Jetblue Tail Strike On Departure

Yeah! Because if you don’t say this and there’s another plane in the area, they’re going to purposely try to kill you! But if you ask them to advise, then they won’t crash into you!

Nah. More like we are coming in on the ILS 32 into PLN and the radio is dead quiet except us. I say that dreaded phase. I hear a "Pellston? Yeah, we're on a base for Rwy 5."

I never saw him. And I never heard him at anypoint once I switched to CTAF (and I had been monitoring that freq on #2 anyway). Nothing.


Purposefully kill you? No. Won't crash into you? Hopefully not.

But, possibly made aware of each other? Yes! Especially if they have a radio and dialed up on CTAF. Like, say in this case, when they're the only ones at the airport making holes in the sky at PLN and didn't expect a CRJ airliner coming in.
 
Am I missing something here? What does CTAF or a plane on final have to do with a tail strike?

EDIT: I see the context now, thought the King Air was same direction.
 
Probably being captain obvious here but I’m guessing the KA called the airport in sight and cancelled, otherwise JetBlue wouldn’t have gotten released…with those METARS, canceling seems like it might have been a bit dodgy.
And if the KA was not talking on the radio with a 500' or less ceiling, JB might not have had any idea he was there and would have been surprised as the KA popped put of the cloud deck opposite direction and not sure how close during the takeoff roll. Past or near V1 I can see a panic moment resulting in trying to get it off the ground quickly.
 
You know right of rules only if you knew there was someone there to begin with... right? RIGHT?


Have we established yet that no 121 airline crew in this country would willingly takeoff KNOWING there is a turboprop on a 2 mile final to the opposite end of the same runway they are about to depart on?
Agree, you misunderstanding my point.

The cause of the incident is Jet Blue not yielding for the King Air on final. The question is, why did that happen? If the King Air was operating VFR in IMC conditions that very well may have been a contributor. Did the KA pilot report his position on Unicom? If the airport had a 300’ ceiling at the time of the incident that would be a factor.

I think there is also a possibility of an ATC error. Both aircraft had filed IFR flight plans. What if the KA was still operating IFR?

Pilot comments about the airport say Unicom is very responsive to aircraft, some report to a fault. Hope the operator witnessed the incident. Would the CVR data have been saved on the A320?
 
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The cause of the incident is Jet Blue not yielding for the King Air on final.

That’s making a lot of assumptions.

If the King Air was in VMC or making required calls, sure. But metars suggest the former may not have been the case, and in my experience 121 operators rarely blast off out non towered fields without at least some basic CTAF monitoring, which makes the latter somewhat questionable to me.
 
The cause of the incident is Jet Blue not yielding for the King Air on final.
There is no way anyone could definitively say that at this point- let alone an outside observer on the internet. It could be possible the King Air has nothing to do with this at all and the crew simply over rotated? Maybe there was a snake on the plane and the PF got freaked out. Let’s wait to draw conclusions till the pros gather the info.
 
That’s making a lot of assumptions.

If the King Air was in VMC or making required calls, sure. But metars suggest the former may not have been the case, and in my experience 121 operators rarely blast off out non towered fields without at least some basic CTAF monitoring, which makes the latter somewhat questionable to me.
I guess I’m not making myself clear. I said pretty much the same.
If the King Air was operating VFR in IMC conditions that very well may have been a contributor. Did the KA pilot report his position on Unicom? If the airport had a 300’ ceiling at the time of the incident that would be a factor.
 
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Of course throw the 121 crew under the Bus?
The lack of knowledge of untowered airport operations displayed after this statement is why indeed that would be my first thought as well. Look, 121’s statistically way safer than 135 and 91. That’s because of the standardization and checking. No arguments whatsoever with that.
But bluntly, 121 is almost always vectors to an ILS final at a big airport. You’re good at what you do regularly. If I were to fly into ORD I’d probably screw some stuff up and get laughed at a fair bit because that’s not a regular part of the job, although I can (and do) occasionally do it. Same with airlines going to nontowered fields. Frankly I’ve heard worse from airliners than Bonanzas. Incorrect direction pattern (when they even at least have the courtesy to try to fly one), lack of radio calls, wrong radio calls, cutting off traffic, blocking taxiways and runways…I’ve seen it all.
 
I guess I’m not making myself clear.

I guess not? I’m just wondering how, if the weather was as depicted in the metars and the KA wasn’t making calls (just a possibility, not saying that’s what happened) the JetBlue crew was supposed to yield to an aircraft they couldn’t see or hear?

But bluntly, 121 is almost always vectors to an ILS final at a big airport.

That wasn’t my experience.
 
Nah. More like we are coming in on the ILS 32 into PLN and the radio is dead quiet except us. I say that dreaded phase. I hear a "Pellston? Yeah, we're on a base for Rwy 5."

I never saw him. And I never heard him at anypoint once I switched to CTAF (and I had been monitoring that freq on #2 anyway). Nothing.


Purposefully kill you? No. Won't crash into you? Hopefully not.

But, possibly made aware of each other? Yes! Especially if they have a radio and dialed up on CTAF. Like, say in this case, when they're the only ones at the airport making holes in the sky at PLN and didn't expect a CRJ airliner coming in.
My point is that broadcasting the very statement that the A.I.M shows to NOT say, isn’t going to provide any magical protection.

