3407 public hearing

sherpa said:
So far things such as fatigue/sick policy, systems and SOP adherence as well as training have been discussed.

Just so everyone out there knows there is a no punishment/hassle sick/fatigue policy for Colgan air pilots and we are NOT encouraged to fly with a cold. This is was said under oath by a top official.

It's rich in there folks get ready!!! Our finest are showing their finest for the entire country to see!
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I talked with our MEC about my sick call in January. Puking in the cockpit suddenly, captain calling me out sick only to have scheduling tell him that i have to personally call them, and scheduling telling me i need a sick note or its a missed trip.

Colgan had a fatigue policy? I've never heard of such a thing. All I heard was from the Beech/Saab guys at a maintenance day tell me how lucky I was that I wasn't at a maintenance base. Apparently they would fly 121 all day long, then at the end of the day Colgan would have them ferry a part 91 flight to go past duty regs. F that.
 
Are the hearings being televised today and if so, on what channel?

I'd like to be able to watch while I'm working.
 
kellwolf said:
I looked back at my last two months. The longest overnight I've had was 11:22. I was pretty much on min rest (either reduced, normal or comp) EVERY overnight unless it was a day off. Even the nights I had at home between trips were 10 hours. Take the time it takes to ride the employee bus to my car and drive home, I probably woulda gotten MORE rest in a hotel. Last Wed was the first time I had a RSV day that I didn't get called in THREE MONTHS. It's a wonder my immune system hasn't shut down in protest.
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Here at the Beagle, we have neat concepts like:

Calling a Reserve pilot at home, on a late-day reserve availability period, for a one leg to overnight. To the East coast. Then give him a showtime that requires a 4 AM wakeup. So now, as he likely slept until 9 or 10 am on his late-day RAP to start, he's now expected to drop immediately to deep sleep at 8 PM local time, 7 PM body-clock time, in order to wake up rested at 4 AM local time, 3 AM body clock time.

What are the odds his body will actually accommodate that kind of sleep demand? Now that you've ruined his chances of a solid night's rest, repeat this cycle over 10 to 12 hour duty days for the next 3.

As for reserve utilization, we're furloughing, and we're already JMing and tacking on extentions to reserve pilots as much as possible.

Last time staffing was like this, I flew every day I was on Reserve, and as much as scheduling could legally demand of me. Every time.

One month, I had a 91 hour composite line, and they tried to insert a RSV day mid-month on me. They thought they could just sneak it by me.

To add insult to injury, this was after six days of work. Because there was 24 hours rest in between the two day trip and the four day trip, it was legal per the FARs. It was not, however, contractually legal.

.... and this is at one of the so-called 'better' regionals.

I shudder to think how it really is some days at some of the less congenial operations.
 
CHQ has an attendance policy as well. And it is written out in the manuals.

Being Sick = 1 occurrence

Occurrences keep racking up until you meet certain thresholds where different disciplinary actions can be taken. Certain things equal more occurrences. Like just not showing up without telling anyone is 4 occurrences I think. I know after 4 you get a letter from the chief pilot telling you to stop being sick so much. I know that after 8 they can fire you. After 12 months the occurrence drops off.

My immune system likes to keep a running total of 4 occurrences. Seems as soon as one falls off I get sick again.

As for the Colgan pilots. They paid with their lives and I wish the scum bag company and media would start treating them like it. The FAA and NTSB need to realize that this mistake wasn't just a crew screwing up but a serious rest and training issue that is running rampant at (from what it sounds like) most regional airlines. I'm also sick of the sterile cockpit thing being thrown around so much by the circus act that is the media.
 
Mesa has similar attendance policy but they can "fire" you at 6 occurences. I'm not aware of them actually firing someone (and having it stick) based on sick calls alone. It might almost be worth it to get to 5 occurences, and then get a fed on board and be like *cough cough cough*. And then when the fed's like 'Why are you flying? Are you sick?' say 'Yeah, but they'll fire me if I call in sick today.'

Heh.
 
A few thoughts.....I just feel that much of what has been "reported" by the news media about this accident has been taken out of context from the CVR. I read it last night and much of what they're reporting just makes no sense. Also, all this monday morning quarter backing is just complete bs. I've read some of the other threads about this and anyone who thinks they know exactly what they would have done that night is full of it and to call the flight crew inadequate and say they lacked the skills is very disrespectful.

I don't know why this has been so upsetting but it has and to see fellow pilots getting ripped apart by fellow pilots is irritating. I just wish that instead of getting on the forums and stating why they're so good and why they wouldn't have done this or that, that people would chill out and respect this crew.
 
beechpilot said:
A few thoughts.....I just feel that much of what has been "reported" by the news media about this accident has been taken out of context from the CVR. I read it last night and much of what they're reporting just makes no sense. Also, all this monday morning quarter backing is just complete bs. I've read some of the other threads about this and anyone who thinks they know exactly what they would have done that night is full of it and to call the flight crew inadequate and say they lacked the skills is very disrespectful.

