One or two here too. Personally, I dont think they were show boating or trying to save gas or anything else. None of my business anyways, never wanted to be a suit, wont try out here.

Personality disorder is a more accurate description than cowboy. ;)

As far as I can find, there is no "AC-120-08" listed on the FAA website. There IS an AC 120-108 that contains the para you mention, but that AC is specific guidance for CDA non-precision approaches. I'm not sure (and frankly doubt) that this approach was one of those.

Specifically what part of CFR 14 are you alleging was in noncompliance?

As near as I can tell, this was possibly (probably) a violation of the FedEx FOM, para 6.45, which would be a company issue, but not a violation of any FAR, which would be an FAA issue. Which is not to say that the FAA wouldn't be interested, but I'm not sure it would/could rise to the level of certificate action and the invocation of ASAP/NASA protections.

Of course the FAA could always (and frequently does) fall back on the "careless and reckless operation" clause when they frown on something but don't have the evidence or intellectual integrity to back up a more specific charge.

Easy there Johnnie Cochran....I didn't "allege" anything. I merely quoted the ASAP MOU - and intentionally didn't add my opinion nor comment.

The point of the highlighting was to point out to those recommending filing ASAP reports - they probably wouldn't be accepted under the ASAP program due to the "not inadvertent" and/or "intentional disregard for safety" clauses.

Now for my comment since you asked - would you NOT characterize that sequence of events as "careless & reckless"? even if they just "forgot" until the last possible moment to lower the gear? (jailhouse law degree aside that is) :rolleyes:

The irony is that a plane spotter with an iPhone, flight tracker and a youtube account can potentially circumvent both ASAP and FOQA.

I'm not sure you understand the ASAP program. Forgetting to put the gear down until right before touchdown is completely inadvertent. It would not be inadvertent if they planned it. It's not like anyone goes out and intends to land gear up. It's a classic human factors issue (if they forgot to do it IAC with the company manual) and exactly why ASAP is in place. And no, the program wouldn't be compromised by filming it, although not reporting it could eventually catch up, and it just goes to show you that someone is always watching :( , and it may not be who you think.

This doesn't mean slips and errors are good, but it's exactly why these systems are in place, to find the "holes" in safety that we don't know about. People that are deliberately unsafe that routinely break rules as planned events are not what the program is really for.

A good resource for this is the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System. Look at planned unsafe acts vs. errors. This would be an error, and why it happened (if it was due to forgetting) would be good to investigate and put some sort of measure in place to prevent or address.

Heyyy, I resemble that remark!

Google is your friend ...

Count of Monte Cristo was written by Alexandre Dumas.

I assume you get it now ... ?
:cool:

I think you're the one who didn't get it. Related to the author by the way?:D

Disregarding this particular incident, I see an institutional mentality that the 'target' to shoot for to be stable is 1,000' IMC and 500' VMC. From the perspective of my airplane that has very low approach speeds and a difference of up to 60kts between intermediate and final approach speeds, the time difference between being stable at 1K and at 500' feet is about 15 seconds. We fly hours and hours and then paint ourselves in a corner over 15 seconds? Just dumb.