Taking off without a clearance isn't pushing the limit!

Just kidding. However, you're making it sound like they did it on purpose. Yes, not knowing what's going on is not good form, and that accident (like almost every accident) was preventable. People are human, though, and we'll continue to make mistakes forever. The 410 crew didn't stall and have a two engine flameout on purpose, but they did switch seats and do other stupid crap on purpose, which to me, even though not as many people died, is far more preventable, and therefore worse.

found some mesa responses for the pinnacle ads...


http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/1746/gotsjsdn0.jpg

http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/4566/ycela8.jpg

Yeah, the christmas song is getting old; however, admit the theme song to the 90's cartoon is catchy! huh? ADMIT IT!

the captain did take off on purpose without a clearance. the fo even told him once (not enough obviously). there was so much "machismo" in that cockpit that the fo was to scared to step up, so scared that over 500 people had to die from that stupid mistake. and yes the 3710 guys did a lot of stupid stuff on purpose. same thing. wether it is the captain telling you to sit down on your hands, shut up, and look out the window, or the captain that lets a flight deck run wild it will all inevitably lead to the same thing. both were preventable, both had people die, and both were bad.

Ah, I didn't know about that. I kept on reading other posts about how they thought they where cleared for takeoff.

You re wrong.. there are thousands of permanent resident pilots flying the us skies. They cannot sponsor for visas for airline pilot jobs for so many reasons:
- the work visas are limited to 3 years.
- they have a quota and they are taken up by IT sector
- they are consumed by mid april of each year..

Yeah, it was pretty ignorant...one too few sets of balls in that flightdeck, and the pair there was...well I'm surprised they fit through the door.