FAA Opens Investigation on Go! Airlines

srleslie said:
What's a CDO?
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Continuous Duty Overnight. Aka, stand-ups, highspeeds, naps, etc... Basically you fly one leg out to an outstation late at night, spend a few hours in a hotel, and then do the very first flight back to the hub in the morning. Then you get released for the whole day and come back to do it again that night.
 
PCL_128 said:
Continuous Duty Overnight. Aka, stand-ups, highspeeds, naps, etc... Basically you fly one leg out to an outstation late at night, spend a few hours in a hotel, and then do the very first flight back to the hub in the morning. Then you get released for the whole day and come back to do it again that night.
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You know it just amazes me that the trucking industry is more regulated than aviation. 11 hours max drive time in a 14 hour duty period, then a mandatory 10 hour break. I got far more rest when I was on the road in a truck than I do now that I'm back in college. I don't see why the FAA can't set similar standards. That video was just plain scary. I do not want to work for an airline that does that one day.
 
PCL_128 said:
Continuous Duty Overnight. Aka, stand-ups, highspeeds, naps, etc... Basically you fly one leg out to an outstation late at night, spend a few hours in a hotel, and then do the very first flight back to the hub in the morning. Then you get released for the whole day and come back to do it again that night.
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Or sprawled out across rows 4, 8, and 12! :panic:
 
Was this a CDO? Because at my airline you wouldn't catch me falling asleep at the wheel on an outbound in the morning. Outbounds in the morning are verboten as per our contract. You fly the inbound and that's it, you're done for the day. Now, how I stay awake on the inbound...that's pure magic!
 
Cruise said:
Or sprawled out across rows 4, 8, and 12! :panic:
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Exactly. And that's how I'm envisioning this incident. Regional CDOs are not one out, 4-5 hours in the hotel and one back.

Mesa's are more like a turn, one out, sleep in the plane, one back and a turn. These guys most likely fell asleep on the outbound leg of the turn (9 am).

While PCL might enjoy his CDOs, Mesa's are dangerous, though not illegal.

There is nothing in evidence that suggests Go's are any different from Mesa's.
 
Actually Go doesn't do CDO's. I believe the flying is split between an AM shift and a PM shift. Its possible to do a PM shift followed by an AM shift, but you would get 8 hours in between. Short overnights are still not enough rest if you ask me, but perfectly ok per the FAA.
 
Velocipede said:
Exactly. And that's how I'm envisioning this incident. Regional CDOs are not one out, 4-5 hours in the hotel and one back.

Mesa's are more like a turn, one out, sleep in the plane, one back and a turn. These guys most likely fell asleep on the outbound leg of the turn (9 am).
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Not *all* regional stand-ups are like that--Mesa is in a class by itself ;)

The stand-ups I did at Eagle and the ones I have all month here at Skywest are one leg in, an 8hr layover (6.5hrs at the hotel or so if we aren't late) and one leg back. It's not too bad, even when we're delayed. I agree with PCL, they're OK if you just treat the day as the rest period it's supposed to be and end up with at least 7-8hrs of sleep a day. And they pay pretty well, too.
 
ComplexHiAv8r said:
When did Moose's move down to Lewers? It used to be up near UH (back in my day).
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Over by Magoo's or further up the hill? Man, I certainly do miss the trips out to Sand Island for drinks by the lagoon at La Mariana. Besides, folks who work at Mesa would be based on Maui and would have to drive all the way down to Lahaina to go to Moose's or would have to hit up Mama's Fish House for the $15 Mai Tai (best one you will ever have in your entire life though...) Anyway, they fly for JO, meaning that they are probably drinking on somebody elses tab or doing unimaginable things for free drinks. Glad everybody is o.k. though.
 
At my previous company we had great CDO's. Of course, they provided us with hotels which made a huge difference. There was only two nights in the four months I flew CDO's that I wasn't able to get a few hours sleep. One night we had to deadhead to our maintenance case (a 30-minute flight), pick up a plane, fly back to the hub, then off to Toledo, OH. I think I just stayed up that night watching a movie in the two-something hours at the hotel. The other time was when we rolled up to the hotel to find a college mixer going on... All these women in fancy dresses... My female Captain and I infiltrated the party. No, we didn't drink, but it was fun nonetheless!

Although the CDO's weren't too bad, I'd prefer to never do them again in my career. Reduced rest overnights are difficult enough.
 
If they were tired, they should have called in fatigued. That's the FAR. But wait, Mesa chief pilots second guess and put pressure on fatigue calls due to their 'money before safety understaffed culture'.

I really hope this national media attention gives people a heads up about the dirty operations that goes on behind the curtain at Mesa.

Pressure to fly fatigued at Mesa is real, and so are the safety risks.

Friends don't let friends fly for Mesa.

-LAMA
 
This story made national headlines today on both msnbc and cnn. The msnbc segment even used the phrase "low time overworked pilots".
 
The FO had over 500 in type, and the CA had over 25,000TT and 8,000 in type. Both pilots had over 14 hours of rest in between duty periods in the preceding days, the CA had an average duty day of 8 hrs 39 min, and the FO had an average of 9 hrs and 6 min over the preceding days.
 
This same thing happened at Allegheny (the 'new' Allegheny) back in the day - probably mid-90's or so. Crew fell asleep and woke up over BOS (destination) at 11,000 ft. (cruise altitude for the Dash). Maybe people weren't watching airlines as closely back then but it was never reported in a public venue and aside from some internal discipline, nothing ever came of it.

Jason
 
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