Skyone

Lambourne,etal. You are using the "old" model of looking for "pilot error" when the terms, "he should have.....If only he had......,Why didn't he......,he didn't see.......,they failed to..." etc., are used. We as professional pilots hate it when the cause of an accident is only attributed to pilot error. And I see the same here in many of your arguements. By using those terms, we see it as a defense mechanism in that we would never do something like that, both flying and personally. And Lambourne, from all your posts, it appears to me that you are looking to put blame squarely on the captain.

Instead take a look at what precipitated his response and the response of the CSR. First of course has UAL fostered an atmosphere of mistrust and contempt between the different working departments? Was there a fatigue issue involved with both individuals? Has this CSR and has the captain had issues with each others' departments in the past? ETC, ETC

But again, by saying this captain should have, or should have seen, or why didn't he......we are no more finding the root of this issue than old style accident investigators. IMHO, this should be taken to the highest levels of management, with ALPA, as an example of where the employee group is these days and how it affects the operation (or should we say, the bottom line). Smells of "United Breaks Guitars".

Lambourne, with all due respect, it appears to me you would make the perfect company accident investigator. " Let's see, how did the pilots screw up....yep, pilot error like I thought. Investigation complete...let's go have coffee. But first, we better go change some SOPs, and procedures so our pilots won't screw up again, and it won't be our fault because we have SOPs to prevent that."

Professor Sydney Decker, The Field Guide to Understanding Human Error "Your charter in understanding human error is to find out why things happened the way they did. What you think should have happened or could have happened instead is, for all intents and purposes, irrelevant."