Silver Airways Saab Lands At Wrong Airport

UAL747400 said:
Yeah, you're right about this. Frankly, I was getting frustrated. Quite the contrary, I am curious to see how this happened actually. Identifying the wrong airport, lining up to the wrong runway(I have done this) or a parallel taxi way(hmm, white lights vs blue lights... o_O), these are mistakes, an "oops" if you will. Actually touching pavement where you're not supposed to be is leaving me scratching my head and is by no means an "oops" anymore to me.
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I don't disagree that it shouldn't have happened. But it DID. So the questions "why" must be investigated, lapse in training, fatigue, poor SA, etc..... Mistakes happen, it should be our goal as pilots to find out why in an attempt to prevent these incidents in the future.
 
I can not grasp how anyone can argue that nothing should happen to these guys. I get that mistakes happen, but without the fear of consequences, people get complacent. I saw it and experienced in my time at Pinnacle. Now I don't necessarily think they should be fired, but they should at least end up with something on their record.

Now I am honestly curious at which point some of you would say these guys should see something worse than retraining.

Scenario 1 is exactly what happened. Plane lands at the wrong airport and everyone is safe.

Scenario 2 involves a shorter runway. Let's say the plane went off the end because they couldn't stop in time. No passengers injured and no damage to the aircraft, but the plane ended up in the dirt.

Scenario 3 is similar to 2, but the plane sustains damage while all passengers and crew walk away.

Scenario 4 everyone on board dies except the pilots.

All of these are caused by the exact same thing. Two pilots landed at the wrong airport. This incident ended well because the runway was barely long enough, but could have just as easily ended with a bunch of people not going home to their families. At what point should a person finally be held accountable for their actions?
 
UAL747400 said:
Yeah, you're right about this. Frankly, I was getting frustrated. Quite the contrary, I am curious to see how this happened actually. Identifying the wrong airport, lining up to the wrong runway(I have done this) or a parallel taxi way(hmm, white lights vs blue lights... o_O), these are mistakes, an "oops" if you will. Actually touching pavement where you're not supposed to be is leaving me scratching my head and is by no means an "oops" anymore to me.
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That's the important part, the why and the how. After an investigation, learning why something happened and preventing it in the future is the most important thing.
 
SrFnFly227 said:
I can not grasp how anyone can argue that nothing should happen to these guys. I get that mistakes happen, but without the fear of consequences, people get complacent. I saw it and experienced in my time at Pinnacle. Now I don't necessarily think they should be fired, but they should at least end up with something on their record.

Now I am honestly curious at which point some of you would say these guys should see something worse than retraining.

Scenario 1 is exactly what happened. Plane lands at the wrong airport and everyone is safe.

Scenario 2 involves a shorter runway. Let's say the plane went off the end because they couldn't stop in time. No passengers injured and no damage to the aircraft, but the plane ended up in the dirt.

Scenario 3 is similar to 2, but the plane sustains damage while all passengers and crew walk away.

Scenario 4 everyone on board dies except the pilots.

All of these are caused by the exact same thing. Two pilots landed at the wrong airport. This incident ended well because the runway was barely long enough, but could have just as easily ended with a bunch of people not going home to their families. At what point should a person finally be held accountable for their actions?
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You could apply all those scenarios to just about anything we do on a daily basis. Bust altitude, miss a heading, too fast, too slow, wrong route, etc.

The point here isn't that nothing should happen, it's that nothing immediate should happen and the calls for their jobs and their heads is premature and against any good safety culture. Having consequences doesn't keep people from being complacent, it keeps people from being open and honest about mistakes or even procedure problems that could lead to mistakes (for fear of said consequences).


All things being equal, who is the better "pilot" over a long period of time. The one who flies for a company where a mistake gets you fired or suspended immediately, or the pilot who flies for a company that REALLY encourages open exchange of mistakes and procedurals errors with no fault assigned?

I can see the argument coming that most pilots would abuse the second scenario and fly off like cowboys and do stupid crap. No doubt there are people like that who take the proverbial inch and go to Mars. For the most part, folks that have done this job for a few years figure out real quick that there is a right and wrong way to do things and the right way is often easier to do and requires less paperwork.

I'm more worried about the type of pilot who needs the constant threat of disciplinary action to do the right thing, than I am about a crew who lands at the wrong airport.
 
SrFnFly227 said:
I can not grasp how anyone can argue that nothing should happen to these guys. I get that mistakes happen, but without the fear of consequences, people get complacent. I saw it and experienced in my time at Pinnacle. Now I don't necessarily think they should be fired, but they should at least end up with something on their record.

Now I am honestly curious at which point some of you would say these guys should see something worse than retraining.

Scenario 1 is exactly what happened. Plane lands at the wrong airport and everyone is safe.

Scenario 2 involves a shorter runway. Let's say the plane went off the end because they couldn't stop in time. No passengers injured and no damage to the aircraft, but the plane ended up in the dirt.

Scenario 3 is similar to 2, but the plane sustains damage while all passengers and crew walk away.

Scenario 4 everyone on board dies except the pilots.

All of these are caused by the exact same thing. Two pilots landed at the wrong airport. This incident ended well because the runway was barely long enough, but could have just as easily ended with a bunch of people not going home to their families. At what point should a person finally be held accountable for their actions?
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I think 3200 feet is getting down to a pretty minimal runway. 2500 feet is is pretty generally the least amount of pavement you can use to stop a saab considering weight, temperature, pressure and field elevation. If you give up the first 1000 feet aiming for the marker you are left with less than 2500 feet. The fact that these guys got this airplane stopped was pretty lucky.
I am also pretty sure these guys are suspended while this thing gets sorted out and they will face some kind of consequence. I think the thing we forget is that they didn't pay the ultimate consequence, they lived.
 
