Ouch...., haha!!!!!!

 

While there have been several RJ incidents recently there does not seem to be any real pattern. I can think of accidents involving the majors as well. 737 off runway in CMH, US Air in the Hudson, CAL burning in DEN, SWA in Chicago, AMR loosing a couple engines on the MDs (and by that I mean the engine separated), Quantas having a few rather large holes blown out of the side of their aircraft, BA having a 777 fall short of the runway, 757 landing on taxiway in EWR, Frontier guys falling asleep, NWA guys getting arrested for drinking, DAL having an engine come apart on TO roll(just a recent event that's all), etc.

These are all off the top of my head. Anyone that says it's happening at he regionals more isn't paying attention. I've yet to see anything that points to any anomaly in the safety records. Everything seems to be spread out pretty evenly to me.

 

So, any word on what happened?

 

What is going on, the major accidents as well as these minor ones, mesaba, asa, etc? All the 1000 hour CAs are downgraded and the IOE FOs are all furloughed this shouldn't be happening...

 

I hope everyone can agree that regionals are having more accidents at least in part because rapid growth and diminished pay has resulted in lower hiring standards for pilots. Not saying this is specifically true of any specific pilot who has had an accident/incident, but as a generalization. Maybe these events will help the flying public/mgnt realize that lives are literally in our hands every time we go to work and that to attract the best pilots you have to pay them what they are worth.

 

I think anyone in a rj now has enough time in it to be safe, and regardless, if you pay me $1 an hour or $100 an hour, I am going to do my job and be safe.

 

The public knows we're paid crap. There's a big difference between what someone knows vs. what someone wants to believe. There have been numerous articles and news stories on the wages in the regional industry. Heck, we had Sullenberger make the same statement on live national news in front of Congress and still - nothing. People just block this stuff out. If anything interrupts there little "$49 each-way utopia" then they don't want to know about it.

And you can be rest assured management doesn't care either. The airlines and executives are insured for any kind of accident, regardless of the level of negligence, and have golden parachutes if all else fails. So why WOULDN'T they continue to do business as usual? Because the FAA might give them a slap on the wrist or a little fine for pushing it?

 

As much as I'd love to agree with that, I don't think there's enough evidence to support the case. Yet.... You'll find plenty of high-time people at major airlines operate like barnstormers.

My big problem is the maturity level of a lot of these boneheads, of all age groups, that get hired on. It's embarressing how many morons can upgrade or get hired into this biz at all.

*edit*

And by the way, these comments are not intended to be aimed at the ASA crew that went off the runway. Bad things happen to great pilots all the time and none of us are immune.

 

Long duty days and reduced rest, sure, but I don't think you can say it's due to lower quality pilots. At least not unless you can prove that some of these guys had had trouble in training or something like that, which I doubt you would find.

 

Actually, if you pay me $1 I am going to do my job and be safe as possible while worrying about where am I going to cut 99 dollars out of my household budget...