AirWillie

What do you mean? Marvin said he was ready. The company said he was ready. The FAA said he was ready. Usually people that should not be flying don't make it past an airline check ride or even the training. If he managed to pass CA training, he was ready. You are saying he became a CA for the money with little thought about his responsibilities, I sincerely doubt that.

kalyx522

cruise beat me to it, but yeah. apparently the union cant do anything for us until we have a grievance policy set up. how do you think the company's been able to fire/suspend all those dozens of guys in the recent months? if your captain doesnt like you and decides to call up the chief pilot about it, and he fires you, there is nothing that alpa can do for you.
i called in sick a month after the crash, they STILL pulled that crap where they transfer you over to the chief pilot, and asked me for a doc's note within 24 hrs.

i agree with you, when it comes down to it, they were two people who screwed up. but at the same time, it just isn't BLACK AND WHITE. yes, if they had performed the simple act of looking at the airspeed indicator this would've never happened. it is as simple as that. yet, none of us are robots. things happen, which affect us, cause us to be distracted and make mistakes/poor decisions that ultimately become accidents. if you dont even examine every link in the chain of events, how would you prevent the same accident from happening again?
obviously in our jobs we should never be complacent, but as long as we're human beings and not robots, it's never going to be as simple as being told, "just dont be complacent."

I think Rebecca was actually pretty mild in their taxi conversation.. if they were to go anyway, I wish they would've talked in more detail all the shenanigans we have to deal with and the shady perps in mgmt.

Jetstream 823JS

Yes, they screwed up, because they were fatigued and sick. Though why they were tired may very well have been their own fault.

I believe there are no limits to the stupid mistakes that the human animal can make when fatigued.

I'll take an intoxicated pilot over a fatigued pilot any day of the week.

brewpilot

You have no idea, I know what it is like to be afraid of calling in sick. I have already had stuff happen to me with that.

ExperimentalAB

Please...meeting the minimums doesn't mean you're fully ready for the responsibility. You should know better than that. Aren't you the same guy who complained about hand-flying on your dead-heads? The minimums don't say much about those skills, yet you attacked THEM. What's up?

CaptainTeezy

This is 100% correct...

The Capt was never tasked with being a real PIC at the basic levels. For example no real amount of VFR 91 Single pilot PIC such as traffic watch, no CFIing for a significant amount of time, and no 135 single pilot IFR.

And then he is all of a sudden expected to be a PIC because he has been babysat by a PIC for 2 years??? You cant emulate PIC leadership just by sitting next to someone else doing it. You have to get experience that should take place at much lower levels rather than the very first PIC responsibility on a 75 seat aircraft. If he would have been an experienced CFI I am 95% sure this would have never happened...How many times as a CFI do you tell your students to stop getting low and slow on final?

If he would have been a 135 single pilot IFR pilot I am 99.999999% sure this would have never happened.

But seniority is what it's all about and prior experience means nothing at the airlines...hopefully there wont be more crashes due to inexperience crews, but I fear that this will not be the last.

The FO was just irresponsible with her rest and commute practices. But being sick...I have flown sick and tired and let me tell you...I have never come close to letting the plane get sooo slow that it is about to stall, and more attention is paid when the flaps are going down.

When I watched the computer simlulator based on the black box data...this crash was pathetic and devastatingly obvious that people need to focus on getting more PIC experience before going to the airlines.

bryris

Yet the regionals are full of these types. We can Monday morning quarterback all day, but folks fitting Renslow's qualifications fill lefts seats all over the United States (and World) and seem to get the job done in the VAST majority of cases.

I am not looking to debate the mertis of experience. However from a scientific viewpoint, we seek to determine the one variable that can bring about the result, all others held constant. Lack of experience doesn't invariably lead to this result everytime. Therefore, it must be the wrong "why".

Even seasoned doctors mess up surgeries from time to time. How do you ensure 100% perfect results everytime? Is this possible within reasonable means? You can smash everyone down with more and more rules and regulations to try to solve a problem that occurs one in a million (I'd say even less) instances. But is the industry better or worse off after such implementations?

ExperimentalAB

Absolutely, but that is a direct result of the incredibly safe air transport SYSTEM that literally spoon-feeds us everything, making it next to impossible to kill ourselves. Try PIC Part 91 and you'll see it is a whole different animal...

The Juice

In our job getting the job done in the "vast majority" is failing, wouldn't you agree?

The Juice

I have never had any issues calling in sick at Colgan, personally.

What kind of stuff has happened to you with calling in sick?