A comment on duty/flight time violations...
A 121 operator may be in the position of becoming aware of FAR violations conducted by it's own organization. The FAA does not want the operator to cover these up so there exists a "Self Disclosure" policy...basically if an airline self discloses occasional violations to the FAA, the FAA will not assess the usual $10K+ fine. Obviously this is not carte-blanche to committ numerous, repetitive violations but it does allow the comapny to get off the hook financially if they catch something before the feds see it.
As to how this applies to pilots...some companies that don't want or cannot afford a delay or canx will pressure crews to break duty time regs. If possible the company will doctor the records to make this look legal. OK, so let's say the crew goes for it...well now you may have various records (pilot logbooks, airplane logbooks, ACARS, computer) that may not agree. If the company supervisor thinks that the feds may catch it on an audit (and fine the comapny $$$) he will "self-disclose" this blatant violation comitted by the pilots. Of course the pilots can't imagine that the company would WANT to rat them out, so they have not submitted a NASA form and are oblivious until they get the letter of investigation from the feds!
As astounding as this sounds, this happens every week somewhere. Since crew schedulers and their managers are not FAA licensed, there are no repurcussions on them. The best quality regionals probably won't do this, but the sh*tty ones certainly will.
NEVER get pressured into duty time violations. YOUR logbook ALWAYS prevails over the company computer, and if necessary you should be able to support your version by pulling the aircraft hard-copy logs, which should match your own logs. Also you can call the other pilot...his log should match yours. If push comes to shove the company can only falsify the computer, but there will be several other hardcopy records to fall back on.
03-13-2021
AIRLINE