I don't know why this has been so upsetting but it has and to see fellow pilots getting ripped apart by fellow pilots is irritating. I just wish that instead of getting on the forums and stating why they're so good and why they wouldn't have done this or that, that people would chill out and respect this crew.
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Well said. These two are dead and of all people pilots are the ones being so harsh. Reading transcripts gives me the creeps because you realize that it could be you. I'm pretty confident the colgan pilots were fine pilots and reacted the way they did due to the lack of training on the companys part.

Does your airline train deep stalls to the pusher @ 3000 ft AGL at night in icing?
 
beechpilot said:
A few thoughts.....I just feel that much of what has been "reported" by the news media about this accident has been taken out of context from the CVR. I read it last night and much of what they're reporting just makes no sense. Also, all this monday morning quarter backing is just complete bs. I've read some of the other threads about this and anyone who thinks they know exactly what they would have done that night is full of it and to call the flight crew inadequate and say they lacked the skills is very disrespectful.

I don't know why this has been so upsetting but it has and to see fellow pilots getting ripped apart by fellow pilots is irritating. I just wish that instead of getting on the forums and stating why they're so good and why they wouldn't have done this or that, that people would chill out and respect this crew.
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Exactly! These superpilots on JC are really something. I guess they have never made a mistake in the air, and mastered every new plane the first time they flew it. Amazing!
 
Granted there may have been mistakes made. What flight have you flown where not one mistake was made? I think they will find that Colgans training was insufficient. That's all...

I think it's funny how both these pilots made it through the FAA approved Colgan training process and all of a sudden they are crap pilots. These pilots weren't trained properly and now 50 or so people are dead and the company, media, and public are trying to blame only them. It's BS how easy it is to blame the dead pilots.
 
SoCalAprch said:
I think they will find that Colgans training was insufficient. That's all...
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Going to pull something from another thread here...

Captain_Bob said:
The fact is... no training program can prepare you for and and every possible scenario that can go wrong up there. I mean when was the last time any of us trained for a dual engine flameout, a total electrical & hydraulic failure and flying the plane in manual reversion on the standby instruments to minimums in mountainous terrain, abrupt pusher actuation due to any number of reasons, gear collapse on the takeoff roll, etc.
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So, based on what I emphasized and your comment, we all have insufficient training. Guess we should blame every accident on the training department of <insert favorite airline here> rather than face the possibility that friends and good pilots could (again, not saying they did) have made mistakes.
 
ctab5060X said:
Going to pull something from another thread here...



So, based on what I emphasized and your comment, we all have insufficient training. Guess we should blame every accident on the training department of <insert favorite airline here> rather than face the possibility that friends and good pilots could (again, not saying they did) have made mistakes.
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So what you are saying is let's just blame the dead pilots for doing what they thought they should do? They did whatever they did, not because they wanted to, but because at some point somewhere they were trained or weren't trained well enough.

Look Im not trying to say that this guy and gal didn't make mistakes that lead to the crash I just think that the mistake was caused by crap training somewhere down the road.
 
Any time a 121 captain let's a plane slow and stall and then pulls back on the pusher it is a lack of training somewhere.
 
SoCalAprch said:
So what you are saying is let's just blame the dead pilots for doing what they thought they should do? They did whatever they did, not because they wanted to, but because at some point somewhere they were trained or weren't trained well enough.

Look Im not trying to say that this guy and gal didn't make mistakes that lead to the crash I just think that the mistake was caused by crap training somewhere down the road.
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I never said we should "just blame the dead pilots". What I said was we need to be prepared to accept the possibility that they could have made mistakes.
 
ctab5060X said:
I never said we should "just blame the dead pilots". What I said was we need to be prepared to accept the possibility that they could have made mistakes.
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So what I am saying is that the mistakes were caused not by the lack of experience that the media is talking about but more the training that these pilots recieved up to that night. I'm not saying that mistakes werent made just that the mistakes were/are a symptom of something larger. That something larger being, in my humble opinion, training.
 
SoCalAprch said:
Granted there may have been mistakes made. What flight have you flown where not one mistake was made? I think they will find that Colgans training was insufficient. That's all...

I think it's funny how both these pilots made it through the FAA approved Colgan training process and all of a sudden they are crap pilots. These pilots weren't trained properly and now 50 or so people are dead and the company, media, and public are trying to blame only them. It's BS how easy it is to blame the dead pilots.
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I went through the exact same training as them and to me I don't see getting to slow and stalling the plane being a lack of training, I see it as pilot error.
 
L-16B said:
I went through the exact same training as them and to me I don't see getting to slow and stalling the plane being a lack of training, I see it as pilot error.
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That's fair and is your opinion. Maybe it was training at some other level. Maybe they shouldn't have made it through. I don't see how he got his ATP and passes a type ride if the training is on par.. I'd like to know the first time pass rate for upgrade at colgan an compare that with the rest of em.
 
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