Sad day for aviation everywhere regardless. 777 is a beauty of a plane and in general its not good for anyone. I hope Steve Jones wasn't PIC

Actually I would call it a happy day. Another accident with all souls on board accounted for and alive. That's a happy result of what was very close to a bad day.

Let's find out the facts. Learn from those facts and move on.


No real point in fingerpointing or anything else. We learn from our mistakes and thank the gods that it wasn't worse. It could have been much worse. Thankfully it wasn't.

Touche.... I'm sad to hear planes crash, but your right its a happy day that no lives were loss and that it wasn't any worse then it could be.

If I recall correctly, this is the first serious 777 crash that resulted in a write off?

I second that, it is the first 777 I can recall being written off in a crash. As a matter of fact, I can't recall any 777 incident. Anyone?

Do we know it will be written off yet? I've seen hulls with more damage that what this 777 appears to have sustained repaired.

Yep, but reading up to page 4, the debate WASN'T between a U.S. civilian ab initio and a euro ab initio. It was between the euro civilain and a military pilot.

The other guy brought up the point that "only the best passed" Yeah, the thing is the mil guy had to be thinking in excess of 400kts in a sophisticated, complex, fast moving jet, with an IP yelling at him in the back. The euro civ has to be thinking at 100 kts. See a difference? After 200 hours of flying, how would you compare the civ ab intitio to the tactical jet pilots?

I'm sure that the euro civ trying to learn cross country pilotage/dead reckoning in a 172/Bonanza/whatever solely to comply with the requirement is just as capable (if not more) then the mil guy learning low level tactical navigation in something like a T-38. Sarcasm off.

Also, where in the thread up to this point is FAA ab intio being compare to euro? Is there such a thing? Sorry, but I've never even heard of ATP saying you can come down, bang out a written for a rating like you are making reference, and call it "ab initio".

I shudder to say it, but the closest thing we have/had to a true ab initio lately in the states that wasn't military was MAPD.

That was one harry incident. If I remember correctly the Captain shut down both engines on his own at low altitude without reference to the checklist. The switches he thought he was moving were later move to the overhead panel. I think he decided to retire (with a little encouragement) after the incident.

The 777 doesn't have any overwing exits. On each side of the aircraft there are 2 slides forward of the wing, 1 slide just aft of the wing, and 1 further aft under the leading edge of the verticle stab for a total of 8 slides. Judging from the pictures all slides worked as advertised.

It would take a really serious evacuation scenario for me to jump from the wing because she sits pretty high off the ground.

It was hairy...I knew both pilots...flew with both several times. Captain was a little wierd, but not a bad pilot. Delta told him he could come back, but as a permanent copilot. He retired instead. Was killed a few years later in an amphib. crash. The final straw was that after getting them both relit, he decided to continue on to CVG, and told the passengers what had happened. I believe I could have lied my way out of this one and looked like a hero.