Colgan 3407 afterthoughts

dingo222

dingo222

Well-Known Member
so it's been six years since that tragic accident, and we haven't had another since. We have bent metal, made mistakes, but there hasn't been a fatal mistake in SIX years, which goes down as the safest period in 121 aviation. Ever. We can believe in God, luck, superior airmanship, SMS, or whatever; kudos to the airmen that keep it safe everyday. Every flight, every day. This is our legacy. Remember and cheers to keeping it safe!
 
dingo222 said:
so it's been six years since that tragic accident, and we haven't had another since. We have bent metal, made mistakes, but there hasn't been a fatal mistake in SIX years, which goes down as the safest period in 121 aviation. Ever. We can believe in God, luck, superior airmanship, SMS, or whatever; kudos to the airmen that keep it safe everyday. Every flight, every day. This is our legacy. Remember and cheers to keeping it safe!
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There have been four 121 crashes since 3407.
 
Autothrust Blue said:
the absence of an accident does not imply that there's no work left to do...
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What he said. One of the things that keeps me up at night is the thought of a cockpit with less than two years swept wing turbo fan or 121 experience between the two pilots operating it. Heck, I've heard of pilots becoming 121 instructors after less than a year. There have already been some close calls.
 
Still amazes me on a plane without autothrottles someone can level off without their hand go to the power levers second nature / Way of habit. That's Cessna 152 basic crap.

Autothrust for Airbus folk.
 
Blackhawk said:
What he said. One of the things that keeps me up at night is the thought of a cockpit with less than two years swept wing turbo fan or 121 experience between the two pilots operating it. Heck, I've heard of pilots becoming 121 instructors after less than a year. There have already been some close calls.
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Operated plenty of less than two years swept wing turbo fan experience in both seats just fine. You sound like the pinnacle crew room chatter.....
 
L-16B said:
Operated plenty of less than two years swept wing turbo fan experience in both seats just fine. You sound like the pinnacle crew room chatter.....
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Again, the absence of an accident does not indicate safety. Personally I think is a matter of time as the elements that contributed to Colgan 3407 are still there. It had nothing to do with 1500 hours- both pilots had more than that. It had everything to do with poor training.
 
Blackhawk said:
Again, the absence of an accident does not indicate safety. Personally I think is a matter of time as the elements that contributed to Colgan 3407 are still there. It had nothing to do with 1500 hours- both pilots had more than that. It had everything to do with poor training.
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How did you come up with 2 years as your cutoff for safety? Just curious. The crj by far is the easiest or second easiest 121 plane I've flown out of the 5 I've flown. Hands down the easiest landing airplane ever built that I've flown. Swept wing planes are just as easy as straight wing in my opinion. Fms made navigation much easier imho.
 
L-16B said:
How did you come up with 2 years as your cutoff for safety? Just curious. The crj by far is the easiest or second easiest 121 plane I've flown out of the 5 I've flown. Hands down the easiest landing airplane ever built that I've flown. Swept wing planes are just as easy as straight wing in my opinion. Fms made navigation much easier imho.
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The super critical wings on the CRJs are not very forgiving. Being able to land an airplane well is hardly a good indication. This is the kind of statement that worries me. As an old CW4 once told me, "The person who will have the next accident is person who says they won't have the next accident."
 
Blackhawk said:
Again, the absence of an accident does not indicate safety. Personally I think is a matter of time as the elements that contributed to Colgan 3407 are still there. It had nothing to do with 1500 hours- both pilots had more than that. It had everything to do with poor training.
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Shack.
 
Not many days go by that I don't think of 3407 when I'm at work... It's a cold hard reminder for me to be the best professional that I can be. The last thing in the world I want is to be the direct cause of people's suffering or death. Rest in peace to those lost on CJC3407.
 
More to the point about the 2 years total experience in a cockpit.

Part of being an FO is learning. Learning from good captains and from bad captains. Learning about different weather. ATC. How to deal with situations that aren't in the QRH, FOM or OM. Not just how to fly an airplane, but how to be in command of an airplane and "the situation", which are important, which are not. How to set your parking break and wait. Sorry, in less than a year you have not learned very much. Put together two pilots who have been there less than a year and you have the blind leading the blind. Throw in instructors who have been there less than a year... and it's a disaster waiting to happen.

Man, I hope I'm wrong.
 
Blackhawk said:
More to the point about the 2 years total experience in a cockpit.

Part of being an FO is learning. Learning from good captains and from bad captains. Learning about different weather. ATC. How to deal with situations that aren't in the QRH, FOM or OM. Not just how to fly an airplane, but how to be in command of an airplane and "the situation", which are important, which are not. How to set your parking break and wait. Sorry, in less than a year you have not learned very much. Put together two pilots who have been there less than a year and you have the blind leading the blind. Throw in instructors who have been there less than a year... and it's a disaster waiting to happen.

Man, I hope I'm wrong.
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I will say that one of the brightest points of my short time sitting in the right seat of the regional airlines is the high quality of most of the young Captains I have flown with. I work at one of those "quick upgrade" outfits, and I've flown with some fresh-out-of-training Captains who -- had they not told me it was their first trip off IOE -- I never would have known were so green. Now, these guys all had time at other 121 operations before coming over to this one, so it doesn't exactly fit what you're referring to here, but I think there is an important indicator even with "prior experienced" new Captains.

