While morbid, I know, those who fail to study history are doomed to repeat it.
While I can understand people's apprehension to seeing the video; if people refuse to watch it, and refuse to learn from it, and thereby allow something similar to ever happen again, would be the true crime of this horrible event.

Godspeed guys.

 

Great post Dakota...I honestly believe that you would be hard pressed to find any pilot at FDX, that hasn't run the scenario through their head. I believe some of the links posted in this thread, were done so in good faith at the time this event was unfolding, mainly to inform the masses of what had occurred. I don't really understand the "behavior" issue that was raised.


It is a very personal tragedy for many, two great aviators lost doing what most of us do on a daily basis. I feel it is only "pilot nature" to speculate (in your own mind) what might have occurred.

Fly safe, with thoughts continuing for the families of our fallen.

 

I'd have to agree. As hard as it is to watch, I found myself thinking today on landing how I would have reacted to that situation. It deserves studying if we all want to be safer pilots. Granted, the final analysis will be more detailed and hopefully, the correct one, but as we go back to our day to day flying we need to keep all these "what-ifs" in the back of our heads. Just like BG said, review your wind additives and CFM procedures for bounced landings.

And no, it didn't look that bad at first, which may be why they're starting to mention windshear as the cause. (of course, what does the media know, they're just parroting the investigators)

Let's not just stick our heads in the sand and refuse to study this objectively. Our families depend on us getting it right and not letting this happen again.

 

We operate in an environment where small mistakes can lead to unthinkable consequences. Due to that, we need to understand the realities of what can happen (I am not talking about the aftermath of the video, I am talking about such things as excessive descent rates, etc) and how things happen and stay spring-loaded to prevent them from happening AS SOON as they start to happen. We need those reminders, its human nature to forget these risks as we are not exposed to them over time.

For example, we need to continuously evaluate how/when we will do things such as call out deviations, call for a go-around, take the throttles and throw the throttles up forcing a go-around. We need to set our limits on how much we need to see before we do each of these things.

Just knowing that this aircraft crashed does not help us in that regard. We can't change that. We can't change the outcome. Knowing how I think, and knowing how most pilots I know think, wouldn't that be adding to the loss? If the event has already happened, the least we can do is try to take away any lessons that we can.

Viewing these videos, and any products that are resulting from the investigation, can all assist in producing these lessons. Unfortunately, life goes on with no breaks. We don't stop flying until a suitable mourning period has transpired. While it may seem cold and callous, it is a necessity in my mind.

As a sideline, everyone who has been to Red Flag knows that week 2 started with a video (set to Viva Las Vegas) showing a montage of aircraft accidents - some of them fatal. Do you think that this was done to be morbid, or did even they understand the value of re-caging your gyros every so often.

 

That was truly great post Dakota.

I have been on the 11 for almost 9 years now and I have watch that video everyday, yet i don't really know why right now. I knew both them very well, one is from my area. We can't just take it down because it makes us sick and it does. We need to watch and see if we can figure out what happen. It will be many months before the official finding but in the mean time we start flying again. I will be going back into NRT next month and I know that this will be heavy on my mind. I know in my hart that they did everything they could but "there but by the grace of God go I."

Everyone fly safe out there and come home to your loved ones!

Also, for everyone in the PDX and SAN area do what you can to find out when they are coming home and let's show up in uniform to welcome them home one last time. for those in the PDX area PM me and I pass on the CIRP contact info if you want it.

Noser

 

I've probably only slept well for 2 or 3 hours in the past couple of nights. My kids were up and down the first night also after seeing it on TV. They couldn't say why, but I knew......it was having the same effect on me - still is.

I'm glad I saw what happened - now it's etched into my memory forever.

In my opinion - having had close friends, blood relatives, squadron mates, and others I know personally perish in aircraft accidents - it's much worse trying to comprehend not even having a hint at what went wrong when there's no video to watch.

I've watched it over and over too. ALL the same stuff keeps running through my mind over and over and over again too.

I think there has got to be something gained in watching it and thinking about all that. Rewind......what was really happening.....what, if anything, could have saved them???

And, I agree - just don't click the link.

Rest in peace brothers. I pray that your families will find comfort somewhere in all of this.

 

OK, I agree we can all learn from this. That's for another forum. But to what purpose does it serve to show over and over again the death of two of our brothers?

 

And for anyone in the San Antonio area who knows when services will be, please post or pm me as appropriate. I did not know either gentlemen, but will plan on being there if possible.

 

PDX and SAT areas

 

Thanks for the correction, its been a long time since I have been to SAT and forgot that that SAN is in CA.