SkyWest plane makes emergency landing at Provo airport

jtrain609 said:
Single engine operations sound dramatic, but if the engine is shut down and secured, with the prop feathered and nothing on fire, then it's a comparatively sublime event. Prop overspeed? That's a different story. Engine on fire? Get on the ground! But a secured, feathered engine? That could be a hard sell in the "divert anywhere" game.
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...I'm out.

I'd love to see this CRM conversation go down in the cockpit.
 
jtrain609 said:
I think it's another variable that needs to be considered.

You can think whatever you want, you worked there, not me.

EDIT: I'd also like to use this as an opportunity to highlight something; if any of us think safety is the only thing that ever has to be considered when making these kinds of decisions, we're being naive. If you're on fire, you can pull the safety card and it will be nearly impossible to second guess it. Fuel leak? You may be able to do the same. But when you have one fully functional engine still turning, putting an airplane down on any runway you feel like may not be the best decision. Now on the other hand, maybe it is. But let's not delude ourselves into thinking that this is the worst emergency possible, necessitating an immediate diversion to the closest airport possible.

Single engine operations sound dramatic, but if the engine is shut down and secured, with the prop feathered and nothing on fire, then it's a comparatively sublime event. Prop overspeed? That's a different story. Engine on fire? Get on the ground! But a secured, feathered engine? That could be a hard sell in the "divert anywhere" game.
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Here's the problem though: If I were king, I wouldn't want my pilots worrying about having to juggle whether or not to do something in an emergency where it may be inconvenient for maintenance, or operationally, etc.

What you wrote above might apply if this crew had diverted to a 2000' grass strip with this emergency. Or otherwise attempted to land at an airport where doing so would've been more unsafe than not doing so. However in this case, they found a suitable piece of concrete and placed the aircraft down safely.

One thing you try to avoid doing in an emergency, is keep a sick airplane airborne for longer than absolutely necessary. In this case, I'd rate what they had at least a "land as soon as practical" emergency. However if pushed, this could easily turn into a "land as soon as possible" emergency when it never needed to go that far. Continuing to roll the dice when you've been winning hands so far is very likely to get you into a square corner you may not be able to get out of when your dice start coming up snakeyes. The second engine in an engine-out scenario is to get you to a suitable landing point. For an EMB-120, Provo was suitable. For a Boeing 777, it wouldn't have been. The crew made a command decision based on an emergency, executed a precautionary landing, and succeeded with no injuries; union politics be damned.

That right there is the end of the story.
 
jtrain609 said:
But when you have one fully functional engine still turning, putting an airplane down on any runway you feel like may not be the best decision. Now on the other hand, maybe it is. But let's not delude ourselves into thinking that this is the worst emergency possible, necessitating an immediate diversion to the closest airport possible.

Single engine operations sound dramatic, but if the engine is shut down and secured, with the prop feathered and nothing on fire, then it's a comparatively sublime event. Prop overspeed? That's a different story. Engine on fire? Get on the ground! But a secured, feathered engine? That could be a hard sell in the "divert anywhere" game.
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:rolleyes:

Sorry, but I think that you're showing a bit of inexperience here. If procedures call for a diversion to the nearest suitable airport, you figure it out and go there, no matter where it is. Obviously you take runway lengths, weather, and approaches available into account, but if your procedures require you to land at the nearest suitable airport and you fly over one you *must* have a good explanation for it...whether or not you have a union, the feds *will* investigate your reasoning.

To re-quote the most experienced person on this website:
Like Dale, If I have an airport in my sights and it will accommodate my aircraft, I am landing there. The what-ifs of going elsewhere are just too great in my mind.
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And btw, if anyone wants to play the management political card about this one; this one is completely in managements best interest to uphold; what with the state of safety in the regionals and the bad press the regional industry has gotten lately.

Great way for a company like Skywest to showcase the highly trained and professional crews they have, for this didn't end up like 3407. To the flying public who doesn't care about the background of either of the stories (this incident or 3407....all they know is one crashed and one didn't, and one had a reportedly undertrained crew and this one didn't), only whats on the cover, they'd see this as a good thing IMHO.
 
MikeD said:
Great way for a company like Skywest to showcase the highly trained and professional crews they have, for this didn't end up like 3407. To the flying public who doesn't care about the background of either of the stories (this incident or 3407....all they know is one crashed and one didn't, and one had a reportedly undertrained crew and this one didn't), only whats on the cover, they'd see this as a good thing IMHO.
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IDK...they're probably all mad because they missed their connections. :rolleyes:

Isn't that why these small planes have two fans?
 
I think they did well. I know I would be tempted to go back to SLC for convenience.

Where did this notion come from that they were over provo? I'm not a math whiz but flying for 22 minutes should have taken them further that 35 miles.
 