Now, I'm the first one to note that it really doesn't matter much how pilots perform when everything is going well, it matters how they perform when things go wrong. Although I haven't faced any emergencies with these new guys, I was surprised at their attitude, knowledge, and competence during the course of "solving the world's problems" via cockpit conversation over the course of the trips. The vast majority of them were mature, humble, knowledgeable, and most importantly excellent leaders of crews and mentors to junior crewmembers (e.g. me!). Unfortunately, I have no idea how they'd do when things are on fire and people are panicking...but having attempted to train people for that in my previous life, I can say that there's no training that can adequately prepare someone for the moment they think they are going to die...

What I most importantly haven't seen is what I expected to see: the "teenager with the keys to dad's muscle car". Ergo, regional pilots with all the authority and none of the maturity to use it appropriately. Yes, I have flown with a couple guys like that...but the vast, vast majority have not been like that. Stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason, and having observed the airline industry for years from the outside as a professional pilot, that's what I expected to find. I have been very happy to see that -- at my outfit, at least -- that stereotype isn't in the majority of guys I've flown with.

So, there is a culture currently that appears to be raising these guys right. I think it is a good indicator.
 
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Hacker15e said:
What I most importantly haven't seen is what I expected to see: the "teenager with the keys to dad's muscle car". Ergo, regional pilots with all the authority and none of the maturity to use it appropriately. Yes, I have flown with a couple guys like that...but the vast, vast majority have not been like that. Stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason, and having observed the airline industry for years from the outside as a professional pilot, that's what I expected to find. I have been very happy to see that -- at my outfit, at least -- that stereotype isn't in the majority of guys I've flown with.

So, there is a culture currently that appears to be raising these guys right. I think it is a good indicator.
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So far, the one CA I've flown with that actually had me worried about his disregard for SOP and procedure was in his late 50s, seniority #9 in the company and had been at Mesa since the early 90s. Taxing through the ramp like a bat out of hell, and checking your cell phone while taking the runway is not cool*.

Meanwhile, most of the recent upgrade guys are very safety conscious and have shown remarkable discipline for following SOP.


* Yes, I said something to him personally and also to pro standards. I was covering the brakes the whole trip because I was legitimately worried we might hit something.
 
USMCmech said:
So far, the one CA I've flown with that actually had me worried about his disregard for SOP and procedure was in his late 50s, seniority #9 in the company and had been at Mesa since the early 90s. Taxing through the ramp like a bat out of hell, and checking your cell phone while taking the runway is not cool*.

Meanwhile, most of the recent upgrade guys are very safety conscious and have shown remarkable discipline for following SOP.


* Yes, I said something to him personally and also to pro standards. I was covering the brakes the whole trip because I was legitimately worried we might hit something.
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Oh, I know those are a problem as well. Unfortunately every airline has them.
 
Hacker15e said:
I will say that one of the brightest points of my short time sitting in the right seat of the regional airlines is the high quality of most of the young Captains I have flown with. I work at one of those "quick upgrade" outfits, and I've flown with some fresh-out-of-training Captains who -- had they not told me it was their first trip off IOE -- I never would have known were so green. Now, these guys all had time at other 121 operations before coming over to this one, so it doesn't exactly fit what you're referring to here, but I think there is an important indicator even with "prior experienced" new Captains.

Now, I'm the first one to note that it really doesn't matter much how pilots perform when everything is going well, it matters how they perform when things go wrong. Although I haven't faced any emergencies with these new guys, I was surprised at their attitude, knowledge, and competence during the course of "solving the world's problems" via cockpit conversation over the course of the trips. The vast majority of them were mature, humble, knowledgeable, and most importantly excellent leaders of crews and mentors to junior crewmembers (e.g. me!). Unfortunately, I have no idea how they'd do when things are on fire and people are panicking...but having attempted to train people for that in my previous life, I can say that there's no training that can adequately prepare someone for the moment they think they are going to die...

What I most importantly haven't seen is what I expected to see: the "teenager with the keys to dad's muscle car". Ergo, regional pilots with all the authority and none of the maturity to use it appropriately. Yes, I have flown with a couple guys like that...but the vast, vast majority have not been like that. Stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason, and having observed the airline industry for years from the outside as a professional pilot, that's what I expected to find. I have been very happy to see that -- at my outfit, at least -- that stereotype isn't in the majority of guys I've flown with.

So, there is a culture currently that appears to be raising these guys right. I think it is a good indicator.
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Most pilot do the right thing and 99.9999% of the time things go well. The issue is when you get the weak pilots in that .0001%. Normally experience helps.

I'll give another example. The Air France 447 crash. The two FO's on duty at the time were not very experienced. Did they have flight time? Sure, but most of it was international flying on the A-330. If you figure out how much "stick" time the FO's had, it was probably no more than a couple hundred hours each.

Let's compare that to my brother, an A-330 FO for DAL.

He flew 15 years in the Navy, P-3s and C-12s. International flying, hard IMC flying.

Flew Jet Streams for TSA several years, including as a captain.

Flew DC-9s and the mini Airbus for NWA.

By the time he got to the A-330 he had plenty of opportunities to scare himself and learn lessons. Individually he probably had 2-4 times the experience of both Air France 447 FO's combined.

Foreign A-330s aren't falling out of the sky. They are almost always flown safely. But if the crap hits the fan, who do you want up front?
 
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