If you’re making the correct positional transmissions, the other traffic will hit you or they won’t. Making an incorrect radio call won’t make the difference!

In my personal experience….
 
I also hate to Monday morning QB, but I’d like to make sure I have some facts right: the King Air was at least 2 miles out on final? I’m curious why the pilots would rotate so rapidly as opposed to a normal rate? I could see if they looked out and saw the King Air on a collision course approaching Vr, but 2 miles is quite a distance. Would LOVE to hear cockpit audio on this one. Glad everyone is safe.

saw one report that said they missed by 2500 feet
 
The lack of knowledge of untowered airport operations displayed after this statement is why indeed that would be my first thought as well. Look, 121’s statistically way safer than 135 and 91. That’s because of the standardization and checking. No arguments whatsoever with that.
But bluntly, 121 is almost always vectors to an ILS final at a big airport. You’re good at what you do regularly. If I were to fly into ORD I’d probably screw some stuff up and get laughed at a fair bit because that’s not a regular part of the job, although I can (and do) occasionally do it. Same with airlines going to nontowered fields. Frankly I’ve heard worse from airliners than Bonanzas. Incorrect direction pattern (when they even at least have the courtesy to try to fly one), lack of radio calls, wrong radio calls, cutting off traffic, blocking taxiways and runways…I’ve seen it all.

I’ve flown into untowered airports in the CRJ and 737. What you said doesn’t describe what I’ve experienced.

When was the last time a King Air took out an airliner? Remember Quincy?
 
The lack of knowledge of untowered airport operations displayed after this statement is why indeed that would be my first thought as well. Look, 121’s statistically way safer than 135 and 91. That’s because of the standardization and checking. No arguments whatsoever with that.
But bluntly, 121 is almost always vectors to an ILS final at a big airport. You’re good at what you do regularly. If I were to fly into ORD I’d probably screw some stuff up and get laughed at a fair bit because that’s not a regular part of the job, although I can (and do) occasionally do it. Same with airlines going to nontowered fields. Frankly I’ve heard worse from airliners than Bonanzas. Incorrect direction pattern (when they even at least have the courtesy to try to fly one), lack of radio calls, wrong radio calls, cutting off traffic, blocking taxiways and runways…I’ve seen it all.
I don’t think this is a good generalization at all. Especially now with so many 135 dawgs running to the airlines, there’s a lot of airline guys who spent years flying into untowered airports VFR and IFR.
 
Also, if the KA canceled early I can’t imagine ATC releasing the airbus without some confirmation on both sides that they could see and avoid. At least that’s the way Center does it in that scenario at our 1 in/1 out airport, which has a lot of similar opposite direction issues due to terrain.
 
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I almost got my bird smashed about 6 or so weeks ago at night at MZJ, an uncontrolled field we fly out of that is a huge airliner storage field. Was in my helo at about 2000L time. Was practicing some runway slide-on landings at night with a new pilot. The only traffic was an Army NG helo that was sitting on the taxiway at the opposite end of the field doing some hover work. I was working up and down the 6800 foot runway doing various maneuvers to one end, then turn around and do more maneuvers to the other end. That way I don’t have to waste time flying a pattern in between each. As we are sitting on the approach end of runway 30 facing up-runway, I’m getting ready to brief the new guy on what kind of liftoff I want him to do and how to do it, simulating a 100 foot obstacle. All of a sudden, on the CTAF frequency, someone transmits “Pinal Unicom, Boeing 737, turning 1 mile final runway 30, Pinal” What the heck? I take the controls, lift off to a 3 foot hover while making a left in-place pedal turn to look behind us, and sure enough, I’m staring at the landing lights of a 737-800 that’s coming to 1/2 mile final for 30. I quickly reposition us forward and off the side of the runway into the grass, while the 737 calls “Pinal Unicom, Boeing 737, short final runway 30”. And it flies on by and lands. Exits at the end and taxis to parking. A foreign bird with no airline name on it, coming in for storage or maintenance.

What’s weird is that at MZJ, the big jets normally only go in and out of the field in the daytime. Occasionally, they’ll depart at night to leave. But they never arrive at night. Ever. Mainly because MZJ is only 6800 feet, sits in a big black hole environment, has no instrument approaches to it, and has no VASI or PAPI to either runway, nor any approach lighting system or REILS. And only low intensity runway lights. I’ve never seen civil jets arriving at night for at least a couple of decades. But, by the letter of the FARs, the 737 crew did nothing wrong. As being an uncontrolled field, they aren’t obligated to make any radio calls at all. It’s not required, even though it’s obviously good practice to do so. No X miles out call, no downwind call, no base call……just the turning 1 mile final call as their first radio call; whereas I and the NG helicopter had been making position calls even though we weren’t working near one another, with him calling out his hover ops on the taxiway, and me calling out my working up and down the runway.

That could’ve been a sucky situation. I could’ve easily ended up like the USAir 737 and the Skywest Metro at LAX in 1991. No one even knew the Skywest plane was involved until the crash rescue firefighters found a propeller under the wreckage of the 737 and wondered what it was doing there. They would’ve found a rotor blade or three and a mast and skids under that jet after it ran me over had he not made any radio calls. By the time I would’ve noticed that I was being illuminated by his landing lights behind me, it would’ve been too late.
 
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