A busy airport like ATL is no place for such taxi instructions either. Especially being told to wait for a Delta in a Delta hub!!!! It's like in EWR when you are told to follow the 737 when there are 20 of 'em rolling around. I've been given pos. and hold behind landing traffic but never a runway crossing clearance behind an aircraft taking off. That is an unusual taxi clearance that anyone could screw up in my opinion.

 

Lets all be glad we didn't have a Tenerife, Canary Islands on our hands. (Although different circumstances, only thing I could come up with in this tired state, let the flaming begin!) ;-)

 

Like I said in my statement, It can happen to 250 hr pilots as well as 2500hr n 25,000 hr pilots. If you think that the person pushing the pedals or turning the tiller is the only one taxiing, then Im sorry to hear that. The person recieving and reading back the clearances in that cockpit is just as responsible If not more. Yes we are all human and we all do make mistakes, but in our buisness one mistake can injure or kill alot of people.

 

You are right on the money.....isn't that the whole purpose of CRM?



TI

 

I am not an advocate for the 250 hour pilots in the airline flightdecks, but there have been many studies that show that statistically, the lower time pilots may be less likley to have an incident due to being overly cautious. The same studies point out that the middle time pilots are the most incident prone due to complacency and being to comfortable in the cockpit.

Again, I am not an advocate for wet ticket new hires, but I don't think that the lions share of the blame can be placed on the inexperienced guy in the right seat. Oh, and for the one that brought up Tenerife...it was the right seat and back seat drivers that told the captain (25000 hr) to stop...he went anyway.

 

I cant believe some blame is being put on 250hour guys. Great critical thinking and problem solving guys. They just started this no minimums stuff 2 months ago. Its not even possible for them to have made it to the cockpit as yet. How about figuring out a real problem? Some of the biggest finger pointing, and the fastest blaming ive ever seen happens in this forum...

 

how easily we forget how inexperienced we all once were. we all need to remember ioe in your first jet or turbo-prop job as well as the month after. If you tell me you were on the ball 100% of the time and werent overwhelmed then you had a lot of experience or are full of it. Maybe labeling this guy as a 250 hour wonder was incorrect but most regional fo's nowadays have been in the right seat less then a year and most are upgrading prior to the 2 yr mark (i am guessing but that sounds about right). If you are going to call a 1 yr fo and a 2 yr captain experienced.... i think a lot of past airline pilots would laugh in your face. SUre we can do a good job and we made it to our position but we are lacking the years of experience our predecessors had to refine the art of doing this job. This is the first time in history ( past few years) that a significant amount of two year seniority captains have taken to the skies AND low time pilots have gotten hired at some of the nations busiest airports. Things like this are bound to happen and not because of one person who was hired with minimal time. We all are inexperienced nowadays. Regional airlines arent flying to podunk airports and back to one hub anymore. We are flying many of the same routes the majors fly from one airlines hub to another.

 

I remember listening to the tapes as a United 757 taxied in PVD during low vis and the crew sounding like rookies having no clue where they are. How much experience was in the cockpit that night? This can happen to any pilot or controller with any amount of experience. It would be a shame if this thread boiled into the low time vs. high time usual banter that doesn't do anyone or this profession any good. Now dicussing creative ways to improve safety and pay would be much more productive IMO.

 

I completely agree; whose killed more people, low timers or high timers. My point is, where all human and we all get complacent. Experience helps but it just means there’s a higher price to pay because they give you more to manage.

BTW, low timers. I used to teach PFT for Luke AFB in AZ which is the worlds larges F-16 training center. Every year almost 1000 F-16 pilots go through there courses for varies reasons with most being new to the a/c. The average F-16 trainee has around 150-200 total hours at Luck AFB. Makes you wonder!

My point is that they sent a monkey to outer space and I’m not taking about SAABaroowski. We train and train and train and we still get complacent no matter what our age or skill level is.

 

FYI:

Just got word it was a senior ASA crew, Capt over 8 years and FO around 2 years