250 or point 65

There have been countless threads about the Colgan crash started on pay, rest, fatigue, management compensation, training, primary training, etc. Everyone seems to be looking for the reason this went down. It seems that there is an urge to evaluate every single little factor and blow it way out of proportion. Yes, there is a chance that the barista at the Starbucks at EWR made the coffee a little weaker than Starbucks standards and the crew got slightly less caffene that normal. I think that as a community, we are missing the BIG picture.

It is OK to say the crew made multiple mistakes.

It is not disrespectful to the memories of the crew to say that they screwed up if that's what really happened. It IS disrespectful to all of our future passengers if we do not recognize this and learn from it.

We should focus on the last links of the error chain first.

As we have seen, there were many many links that ended up with the final result. There has been so much focus on the years (contract negotiations), months (recurrent training), days (rest and fatigue), and hours (chatting in sterile) leading up to the crash. There seems to be virtually no one talking about the moments before the crash.

Lets call a spade a spade.

Pending new information that Bombardier published the wrong approach speeds or Colgan's MX missed a deice system inspection, this seems pretty cut and dry. The crew seems to have made multiple mistakes in the final minutes. They were chatting in a super critical phase of flight (it was not just and approach, it was a night, IMC, icing approach). They let the aircraft get way too slow. They pulled up at the stick shaker. They raised the flaps too early in the stall recovery. They did not apply full power quick enough.

The other factors seem minimal compared to the major mistakes.

Ok, so they may have been a little tired, but both had days off prior to the flight. None of us can say that every single day we show up for work we are 100% fully rested and ready. Sometime's its schedulings fault, sometimes its ours. However, when it comes down to it, if we are in icing, at night, around mountains, in a situation that we may be unfamiliar with, most of us are at a hightened awareness. We are crossing our I's and dotting our T's and being super vigilant. We get adrenaline and wake up. We are super focused for 10 minutes to shoot the approach.

Lets focus on elementary reasons for elementary mistakes.

Why were they still chatting when they REALLY should have been paying attention? Did the captain have a Macho attitude? Really. I understand that this is flying 101, but he pulled up at the onset of a stall. That's flying 101 stuff.

Did the first officer not understand the DECIDE acronym. She chose to put the flaps up uncommanded. Did she really take second to decide if that was a good course of action?

What can we take away from this accident from a CRM perspective? It seems that although the Captain was not overbearing in a Skygod sense, he was in a conversational sense. He cut her off many times during normal conversation. Did this contribute to her not wanting to mention that they were getting slow? Was he so overbearing in conversation that he couldn't perform his own PF duties?



Maybe I'm a jerk for bringing this up, but it just seems like we are all dancing around what really happened here. Everyone in our community, the media, and congress seems to be using this to be championing a cause that is remotely related to what actually happened here. Am I the only one?

pokey9554

You're not a jerk at all. I agree with you 100%, however, many also see this as a catalyst to bring reward back to the profession.

Jeffdh17

It seems mistakes were made. It's just not possible to mitigate every possible risk. It was an unfortunate accident.

The media is in a bit of a frenzy over rest and pay issues.

seafeye

We all know they made mistakes. The question is: Why did they make the mistakes? And how can they be prevented in the future? And of course all the lawyers want to know is who can be held responsible? And did the airline industry aid the crash with our working conditions? The million dollar question is would 50 people be alive today if colgan paid more to hire better qualified people? I understand your spade is a spade but Management's greed is partly responsible. IMO

IFlyForFood

Excellent post, 250, I couldn't agree more with you...and written so well!! I was in a crew room yesterday as the insane media coverage went on and on about the actions of the flight crew. As it was on the news, the few crew in the room started stating their humble opinions....and to my surprise, someone motions over to someone else hands waving the "zip it up" motion (not being rude but I believe someone was in the room that REALLY knew the pilot(s) or where somehow related to one.)

The CVR transcripts were pretty compelling, and that's the point we were all making/discussing. NO disrespect to the flight crew at all, but call a spade a spade. Although I feel a number of things resulted in the outcome, perhaps had both pilots not been so chatty-kathy, the outcome MAY have been very different, but we'll never know.

jayray

I read through all the NTSB documents, I see no evidence that chatting below 10,000 feet played any role in this crash. The talking stopped well before anything started to go wrong, when the talking stopped everything was fine and remained fine minutes after. There is not a crew on earth that hasn't at one time or another said something that didn't need to be said below 10,000.

AirWillie

So what? Even if there happened to be wild outrage with ordinary citizens rushing the capital with pitchforks about low regional pay.. the ntsb strongly recommending doing something about the pay and qol. How or who would actually implement change to what company? Our life is basically union mandated, it would mean you'd have to change CBAs. Nothing positive will come of this, the FAA in an effort to look like they're on the edge of things will actually make our life more difficult as a result.

250 or point 65

Yes, CEO pay and rest issues played a small part, but I think the focus for we pilots should be on the if/then statements.

You can't say: If Colgan's CEO was paid less, then this wouldn't have happened.

Although impossible to quantify, what's the chance that if the pilots had been paid $12 more per hour that this would not have happened?

What's the chance that if the Captain had taken charge of CRM he would have mentioned to be vigilant?

What's the chance that if they had taken a moment to stop conversation that they would have caught the airspeed dwindling?

What's the chance that if they had caught the airspeed bleeding that they wouldn't have gotten the shaker?

What's the chance that if they hadn't of pulled up at the shaker, the airplane wouldn't have stalled?

What's the chance that if the FO did not raise the flaps, the stall wouldn't have been aggravated?

There's a very defined error chain here that we can all learn from. Things that led to the start of the error chain are factors, but not as important to what really happened.

250 or point 65

Yes, we all chat below 10,000 but most of us zip it when it becomes evident that we are no longer able to both chat and do our jobs. Every cockpit I've ever been in gets much quieter when going through storms, ice, mountainous areas, snow, etc.

Ever notice that people turn down their radios in their car when looking for a house address?

bryris

Agreed. A commuter crew crashing and killing 50 pax will not result in better working conditions. Changes might be implemented, but it will be to the detriment of crews (i.e. no commuting, or must show up on base and report 12 hours prior to push, longer overnights, etc)