I can't even read his/her posts without nearly being blinded by the awesomeness.

 

How's about doing your job and sticking to your Company SOPs so you are assured landing at your airport of intended destination instead of aspiring to be like me. Whatya think?

 

It ain't awesomeness... its discipline... following SOPs... proper briefs.

How do you figure that the other 99.99999999% manage to land at the right airport? Is it luck, or is it professionalism? It's OK... you can be honest. The Stockholm Syndomists won't criticize you.

 

About you? You don't want to know.

 

Sure... lay it on me baby. Justify why one should land at the wrong airport if a thorough briefing, identifying various airports with similar runway alignments were present. Please justify why any pilot, be they a private, commercial, or ATP, would land at the wrong airport.

Again... be mature, and spare the tool label. or gee it can happen to anybody. Be original in your thoughts shy of peer pressure. Or is you condone landing at the wrong airport is Okay with you... just once.

 

I agree with the cap'n. If you feel he's trying to say he's superior and perfect then either your reading comprehension could stand improvement or you're defensive. There's an awful lot of links in the chain that lead to landing on the wrong airport. I'm far from perfect but I don't share the "there but for the grace of God" sentiment. More accurately, there but for correctly following the gom/fom and sop go I.

 

I don't consider you a tool, but I do consider you and your attitude dangerous. The point is not to justify why one should land at the wrong airport, but determine how it happened to someone and identify the causes without resorting to "Those who properly..." will never blah blah blah...

If you think that you have always complied with your "Those who..." on every flight, then I think you are lying to yourself.

I would not want someone on my crew that thinks of themselves as infallible. I would not want someone who cannot see at least a small danger that they may make a big mistake one day.

I would not want you.

 

Help me understand something Spur. Is it my attitude to following SOPs and conducing thorough briefs about airports with similar runway alignments that you consider dangerous? If so... why do you consider cockpit disciplines regarding CRM, importance of situational awareness and briefings dangerous? Do you think there is too much stress on situational awareness?

I have to tell you Spur...I'm not infallible. That's why I conduct a thorough brief, practice CRM... not just the cockpit but the entire crew. I stress the same to my students too.

At the end of the day Spur, you are entitled to your opinion, as I am. Yeah, Spur... I've had my share of LOFTs in the aircraft from disruptive passengers to engine failures, loss of all generators over the Atlantic, to name a few during my 38 years. However I'll tell you this Spur, because of CRM, team spirit the outcomes have always been successful. And guess what... we never landed at the wrong airport.

Zip on the sympathy for the Atlas crew from this flyer.

Happy flying Spur.

 

Okay, I see you position. I congratulate you on your 38 years of incident free flying. But realize we are all prisoners of our experience. You have 38 years of evidence that you are doing everything right.

My position is that when we view an event such at this, we should imagine ourselves on our worst day, and put ourselves in the position of the pilots who ended up where they did not want to be. There is something to learn here. And it is certainly not that these guys were complete idiots. They may be, who knows... but even complete idiots need help landing at the wrong airport...

 

As an expat... I've been in a lot worse with monsoon conditions, engine failure. Heart attack victim in the back... should I go on? And that's on one flight!

If their union protects their jobs, then so be it. But what's the message to those who follow proper procedures, SOPs, briefings?

This crew was domestic under positive radar contact. Sorry no sympathy from me.