Alaska Flight diverted after pilot admits he isn’t qualified to land

SeanD said:
Why was this even a story for the media? “OMG…you mean to tell me some airline pilots aren’t experienced enough to fly into some airports? That is so messed up. What are they hiding? People should know about this.”
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Well, it does seem like a big deal that an illegal crew was dispatched to a destination they weren’t qualified to operate at, and didn’t catch it until they were enroute.
 
bimmerphile said:
curious, did either of those airports have special engine out procedures in the 135 world? airliners dont exactly have the same performance as most bizjets, I’d imagine
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In the 91/135 world I either used APG or Foreflight’s engine out performance package, so yes every airport that had been surveyed would have special engine out procedures. Some more special than others given the terrain or close in obstacles, and some more restrictive than others based on performance capabilities.

The problem I found in 91/135 was the lack of care given to said procedures, or even outright ignorance/negligence towards those requirements and procedures. The amount of lengthy conversations I had to have with management or other pilots I was flying with when performance capabilities didn’t allow for a legal departure were staggering. By that I mean they wanted to go anyway despite me showing the departure wasn’t legal for single engine performance limitations.
 
averettpilot said:
In the 91/135 world I either used APG or Foreflight’s engine out performance package, so yes every airport that had been surveyed would have special engine out procedures. Some more special than others given the terrain or close in obstacles, and some more restrictive than others based on performance capabilities.

The problem I found in 91/135 was the lack of care given to said procedures, or even outright ignorance/negligence towards those requirements and procedures. The amount of lengthy conversations I had to have with management or other pilots I was flying with when performance capabilities didn’t allow for a legal departure were staggering. By that I mean they wanted to go anyway despite me showing the departure wasn’t legal for single engine performance limitations.
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Do newer bizjets allow you to have the single engine procedure auto load? That was something my previous shop struggled with and we never really came up with a solution that made everyone happy. The 73 auto loads it and if it detects an engine failure you can activate with a couple button presses.
 
🦈💜 said:
There's a reason that airlines kill vastly fewer people, despite emplaning vastly more. Don't chuckle too hard.



DCA isn't a special qual for us.



When airplanes stop sliding off the runway there, it won't need to be.



To each their own operation.
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I can still chuckle at the 121 philosophy of lowest common denominator training considerations and still appreciate it.

I’m glad DCA isn’t a special qual airport for you. It shouldn’t be. It is for us and we go there all the time…because it’s a base. Does your airline go there regularly?

JAC isn’t that special and I suspect it isn’t special because planes keep sliding off the runway. Planes can slide off any runway if you don’t pay attention to performance. In terms of terrain or procedures it’s pretty benign in my humble opinion.

I think it’s a pretty objective assessment that when making a PA to pax who haven’t a clue about aviation things, you probably shouldn’t mention that you’re not qualified to land the airplane at a particular airport regardless of the reason. There’s a better way to say that.

Like I said, I came to 121 for a reason. Primarily because it is supposedly known for stricter standards, policies, and procedures in just about all facets. I got tired of arguing for these things in 91/135. But from a pure aviating/pilot perspective, yes it does make me chuckle some of the policies I see enacted in response to some bonehead decision a pilot/crew made before. Rules/policies/procedures are often written in blood, and it’s a good thing when things are changed to improve an operation or make it safer, but training to the lowest common denominator can feel a little tedious when you’re not the lowest common denominator. I can roll my eyes at it while being perfectly content that it’s there 🤷‍♂️
 
Roger Roger said:
Do newer bizjets allow you to have the single engine procedure auto load? That was something my previous shop struggled with and we never really came up with a solution that made everyone happy. The 73 auto loads it and if it detects an engine failure you can activate with a couple button presses.
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Haha I don’t know about newer biz jets cause I never flew one outside of the Phenom and it didn’t have that capability.

If we had dual FMS one would be loaded with the clearance route and the other would be loaded with the engine out procedure if it was capable of being loaded with it (sometimes the procedure was pretty complicated with back courses, DME/bearing points etc so you just had to fly it raw). We’d take off with the primary plan and if we lost an engine we’d select number 2 as the nav source and fly that.