Bumblebee said:
I'm finished...I don't have anything to add.
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Just for the record Dale thank you for your input... I haven't sat in the left seat where I work yet and I am not saying that diverting to Provo wasn't the right choice as again, I haven't been forced to make those difficult decisions. Your input/opinions are always welcome because they are very rational and lucid. Thank you once again.
 
MikeD said:
Here's the problem though: If I were king, I wouldn't want my pilots worrying about having to juggle whether or not to do something in an emergency where it may be inconvenient for maintenance, or operationally, etc.

What you wrote above might apply if this crew had diverted to a 2000' grass strip with this emergency. Or otherwise attempted to land at an airport where doing so would've been more unsafe than not doing so. However in this case, they found a suitable piece of concrete and placed the aircraft down safely.

One thing you try to avoid doing in an emergency, is keep a sick airplane airborne for longer than absolutely necessary. In this case, I'd rate what they had at least a "land as soon as practical" emergency. However if pushed, this could easily turn into a "land as soon as possible" emergency when it never needed to go that far. Continuing to roll the dice when you've been winning hands so far is very likely to get you into a square corner you may not be able to get out of when your dice start coming up snakeyes. The second engine in an engine-out scenario is to get you to a suitable landing point. For an EMB-120, Provo was suitable. For a Boeing 777, it wouldn't have been. The crew made a command decision based on an emergency, executed a precautionary landing, and succeeded with no injuries; union politics be damned.

That right there is the end of the story.
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I'm not saying you're wrong, Mike.

I'm saying that this is more nuanced than meets the eyes, and to ignore that nuance shows a lack of understanding of the complexity of the issues.

You haven't done that, nor has Dale, nor has calcapt, but some people want to boil this down into the "PIC IS GOD" argument, which is fine and all, but I think a little overboard for an issue like this.

Quite frankly, you bring up good points, and your points are all valid. I also think that if the engine was secured and feathered with no indication that anything else was going wrong (I don't know if this is the case), then landing at an airport that has no airline service at all, that is 36nm short of your companies largest hub, might not end up with desirable results for the crew. Now is it a BAD result? I don't really know. Is it really that hard to have Skywest truck a few mechanics and possibly and engine down to Provo? No, probably not.

That's all I'm saying. Not that the crew SHOULDN'T have diverted to Provo, but that there are lots of other things to consider here. Instead of blindly supporting, or blindly throwing the pilots under the bus, I think it would behove us, as a community of pilots, to look at things a little bit closer. We all like to be patted on the back, and some folks love to yell and scream and create drama, but neither of those actions help us when it comes to a decision making process.

And again, don't get me wrong, there ARE emergencies that REQUIRE the plane get on the ground right now, but not EVERY emergency is going to result in that. This may OR MAY NOT have been one of those emergencies, and without a lot more information, we don't know whether it was, but let's at least be open to discussion on that issue. Maybe they were heavy as hell, and were drifting down, and would have flown to Salt Lake at 2,000' AGL for the last 36 miles? Then diverting to Provo is a great idea. Maybe they did a circle to land over Provo for 17,000'? Then diverting to Provo might not be a great idea.

Let's also be clear that I don't think anybody has recommended taking away the ability of a captain to make a decision and follow through with it, but let's be clear that if that decision was not substantiated by the facts surrounding what was going on, then the captain may find himself in a world of crap really quickly. Skywest has, as I think we're aware and Omar/Todd will inform us, fired pilots for much less.
 
After conversing with mikecweb about this, I think it's pretty clear what happened.

"That track looks like they were like, "GTFO! The engine failed? CRAP! I really wanted to go eat some In and Out in Saint George, let's go back to Salt Lake"

*20 minutes later at the first right turn*

"ZOMG WTF HAPPENED LET'S GO TO PROVO!"

*while over Provo*

"Maybe it's cool, we can make it to SLC"

*something else goes wrong*

"ZOMG CRAP! LAND HERE! LAND HERE!"
 
jtrain609 said:
"That track looks like they were like, "GTFO! The engine failed? CRAP! I really wanted to go eat some In and Out in Saint George, let's go back to Salt Lake"
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GAH. I'm in SGU and was on the fence about getting some INO. Done deal now. Thanks J.
 
jtrain609 said:
Quite frankly, you bring up good points, and your points are all valid. I also think that if the engine was secured and feathered with no indication that anything else was going wrong (I don't know if this is the case), then landing at an airport that has no airline service at all, that is 36nm short of your companies largest hub, might not end up with desirable results for the crew.
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They'll be fine, the company won't bat an eye. I've diverted to Ogden (without even declaring an emergency) and all the manager on duty said was "well, at least you're not in [some little airport out in BFE that I've never heard of]."

jtrain609 said:
That's all I'm saying. Not that the crew SHOULDN'T have diverted to Provo, but that there are lots of other things to consider here. Instead of blindly supporting, or blindly throwing the pilots under the bus, I think it would behove us, as a community of pilots, to look at things a little bit closer. We all like to be patted on the back, and some folks love to yell and scream and create drama, but neither of those actions help us when it comes to a decision making process.

