UPS NTSB Investigative Hearing

PlaneFan82

PlaneFan82

Well-Known Member
Is anyone else listening to the NTSB Investigative Hearing that is being streamed online today? They just got through with the technical aspect. After the lunch break, Human Factors is coming up, and ending the day with Dispatch stuff....
 
PlaneFan82 said:
Is anyone else listening to the NTSB Investigative Hearing that is being streamed online today? They just got through with the technical aspect. After the lunch break, Human Factors is coming up, and ending the day with Dispatch stuff....
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Am I listening to how somebody I knew died, and then my good friends get grilled on the stand about an accident that had nothing to do with dispatch?

No...no I am not.
 
69beers said:
Am I listening to how somebody I knew died, and then my good friends get grilled on the stand about an accident that had nothing to do with dispatch?

No...no I am not.
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I am really sorry about what happened. My boss (and their bosses) are making us (Training and Standards) listen to the whole thing and provide a summary. I am not trying to start anything.
 
Don't take me too seriously on here, ever. I think it is great training for all dispatchers to see how quickly one can get pulled in to something like this when other parties pursue agendas. I also think it's great for others to see how TWU 545 has their brother's back.

...and if I wasn't on the beach I'd probably be streaming it while tossing back quality crafted ales with McCrosky.
 
So those of ya'll who watched - opinions please. And those who haven't, but care to watch, it is on the NTSB website.

As I posted before, this is a really great learning experience for all dispatchers. Be sincere and professional in your postings. And please remember, before you say anything stupid, we buried 2 pilots with this one.
 
@69beers, I had personal ties to this one also, and by personal, I mean, the Captain took a delay to allow me to get on a flight. I listed for a flight going to RFD, and Brown has a nasty habit of canceling your jumpseat riding at the very last minute. I went to check on the status of the flight, and I was informed that all seats were taken. So I listed for the ORD flight indeed. When a no show on the RFD opened up, the CA on M11 said to go relist on the RFD. The agent relisted me, but said, you won't make it...it leaves in 5 min. The RFD CA held the flight for me so I could get on. The CA was Cerea Beal. For that I'm eternally grateful.
 
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It sounds like he was a real nice guy. I don't remember him though I think he was my F/E a few times back in the 90's since I recall his name. If it was me, I'd like to be remembered as a nice guy that went the extra mile. Anyone can screw up with the work environment we have. It's a very sad deal.
 
One of the things that really jumped out to us here at my shop, was the missing METAR remarks. We have incoproated a refresher on these remarks in our recurrent training for the spring time. The possibility of over-reliance on automation was covered, and the NTSB seemed to be somewhat surprised at the little oversight the FAA has on Flight Planning Systems. The NTSB could not understand why there were not remarks in the TAF that the dispatcher looked at, and why the ATIS did not specify a variable ceiling. IMHO, the boys from UPS Dispatch did a great job in front of that panel! Kudos to our brethren!
 
PlaneFan82 said:
the NTSB seemed to be somewhat surprised at the little oversight the FAA has on Flight Planning Systems.
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Thanks for the writeup.

I have not yet watched the hearing but based on my experiences at all the carriers I have worked for if the end result of this hearing/investigation is increased oversight and control over the development, maintenance and features of flight planning/dispatch software suites I think that would be a great thing despite the fact that it was not the cause of the accident.

Out of curiosity what system does UPS use?
 
deltabobo said:
@69beers, I had personal ties to this one also, and by personal, I mean, the Captain took a delay to allow me to get on a flight. I listed for a flight going to RFD, and Brown has a nasty habit of canceling your jumpseat riding at the very last minute. I went to check on the status of the flight, and I was informed that all seats were taken. So I listed for the ORD flight indeed. When a no show on the RFD opened up, the CA on M11 said to go relist on the RFD. The agent relisted me, but said, you won't make it...it leaves in 5 min. The RFD CA held the flight for me so I could get on. The CA was Cerea Beal. For that I'm eternally grateful.
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Yeah, Cerea and I worked at the same floating airport in the past. Super guy.
 
PlaneFan82 said:
One of the things that really jumped out to us here at my shop, was the missing METAR remarks. We have incoproated a refresher on these remarks in our recurrent training for the spring time. The possibility of over-reliance on automation was covered, and the NTSB seemed to be somewhat surprised at the little oversight the FAA has on Flight Planning Systems. The NTSB could not understand why there were not remarks in the TAF that the dispatcher looked at, and why the ATIS did not specify a variable ceiling. IMHO, the boys from UPS Dispatch did a great job in front of that panel! Kudos to our brethren!
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It really jumped out at me also to find out the remarks had been cut from the metars. That's always good info to have, but hey, they "fixed the glitch". At least they were consistent in notifying both the crews and dispatchers about this "enhancement" by not. Now the procedure that came out shortly before the hearing commenced is for the dispatchers to go to another wx source and cut/paste the remarks to acars. Something else that's endless fun is to divert a flight from an airport with no notams published in lido, and to then find out there were several notams issued for said airport stating things like you can't stop on the runway. I think this was perfectly explained in the hearing by the FAA inspector, who when asked exactly what oversight he has over the flight planning system replied with "Uhh, I don't understand the question".
 
I kinda do my own weather and notam research before a flight. I use noaa.gov and notams.faa.gov. I kinda feel like that after I've self briefed that the oodles of paperwork I get from LIDO can be scanned faster cause I got a lot of it already in my head. To LIDO's credit, I was doing a GEG-BFI recently on a pretty nasty day and notams.gov said the ILS would be out. I made a big mental note of that and noticed it wasn't in the LIDO notams. I was about ready to file an event report in advance but when I got to BFI the ILS was fine. LIDO was right. Sometimes I'm not sure who to believe but you can't have too much information. The key is weeding out the important stuff from the tree they just killed to generate the paperwork.
 
DE727UPS said:
I kinda do my own weather and notam research before a flight. I use noaa.gov and notams.faa.gov. I kinda feel like that after I've self briefed that the oodles of paperwork I get from LIDO can be scanned faster cause I got a lot of it already in my head. To LIDO's credit, I was doing a GEG-BFI recently on a pretty nasty day and notams.gov said the ILS would be out. I made a big mental note of that and noticed it wasn't in the LIDO notams. I was about ready to file an event report in advance but when I got to BFI the ILS was fine. LIDO was right. Sometimes I'm not sure who to believe but you can't have too much information. The key is weeding out the important stuff from the tree they just killed to generate the paperwork.
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I can relate, I do the same at my job. We don't use LIDO but I use our company approved source and I also go to the FAA website to check myself and ever so often I've found discrepancies.
 
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