GFK, RDR...close enough

[400A]

-totally off topic of this thread, sort of, so rant on-


I've been making a living flying for almost 15 years. Having flown everything from small Pipers to Heavies to corporate type jets/turbo props. I STILL MAKE MISTAKES ON ALMOST EVERY FLIGHT! I have all kinds of little rituals I go through to try to minimize those mistakes, but I am human and still make them.

To me, for someone with barely enough total time to be able to spell ILS much less fly one to bash a crew for a mistake almost every pilot in aviation has made or will make smells of elitism and immaturity and I for one don't want that person to end up at a good regional and give my school (UND) a bad name. It takes 10 excellent people to clear up the BS some dip starts.

No one is giving this crew a pass on this mistake and I will guarantee the people being the hardest on them, are themselves. This career sector has taken a hit, a big one and the last thing we need is to start tearing it apart from the bottom up because a bunch of Generation MEs are trying to prove how smart they think they are.

If you honestly think you are smarter and a better pilot than the crew that made this mistake, send a letter and your resume to Mesaba right now and explain how you will prevent this mistake from ever happening again and how you should be allowed to replace these two pilots immediatley.

Tuning the ILS is about the only fool proof way to guarntee that you never do this, I wonder how well that would work for runway 8/26 (9/27 whatever it is now)? We operate in a very unforgiving operation and the smallest of mistakes has huge consequences and someone honestly thinks that getting on JC and lambasting the crew is the way to fix it??? What generation is this again?? Oh yeah the ME ME ME ME ME generation.

 

[400A]

Which is why I always put the ILS freq in even when I do a visual. That's just being damn lazy and takes what 2 seconds to have the FO look up the freq just to make sure. Not like they have anything else to do while the AP flys. Maybe that show on their iphone is just too interesting.

=Jason-

Must have been a 250 hour UND grad

I'm just glad all this happened in north dakota... You know, where they don't have mountains and stuff. I dont understand how if they had the BC set in, and they had nav flags and whatnot, how do you not notice that something's wrong? Just have to wonder. I wasn't in the cockpit, so I don't know what happened, but it's very strange.

Why give sympathy to people who messed up? They messed up and shouldn't get any leeway. Yes ok it's a 10 minute flight but other than the check lists what was there to do? I'm sure they had a least a couple minutes lined up with final, did noone notice that hey, the BC isn't lined up??? Sorry there's no excuse for incompentance, especially when your responsible for other's lives.

=Jason-

This is would probably be unsatisfactory on a stage check.


On a more serious note, like LOGS said, when you are responsible for other people lives, mistakes like this are unacceptable. Look what happened to several other commercial aircraft that have screwed up an approach and ended up impacting terrain.

Well.....flying is flying, man....and to be honest, it has nothing to do with what plane you fly so I don't know why you even bring up this whole "I fly a Saab/RJ and it's nothing like your C172 that you fly" point. Regardless of whether one is an airline pilot or not, you can always get disoriented and I think that's the end point. We all remember when we tried finding Stephen airport up in practice area X through just pilotage.....

I'm not taking sides, but I'm taking a look at this thread from a bird's eye view and I'm seeing responses going from:
Threats/preaches from guys in an airline. (ridiculous)
Comments prejudging the crew of the incident. (ridiculous)

...and it all looks foolish to me. Let's just learn from what happened to the crew whether it was a genuine mistake or whatever other factors were involved and let's accept that we can all be susceptible to mistakes and let's not let it happen to us.

Angel

I can appreciate your position BUUUT take a good hard look at what has been posted here. Farva was the only one to say anything remotely close to "giving these guys a pass". And for the record, I don't give them a "pass" I simply add this to the list of things that will likely fade to complacency in my mind in 12 months and do my best to not let it by learning from their mistake.

I am sorry, but in this industry you don't get to hang a crew and throw around statements like Jason and CRJDriver are and not have some consequences.

 

[juxtapilot]

Whats the problem? If you are gonna throw out words of insult you will get them back. Its not just you its other people on this forum. Everybody makes a mistake and its not just a aviation related issue. You guys are so harsh on people yet you have no idea what flying even at a regional level is like. You think its like flying a 172 or a PA28. Its not, and how do you think the guys figured out where they were? If you wanna throw flame bait out go ahead but I will throw some back and I dont make empty threats, I just make a simple observation. Interviewers have done it in the past and will continue to do so all because the preception is there. You wanna bash UND, Mesaba, and place XYZ, go ahead, all you really do is show your ignorance and immaturity. You also show that you really cant take the real world. Because in the real world you cant live with mommy and daddy and get what you want. In the "real world", YOU have to go to work to earn a living and make sure YOU can pay your bills and preform at your job in the best way possible. For some people its that and having to support there kids and spouses because you are relied upon. So forgive me if I come off insensitive and possibly a D***Hole, but I am flying so that I can put food on the table and I understand why my fellow aviators could become disorientated. Anything from a new area to things at home can cause issues with flying. When your butt is always working and not sleeping, it can happen, anywhere at anytime.