My shop now it’s almost always straight out or a simple turn to a heading, but we also don’t have many honest to god mountainous terrain airports out east. I shudder to think what will happen with policies and training here if we expand west of Dallas.
 
averettpilot said:
In the 91/135 world I either used APG or Foreflight’s engine out performance package, so yes every airport that had been surveyed would have special engine out procedures. Some more special than others given the terrain or close in obstacles, and some more restrictive than others based on performance capabilities.

The problem I found in 91/135 was the lack of care given to said procedures, or even outright ignorance/negligence towards those requirements and procedures. The amount of lengthy conversations I had to have with management or other pilots I was flying with when performance capabilities didn’t allow for a legal departure were staggering. By that I mean they wanted to go anyway despite me showing the departure wasn’t legal for single engine performance limitations.
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We weren’t required to use any performance planning at all for our King Air, being Part 91…but the terrain doesn’t know or care what regulations you’re adhering to, so we used APG, and complied with commuter category and Part 135 performance requirements. It was not a problem anywhere we went.
 
Back when Surejet got CRJ-900s they decided to make captains get a couple touch and goes on an empty plane before they could operate them.

Our CRJ-700 to ROC broke, someone had the idea to sub in one of the new 900s that was sitting around. Great idea until the next afternoon when we showed up to ROC and wondered why the plane we brought in was still there. Turns out, the outbound captain hadn’t gotten his bounces yet so the flight was delayed until we showed up.
 
Roger Roger said:
Do newer bizjets allow you to have the single engine procedure auto load? That was something my previous shop struggled with and we never really came up with a solution that made everyone happy. The 73 auto loads it and if it detects an engine failure you can activate with a couple button presses.
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Yet not even the E jet can do that, or at least SkyWest didn’t pay for it. We had to manually build them in the box for complex procedures like Reno. What could possibly go wrong?
 
Autothrust Blue said:
We weren’t required to use any performance planning at all for our King Air, being Part 91…but the terrain doesn’t know or care what regulations you’re adhering to, so we used APG, and complied with commuter category and Part 135 performance requirements. It was not a problem anywhere we went.
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Exactly. I flew the Phenom 100 out west predominantly 91 and we weren’t (should say I wasn’t cause it was single pilot) required to show single engine capability for close in obstacles or terrain, but I tried making the argument that terrain doesn’t care. Owner would always get pissed when I said we were either no go, need a different airport or fuel stop, wait for cooler temps, or take less weight. He just bought the wrong airplane for what he wanted to do with it.

Still ran into other pilots who would use the old “see and avoid” line when discussing single engine performance. They would depart and my owner would see and get even angrier.
 
averettpilot said:
Exactly. I flew the Phenom 100 out west predominantly 91 and we weren’t (should say I wasn’t cause it was single pilot) required to show single engine capability for close in obstacles or terrain, but I tried making the argument that terrain doesn’t care. Owner would always get pissed when I said we were either no go, need a different airport or fuel stop, wait for cooler temps, or take less weight. He just bought the wrong airplane for what he wanted to do with it.

Still ran into other pilots who would use the old “see and avoid” line when discussing single engine performance. They would depart and my owner would see and get even angrier.
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Sounds like they needed a King Air 350 instead of the itty bitty jet committee. :)
 
Screaming_Emu said:
Back when Surejet got CRJ-900s they decided to make captains get a couple touch and goes on an empty plane before they could operate them.

Our CRJ-700 to ROC broke, someone had the idea to sub in one of the new 900s that was sitting around. Great idea until the next afternoon when we showed up to ROC and wondered why the plane we brought in was still there. Turns out, the outbound captain hadn’t gotten his bounces yet so the flight was delayed until we showed up.
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What was the reason driving the requirement for bounces on the 900?
 
word302 said:
Wait, I thought this was just a high mins captain and the weather dropped. No? Admittedly I haven’t read anything about it.
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That was going to be my question also. I guess Im confused on why they would even leave the gate in the first place. The article reads like they were flying around clueless to where they were going then suddenly snapped out of it "Hey Cap. Where are we going again?"
 
SeanD said:
That was going to be my question also. I guess Im confused on why they would even leave the gate in the first place. The article reads like they were flying around clueless to where they were going then suddenly snapped out of it "Hey Cap. Where are we going again?"
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Signing the flight release implies that you are qualified for the proposed operation and believe it can be completed safely and in accordance with the FARs and applicable Company policies.

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