ppragman
No pasa nada.
If safety were actually "number one" nobody would ever pull chocks.
Almost the entirety of internet aviation debate is about this. Indeed, people in industry make these kinds of cost-based decisions based on "rational" self-interest all the time. Once I worked for a company (now out of business) that had switches in the cockpit to turn off the hobbs. The owner assured us "it was only to deal with emergencies like if we were accidentally going to overfly a 100hr or something" but every time I got into an airplane after him the switch was flipped. I once estimated we were doing about 130hrs per hundred hour. Another place I worked had rolling rest and a constant 24 hour on-call. Completely illegal by both case law and any honest reading of the regulations. So I quit and worked for a place that didn't pay me anything but had good maintenance. I couldn't afford it, so I had to accept increased risk and I went back to Alaska.
I knew it from before, but when I got back of course I employed the standard bush tactic of "just climbing into the goo and flying on a pre-defined route at a pre-defined altitude when IFR was unavailable so you don't CFIT." Sorry to rain on everyone's parade but this ain't Nebraska. The "rules" say that this is verboten and bad and you would get thrown under the bus by the company and the FAA if you got caught, but practically every operator used to be doing this all the goddamn time in the winter. •, before I left Alaska the first time, at an interview at <REDACTED> when I was like 21? The first thing we did was leave VFR in a Caravan, fly up into the goo over some mountains and drop down into a coastal village. We let down over the bay on the radar altimeter. I was fine with it - it was actually the safest thing I could think of to go there without an approach at the time. If we were going to go anyway, that was the "best" worst decision. I actually got offered the job as an FO but decided not to leave JNU at the time for that shop because I didn't want to live in the Bush.
That was the way the operation worked. That was the way most operations worked. "Try to comply but do what you think is safest while not compromising operations too much." They were doing it for the money. They were accepting higher levels of operational risk for the cash. Literally everyone is - people just do not agree on what "acceptable" levels of operational risk is, and why you bring cash into the equation, and lifestyle, and paying rent - well, suddenly a lot of people are a lot more willing to accept operational risk than they perhaps ought to be.
I don't know if they still are doing that kind of stuff out west or in SEAK. The approach infrastructure has had a phenomenal increase in quality in the last decade such that when I was leaving the cockpit you didn't really need to commit any piracy anymore. It was great! With so many GPS approaches there was usually an option, but if you don't have one, what's better, scud run for 40 miles or climb so that you, you know, didn't CFIT. People will gnash their teeth: "but it's wrong! it's illegal doncha know? and if the company wants you to fly IFR they should get IFR airplanes." Or another variation I've seen "it's unethical! the passengers think they're getting FAR compliant service" - please, you know how many passengers have tried to get me to fly in worse and worse weather because they "had to be there?"
I'm reminded of one time in JNU when I was a bit younger and perhaps more... rowdy... everyone is on weather hold because the weather everywhere else is garbage, and a guy is harassing the counter girl. "WELL I CAN SEE BLUE SKY, I HAVE to Get TO HaINes!" And swearing at her, etc. she was nearly in tears. I was on weather hold too because going was stupid. So I went up to the guy being rude. "Oh, you need to get to Haines? YOU think we can go to Haines? Alright, get your stuff, I'll take you and ONLY you, we'll go be the explorers, I can show you why everyone else isn't going, we can get to Haines ... or die trying! Let's go, pack your •!" He quickly changed his tune and apologized. I don't know how far I would have gone with the bit, and even if we tried we would have flown about 5 miles and turned around at the wall of clouds - but passengers do not know • and don't fully understand the risks at all. Often times the regulators don't either and you get into some bureaucratic process diagram (this also happened at one of my jobs) where you call everyone you are supposed to call to get a weather camera fixed and you end up back at the same person. "Oh, nobody knows what is going on!"
And even in IFR airplanes you run into the dynamic of balancing risk versus money. In the bush practically every departure becomes "can you maintain your own terrain and obstruction clearance through XXX?" Which has always been a BS question. Of course I can, or I wouldn't have taken off, but if not what is the guy in center going to do about it? He can't even see me. And pre-ADS-B or with limited radar contact, flying extra-special VFR because the minimum sector altitude is like 8900' or some nonsense we all know the "obvious" right answer to the question. Big sky theory and all that. Though I do know one insanely lucky aviator who tested that theory out in Bethel. He's on this forum too but I won't out him. Regardless, why do you think Jeppesen carried around a notebook with notes and runway diagrams and approaches? Why did all the old guys have a bunch of stuff like that? Why did I have moleskins with crudely drawn approach diagrams and notes about soft spots and words in Athabaskan? So we didn't die. So I could learn the names of all the Elders in the villages I went to so I would have a place to stay if I broke down. So I had something more accurate than "man, I think this ridge is at 4500'?"
But the calculus has always been the same. The industry exists to make money. We still went anyway so that we could pay rent and Chief Pilots and DOs still sent us. Why do people act so surprised when I tell them I think money is the quintessential evil of this world? Or really, the love of money? Because my friends took risks and gambled to pay rent, screwed up on the wrong day, and paid the ultimate price for it - but let's not pretend that aviation was EVER truly about safety. Some of them didn't even gamble or do anything wrong - they just took off on a day that was going to be their last flight. It has always been about turning heat, noise, and distance into money. It's "revenue seat miles" not "revenue seat miles per accident." So pilots and companies have always accepted the Faustian bargain and tried to do things as well as they can given the limitations of the environment their operating in. I think it was Upton Sinclair who said: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"
Pilots should not be surprised that the desire for comfort and to maintain one's existing equilibrium will consistently get chosen above the "safer" outcome.
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