Sad to see this argument. As a pilot now retired for AA I used to fly into CCS and always enjoyed our layovers. This money problem with the V govt. reminds me of when, in a previous life, I flew for Braniff. The Argentine govt. wouldn't let Braniff take money out, so Braniff bought a huge amount of leather and made seats for our planes from it.

(Written on 2014年 06月 25日)(Permalink)

Can you say "10 knot tailwind maximum. We're going to Rifle"? In our 135 operation we require either specific simulator training for Aspen, or an entry with an experienced Captain.

(Written on 2014年 01月 14日)(Permalink)

Too true. I think growing up flying small planes and learning the aviation thought pattern through having to manually fly and navigate, plus the opportunity to scare yourself in small planes, is invaluable. I've heard that because of the military situation in Korea it's very difficult to do any private flying, thus it's possible the Asiana pilots never came up via that small plane route. There is a movement in the world to put people into the airline industry ab initio and teach them large aircraft/multi-crew methods from the start. I don't like that idea.

(Written on 2014年 01月 06日)(Permalink)

Indeed, the auto pilot was off, however the crew didn't know it. On that plane bumping the wheel will disconnect the A/P and apparently that was what happened. The "A/P disconnected" warning was a muted affair in those days.

(Written on 2014年 01月 05日)(Permalink)

It's come a long way since I worked a staff job in the People Express dispatch/systems control center. The automation is amazing. We probably had 22 people or so per shift and handled a fraction of the flights per person that the newer systems do. We piggy backed on the Continental flight planning system with a not-very-user-friendly backup system. The tertiary backup was to pull yesterdays flight plan out of the file.

(Written on 2013年 12月 01日)(Permalink)

I think I would have diverted to Gander. Long runways, and they are used to dealing with that kind of problem. At the time you just don't know why the engine failed. And what about the next one? Did the same mechanic work on all the engines?

(Written on 2013年 11月 19日)(Permalink)

Many years ago an Eastern Airlines L1011 departed for a very short flight between Miami and Nassau (don't remember which direction) and in succession two of the engines failed due to oil starvation. Turned out the mechanic didn't use a required o-ring when he changed the oil. So… why did the A380 engine fail? Would another? From Emirate's standpoint can you imagine how much fuel they'd have to dump to get down to landing weight? (Assuming A380's can dump fuel… otherwise a massively overweight land back at JFK).

(Written on 2013年 11月 19日)(Permalink)

1978, United Airlines, Portland OR: http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2008569503_webaccident29m.html The Captain held so long trying to burn off fuel in anticipation of a landing gear problem on landing that he ran out of fuel. The F/O and F/E had mentioned the fuel state but were ignored. This accident is considered the "father of CRM" training.

(Written on 2013年 10月 19日)(Permalink)

The right engine had a cracked fitting which allowed engine oil to enter the A/C system. Luckily the event occurred in good weather, daylight, and close to the intended destination. The caper wouldn't have been as much fun had it happened at altitude and at night when we might have been halfway across the Atlantic. The engine was changed by a SWAT team and we flew the plane back home a week later.

(Written on 2013年 10月 19日)(Permalink)

Consider the SwissAir MD-11 that crashed off Newfoundland. They had smoke in the cabin and in the cockpit overhead from a fire apparently caused by a failed entertainment system. They delayed their emergency landing to dump fuel down to the maximum authorized landing weight... and the plane became unflyable in the meantime. Too much following procedures didn't help there. One day I was flying a Falcon 2000EX into Eagle (EGE), Colorado when the cabin went IFR in blue smoke. The book procedure would have been to successively turned off each A/C pack in turn to determine which one was putting out bad air. That would be a fine procedure if you have no place to go quickly, but in our case we were on a five minute final for the runway, so we simply turned off both packs. Although not the approved checklist procedure it was appropriate given the circumstances. Sometimes ya gotta do whatcha gotta do.

(Written on 2013年 10月 19日)(Permalink)