Yep, you're wrong. Per the standards letter from SH, "The Check Airman is authorized to intervene in the interest of safety or legality but is not responsible if the crew’s actions or inactions result in a compromise of safety or legality."

So, it sounds like the Check Airman is not held accountable if the type-rated crew violates an FAR.

 

Oh well, it's not the first time......

 

1. Lets see what happens with a brand new WB A-300 capt that's been on the property 3 years and could only hold a S/O seat and a new hire F/O now living in China.

2. To the comment about hand flying. IMHO I think this flip flopping of what is now considered standard is goofy. Takeing off and hand flying the jet on some complicated SID is silly and just shows how great you can fly the command bars. Go fly a cessna or piper for that. Show me you can land in a 35 knot X-wind.

3. As far as Class II procedures. I fault STDs for some of this. Every Capt AND F/O needs to get a crossing of both the atlantic and pacific. To just go to Hawaii for the F/O is again not getting the job done.

4. Finally I agree that with all of the places we go to it can be tough to be on your "A" game if your not going there consistently. But I've had F/O's never even open a chart or ask about Class II stuff and just sit there. Once I had a F/O that didn't plot and when I asked he said that the PF now does this. Made him a beer bet and I lost that one. OOppss, now I'm bad more flip floping on procedures from STDs.

My rant is over and I'm having my second cup of joe now......

 

So, it sounds like the Check Airman is not held accountable if the type-rated crew violates an FAR.[/QUOTE]

If the jet crashes the Check Airman dies 2 feet behind the crewmembers....

 

I disagree. My point is, it SHOULDN'T have happened to anybody. This has nothing to do with flying into 50 cities or some challenging part of the world or something even unique to a north atlantic crossing. This is basic airmanship. I don't care if PROF has some internal limitation or won't work...blah - blah. You don't sit there hoping the jet is going do what you want and then wonder why it didn't as you're violating your clearance. period - dot. You monitor and intervene when your knowledge of the situation indicates you need to - or.... You bust your checkride. Perfect call by the LCA.

 

I agree with AdlerDriver and I'm sober. This was sloppy.

Although not specifically mentioned in either standards letter, the jet won't PROF a descent when the descent page shows T/D / 999 in the upper right corner. It will not descend unless you dumb it down and V/S or level change. Word around the farm...says this is what our brothers did.

On another Class II navigation subject, does anyone else think the way we input, check, abbreviate (via FMS display) our oceanic waypoints is dummer than dirt?

Right now, in the NATs my Capt is legal (required if on an airway) to enter the waypoint as a five ltr waypoint IF we are in Gander/Shanwick airspace. Then I say "checked" when doing the stby flt plan check.

Oh but wait, if we are on a random route in the Atlantic and not in Gander/Shanwick airspace then I read back the entire lat/long and I know that because if I didn't see the Capt input the waypoint I can tell it was inputted in standard format because the point displays as a seven character waypoint, not five. Don't confuse those waypoints over 99N that have N/E/S/W moved to the ctr digit of a five figure format. Hmmm...."more coffee pleaseeeee!"

Luckily, the N. Pacific random route is same as the Atlantic when not in Gander/Shanwick airspace. Except that Fukuoka doesn't have ADS and you have send posreps manually over CPDLC, but make sure you edit the next point as a mandatory reporting point b4 you send that report. How about that?

Good lord, if the DOD had this many options to define lat/longs we would have been dropping iron in wrong places all over the world. An ATO planners nightmare.

Somebody had the smarts to build the N. Pacific tracks with named waypoints and say these are fixed routes...buy that guy a beer.

Ok, I'm done ranting.

 

These line checks on international trips sound REALLY scary. I suggest you senior guys don't bid them in Mar and Apr. Domestic hub turns are much safer.

 

Come On! Not being at an assigned altitude is definitely compromising safety. Going over 250 knots below 10K may not be a safety but not being on altitude, that's pretty obvious. If this LCA was just kicking back and watching and wondering "are these guys going to come down or what" and letting them bust it then he definitely deserves to be fired. If he missed it just like they did, then he also deserves to be fired. It was a screw up all around and all 3 members should be held accountable.

 

Have any of you talked to the crew to see what actually happened?

Let's take these conversations to a private area somewhere and discuss it there. To have a few drinks and post on here about information like this is not "cool".