And again, don't get me wrong, there ARE emergencies that REQUIRE the plane get on the ground right now, but not EVERY emergency is going to result in that. This may OR MAY NOT have been one of those emergencies, and without a lot more information, we don't know whether it was, but let's at least be open to discussion on that issue. Maybe they were heavy as hell, and were drifting down, and would have flown to Salt Lake at 2,000' AGL for the last 36 miles? Then diverting to Provo is a great idea. Maybe they did a circle to land over Provo for 17,000'? Then diverting to Provo might not be a great idea.
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Think of it this way. Engine failure, secured or not it doesn't matter. FAA says land at the nearest suitable airport (Provo in this case). If you don't do that, they WILL take your certificates. There's no gray area, no "well maybe the company won't like it." You can argue "suitable" all you want, but frankly the secured engine goes against you here. If the runway is long enough, the airport is suitable, and the FAA will destroy you if you didn't land there.

jtrain609 said:
let's be clear that if that decision was not substantiated by the facts surrounding what was going on, then the captain may find himself in a world of crap really quickly. Skywest has, as I think we're aware and Omar/Todd will inform us, fired pilots for much less.
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You have no idea what you're talking about, you should really stop writing about it.
 
Ralgha said:
They'll be fine, the company won't bat an eye. I've diverted to Ogden (without even declaring an emergency) and all the manager on duty said was "well, at least you're not in [some little airport out in BFE that I've never heard of]."



Think of it this way. Engine failure, secured or not it doesn't matter. FAA says land at the nearest suitable airport (Provo in this case). If you don't do that, they WILL take your certificates. There's no gray area, no "well maybe the company won't like it." You can argue "suitable" all you want, but frankly the secured engine goes against you here. If the runway is long enough, the airport is suitable, and the FAA will destroy you if you didn't land there.
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EDIT: Sorry, forgot to add this; if you're right, then this crew is going to be hung out to dry anyway, as it's obvious from the radar track that they were headed straight back to Salt Lake City after this happened. With that, I don't think you're right.



You have no idea what you're talking about, you should really stop writing about it.
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http://employmentlawgroupblog.com/wp-content/douglas-v-skywest-airlines.pdf
 
The airline doesn't issue my certificates.

If they fire me because I landed at the nearest suitable airport, then so be it.

If they fire me because the FAA takes my certificates away for "careless and wreckless" because I chose to go to the hub instead of an immediate divert to nearest suitable... then, I've got bigger problems.

John, hate to pee in your Cheerios buddy, but my certificates are much more important to me than my job. I will do the safest, most prudent thing that protects myself, my passengers, and my certificates. Then... the company.
 
cencal83406 said:
The airline doesn't issue my certificates.

If they fire me because I landed at the nearest suitable airport, then so be it.

If they fire me because the FAA takes my certificates away for "careless and wreckless" because I chose to go to the hub instead of an immediate divert to nearest suitable... then, I've got bigger problems.

John, hate to pee in your Cheerios buddy, but my certificates are much more important to me than my job. I will do the safest, most prudent thing that protects myself, my passengers, and my certificates. Then... the company.
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Who peed in anything? Can we not disagree on things anymore? Or has the gun show around here gotten so bad that disagreement requires the destruction of the person that disagrees with you?
 
jtrain609 said:
Who peed in anything? Can we not disagree on things anymore? Or has the gun show around here gotten so bad that disagreement requires the destruction of the person that disagrees with you?
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Here's the thing - I'm not disagreeing with you.

I'm telling you that you are WRONG. Incorrect. Factually mistaken. Your thoughts are misplaced.

It's easy: the certificates are issued by the FAA. My priority is to maintain my certificates, the job comes second.

If you're fired from a company for making a good decision, you probably didn't want to work there in the first place.

Being more concerned about being fired than losing your certificates - you've already lost the war.
 
cencal83406 said:
Here's the thing - I'm not disagreeing with you.

I'm telling you that you are WRONG. Incorrect. Factually mistaken. Your thoughts are misplaced.

It's easy: the certificates are issued by the FAA. My priority is to maintain my certificates, the job comes second.

If you're fired from a company for making a good decision, you probably didn't want to work there in the first place.

Being more concerned about being fired than losing your certificates - you've already lost the war.
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I think what you're saying hinges on a lot of things you're not addressing, like what your FOM says, what your POI's view on the issue is, etc. etc.
 
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