every major crash is usually a list of several contributing factors leading up to the accident.....the key is to recognize when things are going south and take action.....the three best examples of this are the florida air flight that took a dip in the patomic, the eastern flight that went down in the everglades, and the comair flight at LEX........all of them had a pivitol point where somone notices somthing wrong yet does nothing......gotta be on your toes at all times in this business

 

And yet you capitalize the G in God, way to go.

 

Wait wait, sync'ing the heading bug??? If you sync the heading bug you just erased the desired runway. If you line up on the wrong runway and blindly hit the heading sync button, what did you just do???

SERIOUSLY, we have an instructor here at pinnacle that basically yells and screams at his students if they don't sync the heading bug. I absolutely refuse to do that. It's poor OPS...

Soooo, I hope no one sync's the heading bug while lined up, but instead VERIFIES the correct heading with your jepp/lido for that runway....

Thank you for reminding me about that!

Any comments on this aspect? Who knows, they could have done this very thing (hdg sync) and so they figured everything was ok.

Comments/better ideas?

 

I'm as human as the next person. I make mistakes every day. I wish I didn't.

I'm not going to stand in the way of this first officer's desire to return to flying.

In my 121 experiences, first officers are extremely busy with checklists from taxiing off the gate until entering the runway for take-off.

On a short taxi with the possibilities of having to complete "first flight of day" checklists, it's quite possible that the first time this fo looked up was a guick glance right to clear traffic and then again after the captain lined up for for takeoff.

Unless I'm mistaken, he did not physically line up the aircraft on the wrong runway, the captain did.

Take runway 20 & 16 at Richmond, VA put in pre-dawn or lower visibiity and I bet (in a simulator) that an instructor could task saturate a number of different crews and a small percentage of them would line-up incorrectly.

At least initially. Visual cues and crew experience would result in varied outcomes:

Back in Lexington - hi speed abort or increase thrust from flex to max, drop flaps to approach, launch into ground effect - was there enough space??

Chit-chat while the aircraft is in motion aside, I feel first officers can't be held responsible for the aircraft's movement while "heads down" running checklists.

Let the guy attempt to fly again.

 

I completely agree. This FO was at fault, just like everyone else that played a role, but you better believe, as someone else said, WE are more likely to repeat this incident than he is. You can put your money on that fact!

 

Being an atheist is hard enough. No need to be disrespectful too.

 

He's not being disrespectful just making a point of what he observed!!!

 

No, I'm telling him that I respect other peoples beliefs and that is why I capitalized it. But thanks for playing.

 

Lets not turn this thread into a Holy War, but if we do I’m on J.C’s and the Big G’s side.

Anyway you guys are right. Lexington is a weird set up. I flight Instruct for a company out of Mt. Sterling Kentucky and I’m in and out of there a lot. I can see how it can be confusing, I even got confused when I was going in and out of there a couple of times.

 

That is the powers that be waving their hand and saying "Watch the birdy! Watch the birdy! Don't look over at that mess we made in the Middle East, that's bad. War? What war? Our service men and women dieing in the desert? Thats crazy talk, no one wants to hear about that! Look over here! This guy who took steroids is EVIL. Look how mean and bad he is!" Your tax dollars at work folks.

Seriously though, I wasn't gonna say anything but I can't hold my tongue (or fingers?). There are a lot of "Holier than thou" attitudes here. I can't believe so many here who share the same profession feel like they are immune from ever making a mistake and are absolutely crucifying a fellow aviator. Did that crew mess up big time? Absolutely. But there are any number of minor mistakes that WE ALL make EVERY DAY that could have catastrophic consequences if not corrected. In this situation the crew made a mistake that left them in a position where they didn't have time to correct it. In my opinion, if you think you are above making mistakes then you are THE MOST dangerous person in aviation. If this guy can make it back into the cockpit as a competent and qualified aviator I, for one, will definitely be cheering for him.