-Farva

Something happened that could have led to a chain of errors that could have resulted in an accident. We're all happy nothing happened and that Mesaba is taking this event and learning from it. Nobody is perfect, that's why this kind of event happens. It's purely a mistake. Learn from it and move on, but don't me with this "Flying an RJ is so difficult, stuff like this happens, just move on and forget about it."

The other thing that bugs me, and I'm sure this happens everywhere, is that pilots are fighting a civil war where a pilot would go out of their way to make sure someone would not be hired at an airline because of their opinions. Perhaps if current pilots were more focused on educating future pilots, the industry would be more unified and there would be less of this backstabbing garbage going on. I'm probably living in a dream world. But hey, I'm an optimist believe it or not.

We might have a difference of opinion on some things, but if I ever met you or any forum poster in real life I'm not going to judge you by something you said on an internet forum.

 

[Farva]

Well.....flying is flying, man....and to be honest, it has nothing to do with what plane you fly so I don't know why you even bring up this whole "I fly a Saab/RJ and it's nothing like your C172 that you fly" point. Regardless of whether one is an airline pilot or not, you can always get disoriented and I think that's the end point. We all remember when we tried finding Stephen airport up in practice area X through just pilotage.....

I'm not taking sides, but I'm taking a look at this thread from a bird's eye view and I'm seeing responses going from:
Threats/preaches from guys in an airline. (ridiculous)
Comments prejudging the crew of the incident. (ridiculous)

...and it all looks foolish to me. Let's just learn from what happened to the crew whether it was a genuine mistake or whatever other factors were involved and let's accept that we can all be susceptible to mistakes and let's not let it happen to us.

Angel,

Flying a plane is flying a plane, but a Commerical Airliner and a Piper Warrior are two different types. The fundamentals are the same but how you operate are different. Flying a CRJ-900 is very different compared to a RJ 200 or even a Saab. No two airplanes are alike. So while you think it is bashing/threats/preaching, it is really more of if you dont have anything positive to say then keep quiet. No one is saying these pilots should get a free ride, however the bashing of these guys by individuals who are either new or who have little experience are putting the word that they are better and would never do what they did. If you think that airline interviews dont get skewed by preceptions, just look at why some people didnt get hired at airlines or big coporate outfits. Mesaba has had issues with some UND alum who got hired and made a bad name for themselves and the school at XJ. So they inturn did not hire as much UND people and the ones that did had to hit some mark. Now you can say all you want that I am being mean or even a little threating , but quite frankly its just getting old with the bashing especially when people have no clue what has happened and try to make facts that arent true.

 

[Farva]

Something happened that could have led to a chain of errors that could have resulted in an accident. We're all happy nothing happened and that Mesaba is taking this event and learning from it. Nobody is perfect, that's why this kind of event happens. It's purely a mistake. Learn from it and move on, but don't me with this "Flying an RJ is so difficult, stuff like this happens, just move on and forget about it."

The other thing that bugs me, and I'm sure this happens everywhere, is that pilots are fighting a civil war where a pilot would go out of their way to make sure someone would not be hired at an airline because of their opinions. Perhaps if current pilots were more focused on educating future pilots, the industry would be more unified and there would be less of this backstabbing garbage going on. I'm probably living in a dream world. But hey, I'm an optimist believe it or not.

We might have a difference of opinion on some things, but if I ever met you or any forum poster in real life I'm not going to judge you by something you said on an internet forum.

Well the good thing is you dont know who I am and as far judging most people do it within the first 5 minutes of meeting someone because attitude tell everything.

 

[AngelFuree]

Angel

I can appreciate your position BUUUT take a good hard look at what has been posted here. Farva was the only one to say anything remotely close to "giving these guys a pass". And for the record, I don't give them a "pass" I simply add this to the list of things that will likely fade to complacency in my mind in 12 months and do my best to not let it by learning from their mistake.

I am sorry, but in this industry you don't get to hang a crew and throw around statements like Jason and CRJDriver are and not have some consequences.