Jimmy_Norton said:
Is anyone really surprised that jhugz is taking the stance he is? Hopefully the lesson he gets that finally humbles him, doesn't kill him.
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I'm not so sure it even has so much to do with being humbled. I'll actually defend jhugz a little and agree that if you can hack it you can hack it, but we all need a dose of reality.

One one hand:
Bad WX get penetrated a lot by freight pilots, it happens. For the most part theres nothing worse than a little tinkle in your pants. Its easy to snub noses at freight pilots and call them dangerous from FL360 with enough speed to deviate around wx. If you're flying properly, there should be no reason to pop rivets or bend metal. Vy and buckle up. I can only speak for myself, but there was maybe once or twice a year when it got so bad that I swore I was never doing it again. After about the fifth time of crying like a little boy who just crapped his pants on the play ground, I just decided it wasnt worth it. I had always heard the expression "A superior pilot uses his superior judgement so he doesn't have to use his superior skill." After seeing guys with far superior skill than me crash and kill people, I figured maybe it was time to work on that judgement part. I'm not preaching to anyone especially you huggies, but I'm just letting you know why I would have been right there with you not long ago, and why im not now.

On the other hand:
Yeah, the guys screwed up. That doesn't make them no talent hacks, it makes them human. I dont think they should be fired, but I don't think they get carte blanche, either. I think Seggy had mentioned the captain had quite a few hours and had been around the block before. When something like this happens I think you absolutely take someone's past record into account. If it was Sully who had pulled this stunt, would we still be out on a which hunt?

On the third hand:
If you got the right stuff; go for it, especially if the odds are that you're going to be the only person in the smoking hole. If you're flying pax around, then obviously you're going to be held to a hire standard and be placed under much more scrutiny.
 
drummerguy said:
I think 3200 feet is getting down to a pretty minimal runway. 2500 feet is is pretty generally the least amount of pavement you can use to stop a saab considering weight, temperature, pressure and field elevation. If you give up the first 1000 feet aiming for the marker you are left with less than 2500 feet. The fact that these guys got this airplane stopped was pretty lucky.
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Well, you gotta give credit where credit is due. They certainly werent PLANNING on landing on a 3200ft runway, so I think that showed some skill in itself getting the thing stopped.
 
cmill said:
I'm not so sure it even has so much to do with being humbled. I'll actually defend jhugz a little and agree that if you can hack it you can hack it, but we all need a dose of reality.

One one hand:
Bad WX get penetrated a lot by freight pilots, it happens. For the most part theres nothing worse than a little tinkle in your pants. Its easy to snub noses at freight pilots and call them dangerous from FL360 with enough speed to deviate around wx. If you're flying properly, there should be no reason to pop rivets or bend metal. Vy and buckle up. I can only speak for myself, but there was maybe once or twice a year when it got so bad that I swore I was never doing it again. After about the fifth time of crying like a little boy who just crapped his pants on the play ground, I just decided it wasnt worth it. I had always heard the expression "A superior pilot uses his superior judgement so he doesn't have to use his superior skill." After seeing guys with far superior skill than me crash and kill people, I figured maybe it was time to work on that judgement part. I'm not preaching to anyone especially you huggies, but I'm just letting you know why I would have been right there with you not long ago, and why im not now.
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I agree with everything you say. The biggest issue I have with people like jhugz is when they say that people that won't fly through a squall line or land on a runway with poor to nil braking don't have the skills to hack it.

Regarding the original topic, I don't think these guys should be automatically fired. Perhaps some time off without pay and some quality time with the training department, unless there are past major infractions.
 
Boris Badenov said:
Sometimes the fruit is just a little bit too low-hanging...
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The only thing that hangs low on me is...
Wait, I can't say that here.

drummerguy said:
The significance of this is you end up with a last leg that is less than 25 nm in a complex aircraft going 250 kias at about 3000 ft.
That means you have less than five mins. to complete a climb checklist, cruise checklist, descent checklist, approach checklist and before landing checklist. You also have to get the atis (no acars on the saab) and brief an approach.
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Your captain is a douchebag if he's flying that route at 250 knots. Just because the power levers go up to the "250 knots" setting doesn't mean he has to put them there.
 
TFaudree_ERAU said:
The only thing that hangs low on me is...
Wait, I can't say that here.



Your captain is a douchebag if he's flying that route at 250 knots. Just because the power levers go up to the "250 knots" setting doesn't mean he has to put them there.
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Yep. I had someone once tell me.. see those black levers? They're time machines. Pull them back if things are happening too fast.
 
z987k said:
Yep. I had someone once tell me.. see those black levers? They're time machines. Pull them back if things are happening too fast.
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The first thing a decent instructor will tell you before you climb in a sim is "if you go faster than 200 knots in this thing, with the exception of air work and emergency descent, you're only screwing yourself and your sim partner"
 
TFaudree_ERAU said:
The first thing a decent instructor will tell you before you climb in a sim is "if you go faster than 200 knots in this thing, with the exception of air work and emergency descent, you're only screwing yourself and your sim partner"
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That doesn't hold true at the airlines. They want you to follow the profiles. Period. And I've never seen an airline profile that didn't involve an acceleration to 250 at somewhere between 500 and 3,000 feet.
 
ATN_Pilot said:
That doesn't hold true at the airlines. They want you to follow the profiles. Period. And I've never seen an airline profile that didn't involve an acceleration to 250 at somewhere between 500 and 3,000 feet.
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In a jet, yes. In the Saab... :)
 
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