Originally Posted by
rickair7777
ASAP is ultimately an FAA program. There is no fundamental "entitlement" to exemption from regulatory consequences of performance failures. They have the right to exclude anything when they find it necessary, and this was one of those times. A union would have made no difference, the FAA was over it and they are in no way obligated to negotiate with or even interact with a union.
The root cause, after they adressed every other possible cause, was poor airmanship, and the fix was simple: monitor the airplane, they even provide a second pilot specifically to do just that! I find it reasonable that if some people could not motivate themselves, then taking away the get out of jail free card could provide the motivation. I heard that it worked, although that was about the time I left.
The only thing the company could have done at that point was buy new airplanes which had autothrust.
Old school. There are very few significant UAS which will not be observed by ATC and or FOQA data.
Even so, ASAP still works great for everything else.
I guess everything in aviation is ultimately an FAA program. So that is true. I’m just disagreeing with the FAA in this instance. It goes away not only from Just Culture but it also doesn’t do anything to get to the root cause. Why were pilots at this specific airline having this same issue over and over? It cannot just be lack of monitoring or a second pilot since all the other airlines are also required to have a second pilot that monitors and presumably they weren’t stalling all the time. If it truly was poor airmanship then better hiring standards and or more robust training may have worked? I don’t know but I do know that shutting the door on more information won’t get to the root cause. As for UAS not observed by ATC or FOQA, that is not correct. There are UASs that happen all the time everyday that are not observed by another source. It’s true that not all UASs are equal. Some don’t really affect safety of the flight. But that’s not what I was referring to. Specifically in this type of situation where a crew inadvertently gets slow but not to the point ATC observes it. The crew will obviously not ASAP that because they now know if they do, it won’t be accepted and they will put their livelihoods in danger. While at the same time keeping any valuable insight that crew might give from the ERC, which can pass along that information. By the way, FOQA cannot be used for disciplinary action, at least no per the MOU at a union airline. Maybe that is different at non-union? Regardless, FOQA data without human context added to it via ASAP is not as valuable and doesn’t answer the ‘why’ question, just the ‘what’ question. Maybe having a union might not have any effect in dealing with this specific FAA office or inspector. But the union leader can certainly have a Frank conversation with them pointing this things out as the consequences of their actions. But like you said, ultimately the FAA owns it.