See, and I completely agree with you which is why I stated that it was ridiculous to prejudge the crew without having been there and knowing all of us are human susceptible to such mistakes.

However, what I will say is I've NEVER thought it was a good response to approach an individual and tell him, "you don't understand because all you fly is a 172 and your TT can't even spell ILS." I don't think that'll ever be a constructive argument. It just sparkles some back and forth bickering.

I fully understand your thought process. Again, I'm in agreement and I think we should just learn from it without judging the crew.

 

[400A]

See, and I completely agree with you which is why I stated that it was ridiculous to prejudge the crew without having been there and knowing all of us are human susceptible to such mistakes.

However, what I will say is I've NEVER thought it was a good response to approach an individual and tell him, "you don't understand because all you fly is a 172 and your TT can't even spell ILS." I don't think that'll ever be a constructive argument. It just sparkles some back and forth bickering.

I fully understand your thought process. Again, I'm in agreement and I think we should just learn from it without judging the crew.

I don't mean to go quote for quote here, forgive me, I am not trying to get the "last word".

Angel here gets it. I read this thread when it was first posted and the first thing I thought was "HEY DUMBASSS REMEMBER TO VERIFY YOUR RUNWAY!!!" talking to myself. I came back some time later to find it the thread had grown and was thinking it was some good discussion about how to avoid lining up on the wrong runway, instead what did I find???

Which person do you want sitting next to you or commanding the aircraft in the same airspace as you, the 1000 hour pilot who looks for ways to avoid making others mistakes or the 1000 hour pilot who looks for ways to hang someone out to dry to try to make themselves look good?

 

[AngelFuree]

If you think that airline interviews dont get skewed by preceptions, just look at why some people didnt get hired at airlines or big coporate outfits. Mesaba has had issues with some UND alum who got hired and made a bad name for themselves and the school at XJ. So they inturn did not hire as much UND people and the ones that did had to hit some mark.

Hey man, I'm one who will always say first impressions are huge and make a difference. I think we all know how small this industry is. People talk about each other, especially when it's a negative thing. How many times do we go to a buddy and say, "hey man, this guy I flew with was GREAT." vs "this guy I flew with was a prick." I think we all know the answer to that so I won't disagree with you on that at all.

I was just stating my observations from both sides. I think it makes it a touch immature on both sides when we have to mention the obvious, counting stripes and comparing them to someone's TT.

....and hey man, I don't mean to preach either. I know what you mean.

 

[MikeD]

It's one thing having a loss of SA like this happen and not be caught by a single-pilot, low or higher time, in a 172. For it to happen in a crew aircraft with experienced pilots really makes you wonder. Of course, crew-served aircraft have been crashing for decades for any number of often-times very preventable reasons; some more than others. I've spent time as the Lead Investigator/ Investigating Officer on a few of these, and trust me, we don't find new ways to make errors or worse, crash planes. From the tape, it appears that an ATC save was made with this crew, they continued to the proper field and landed uneventfully. I hope that crew sat down with each other afterward and debriefed what happened, how it happened, and how to prevent it in the future. From the tape, there appears to be an air of complacency....not bad complacency like not caring, but the kind of complacency of "nothing making the hair on the back of the neck stand up". These guys were not far away from replicating the aforementioned NWA A320 crew that landed at Ellsworth AFB, or the CAL 737 crew that landed at Cabaniss Navy Aux Landing Field instead of Corpus Christi, TX.

 

[LOGS]

Well as UND alum at a particular airline that may be hiring when things turn around I might just tell the people who run the interviews or even better I actually do the interviews and make sure to give the UND applicants a real ringer for there interview so that way they can prove not only to mesaba but a line pilot that they are gods of aviation. Seriously to those who say we should ride there butts down into the ground and make them pay for it, You just dont get it, though XJ is a good airline, it is not some pool party in which you get all the rest you have and do what you want. To someone who said glad they werent in the mountains, They were in visual conditions and cleared for the visual. there for they would have seen a mountain. If it was IMC they would have been vectored to the BC and intercept it. Even if that logic fails the saab has one tool that a Cessna 172 doesnt, EGPWS. So there is my ramblings, and if people continue to bash XJ over this really mundane and just a simple loss of situationa awareness with a unfamiliar location, They may find themselves not getting a job once the hiring picks up because even if the individuals are " anonomous" on this forum, there attitudes arent.
-Farva

400A the next time you roll through MSP give me a call and will buy ya a beer for this one.

All hail the mighty regional FO!!!
You sir have an attitude problem.

Maybe when you get some PIC time under your belt you'll understand.

See isn't it fun to assume?:tmyk: