If you have a car accident the insurance company raises your rates ,so if a carrier has an accident and it's found out that said carrier contributed to the accident through various actions than the rates schould go up .
Maybe I,m missing something on all of this .

Ally

 

Dynasty - does your company pay for your hotel room when you're in your domicile? Let's say you sit reserve and after your shift you want a hotel room instead of going to your house/crashpad... Would they pay for it? After all, the airlines assume you live in your domicile, it's up to you to actually live there or to commute... See my point? The crew room sleepers are often commuters who don't want or can't afford a crashpad.

 

First off I do not think flight 3407 was caused by fatigue. It was caused by a variety of problems. One of the biggest was a lack of cockpit discipline. They were talking during a phase of flight in which they should have been paying attention. Then, when faced with a stall warning, they responded with a panic response. Maybe they were fatigued and maybe they weren't but fatigue was not, in my opinion, the primary cause of this accident.

 

I consider this accident to be quite simple (although as usual, there was a 'chain' of events). Divinding it in two, the first question is how did they get to the loss of control and the second is what was done (or not done) to correct it.

Although sterile cockpit procedures were broken, my understanding is that from the time they began configuring for the approach to the activation of the stick shaker, there was relatively little if any violation of sterile cockpit (perhaps a couple of minutes before the shaker). It would seem to me to be a simple lapse of attention at a critical time (no one was truly the "PF" ((pilot flying"). Our beloved god Sully also broke sterile and from my observation jumpseating and flying, perhaps 80% of crews do. I think the first question of how they got there truly had little to do with 'sterile cockpit' in and of itself. Fatigue and illness seemed to play as much or more of role of this first question then sterile cockpit issues.

The second question is the problem, in that the recovery actions were opposite of what was required. That seems a aptitude/training/proficiency issue, but to what degree each on influenced this act may never be accurately determined. Maybe there was something that wasn't identified. Perhaps the captain moved his seat forward for the landing and it didn't latch and slid backwards when he rammed the power levers forward ?

The perfect sterile cockpit in my opinion will likely never be uniformly maintained regardless of this accident. Since then, I've observed no real changes there, yet I see crews not flying exactly to its letter, completely involved with the aircraft they're flying and their situational issues.

 

How many pilots would sacrifice their time off and commute a day early, even if they were given a free hotel room? I'm guessing "not many", especially if they have several trips per month.

 

I most certainly would. I would simply leave late in the day and get there at night. I wouldn't be giving up much at home since when I commute to work, I wind up leaving early and therefor going to bed early the night before anyway.

 

I see your point and I think Fred would agree with what your saying ,I,ll have him read this when he gets back.


Ally

 

I'm a commuter, and as such am concerned about potential commuting rules. I believe that it would actually be unconstitutional to impose such restrictions on people, because there is no guarantee that a pilot who lives in domicile would get any rest either. You would essentially have to require all pilots to report to company barracks 24 hours prior to duty for "supervised rest".

Also few other groups are required to live in any particular location, generally only military or law enforcement, who are essentially on call 24/7 or need to provide a physical presence in the community.

And I don't think the ATA/RAA is going to back any such rules either. Short-term it might not hurt them but they know that long-term they would have to pay people much more to actually live in high-cost areas. They would also lose the QOL crowd who want to live near mountains, beach, etc...those people tend to be willing to work for less to enable their lifestyle. take that away, and the airlines is just an crappy industry with low pay and no future. Might as well work at the ski lift and be home every night...

I have also asked several feds...sounds like the FAA does not think it is practical either mainly because their rule-making process cannot bleed over into non-aviation areas. Where you live and how you get to work has nothing to do with aviation, so it is beyond their jurisdiction. It would take an act of congress to do something like that.

Note that an employer CAN easily and legally require you to live within a certain distance and some do, for various reasons (most airlines don't for cost reasons). The legal issue come up when the GOVERNMENT attempts to do so. There are many, many safety-sensitive jobs other than pilots and if they don't treat them all the same way it would violate fair-and-equal protections of the constitution.

And I do think we will probably have another colgan-type accident. Whatever they to shut the barn door now will not correct the deficiencies and attitudes of all of those who have slipped into the system. If we have two or three more colgan accidents, the government will have to get draconian...new retroactive standards effective immediately, with a bloodbath of ATP revocations/suspensions.

 

I agree. For the most part, my commute goes smoothly and Im the most tired commuting home, rather than going to work. What all the "industry people" and regulators are not realizing is that this is a money issue, plain and simple. As commuters we do not choose to avoid hotels just to be stingy, we simply can't afford it. If we made a decent wage, Im quite sure getting a hotel room on our own dime wouldn't be an issue. But our pay cannot be regulated, lest we decide to re-regulate aviation, and mgt certainly won't pay us more out of the goodness of their hearts. So here we are.

 

AV8OR,
I've worked for two companies that paid for hotels in your domicile and bought tickets from the house to work and back. I've argued with the company about why I had to ride a certain flight to work. "We need to put you in a hotel before you start." "But I'm only going to be on duty for four hours with flights here to there every hour." (Was giving a line check.) "Doesn't matter, get on the flight and go to the hotel." Pilots would call travel at the end of their line and say they want a later flight before they go home so they could hit the hotel after they were done and sleep before they got home - no screaming kids and stuff.

One company added the cost of the hotel and tickets to your income so you were taxed on them, one had a letter that said they did it for the company's convenience. The secret was to bid trips that didn't start in your domicile.