on handcuffed staffing. Even the FAA gets into the act, mandating the number of ARFF units, but not the number of firefighters on them, when they index airports.
I'm not naive enough to believe that this will ever change, regardless of how morally wrong it truly is.
The two lives lost yesterday were just as important, just as special, just as irreplaceable as any pilot in the industry. Regardless of what, or who, was riding behind them.