Silver Airways Saab Lands At Wrong Airport
- Thread starter v1valarob
- Start date
drummerguy
Well-Known Member
I don't work for Silver but I have flown that route hundreds of times in a Colgan Saab. I think there are some challenges on this particular leg that are easily over looked by someone who does not do this flight. The flight typically originates out of IAD and stops in MGW before continueing to CKB. The significance of this is you end up with a last leg that is less than 25 nm in a complex aircraft going 250 kias at about 3000 ft.
That means you have less than five mins. to complete a climb checklist, cruise checklist, descent checklist, approach checklist and before landing checklist. You also have to get the atis (no acars on the saab) and brief an approach. To further complicate this, some companies require you to exchange controls in order to do said briefing In addition to that you have to call MGW with your out and offs and call in range to CKB. There is also a passenger briefing to give. This is a pretty busy couple of minutes to say the least. I don't know if Silver is using FMS or not, they got most of their Saabs from Mesaba. Mesaba operated those airplanes for years without activating the FMS and we never had FMS at Colgan. In the standards department we discussed the fact that it was not economically prudent to activate FMS on the Saab fleet since the maker was no longer going to provide technical support for the product. So in essence what you have is two guys in the dark, in an unfamiliar area in an extremely high workload environment.
All that being said, they made a huge mistake. The runway at CKB is now 7800 ft long and that is the numbers they were using for their approach and landing. The runway they landed on is only about 3200 feet long. They got very lucky. They lived. This didn't turn out so well a couple of years ago in LEX for Comair. I think the thing we quickly forget in any accident or incident is this, this was not the intended outcome. When someone drives one off the end or whatever said accident may be, they didn't wake up that morning and say "hey, lets try this and see what happens". The importance of this is to realize that we are all human. We have all made mistakes and we are all going to make mistakes. And yes, our mistakes do have consequences. Sometimes they are big ones, life and death. Sometimes they are small ones like being disciplined. I'm sure the FAA and the airline will do their due diligence in sorting out this mess.
I post this because I hope people will understand that not all airplanes are equiped the same and we don't all have exactly the same tools to do our jobs. With all this in mind, they should have had their charts out and their navaids tuned. Maybe they did and maybe they didn't, we simply don't know. Flying a Saab for the last 5 years was a challenging job and I miss it. I am looking forward to my next aviation adventure in whatever new airplane I end up in.
That means you have less than five mins. to complete a climb checklist, cruise checklist, descent checklist, approach checklist and before landing checklist. You also have to get the atis (no acars on the saab) and brief an approach. To further complicate this, some companies require you to exchange controls in order to do said briefing In addition to that you have to call MGW with your out and offs and call in range to CKB. There is also a passenger briefing to give. This is a pretty busy couple of minutes to say the least. I don't know if Silver is using FMS or not, they got most of their Saabs from Mesaba. Mesaba operated those airplanes for years without activating the FMS and we never had FMS at Colgan. In the standards department we discussed the fact that it was not economically prudent to activate FMS on the Saab fleet since the maker was no longer going to provide technical support for the product. So in essence what you have is two guys in the dark, in an unfamiliar area in an extremely high workload environment.
All that being said, they made a huge mistake. The runway at CKB is now 7800 ft long and that is the numbers they were using for their approach and landing. The runway they landed on is only about 3200 feet long. They got very lucky. They lived. This didn't turn out so well a couple of years ago in LEX for Comair. I think the thing we quickly forget in any accident or incident is this, this was not the intended outcome. When someone drives one off the end or whatever said accident may be, they didn't wake up that morning and say "hey, lets try this and see what happens". The importance of this is to realize that we are all human. We have all made mistakes and we are all going to make mistakes. And yes, our mistakes do have consequences. Sometimes they are big ones, life and death. Sometimes they are small ones like being disciplined. I'm sure the FAA and the airline will do their due diligence in sorting out this mess.
I post this because I hope people will understand that not all airplanes are equiped the same and we don't all have exactly the same tools to do our jobs. With all this in mind, they should have had their charts out and their navaids tuned. Maybe they did and maybe they didn't, we simply don't know. Flying a Saab for the last 5 years was a challenging job and I miss it. I am looking forward to my next aviation adventure in whatever new airplane I end up in.
BE19Pilot
Flying a Box
We all have made mistakes, and lord knows I have made my share of them and fortunately none of them were consequential. However, I think in this case the pilots are going to be disciplined and possibly have action taken by the FAA because of supervisory error. I don't know anything about the training received by the crew in this case, but some basic airmanship/navigation errors were made in this error chain. Experience with this area, airplane and operation tells me that they were placed in an environment with a very high probability of error. Briefing the approach/route, CAREFUL review of the NOTAMS and identifying threats are measures that crews unfamiliar with an airport/route can apply to increase the probability of a safe and uneventful flight. Today, we are seeing an increase of accidents/incidents occurring due to loss of control, loss of situational awareness and misuse of automation...Pilots are flying more and more with their heads down and not paying attention to the "bigger picture". Until engineers can completely design us out of the loop, accidents of this type are going to INCREASE...
SlumTodd_Millionaire
Most Hated Member
No. Silver does not have a PFT program.
Maurus
The Great Gazoo
No more pay to play there. They tried and failed.
gotcha thanks
ozziecat35
4 out of 5 great lakes prefer Michigan.
Dugie8
Well-Known Member
Why does there have to be "consequences"? That may seem like a silly question but think about it for a minute. I would wager that most of us don't wake up in the morning intending to do anything stupid or dangerous. I would wager again that most of us just want to do our jobs, to the best of our current abilities and go home.
Making a mistake isn't always a reason to discipline the individual(s). Again, another wager, when most of us make a mistake, the self discipline we apply to ourselves is often worse and longer lasting than any form of "consequences" we get from our employer; thus making any form of real punishment from "the boss" less than redundant and maybe counter productive.
There are mistakes and there is recklessness. The two aren't the same.
Soul Brotha'
Off to go do Black guy stuff
What does a VFR chart look like again, someone remind me?
Soul Brotha'
Off to go do Black guy stuff
Isn
Isn't machoism one of the deadly sins of aviation? Look guys things happen up there and you could be the most prepared/dilligent/all knowledege guys out there.
SlumTodd_Millionaire
Most Hated Member
Yep. Anyone who got his CFI would remember the FOI talking about the dangers of a macho attitude. Apparently some members weren't paying too much attention.
SlumTodd_Millionaire
Most Hated Member
Best post of the thread.
greaper007
Well-Known Member
I don't know the particulars of this incident but I also flew this route dozens of times at Colgan. IMHO ALL the W.VA airports were an accident waiting to happen, along with a few of the PA ones (my dad has like 40,000 hours and 30 years in the 737 and still turns down $2000 2leg charters to State College). IMHO if you can't put a tower at your hillbilly airport your townsfolk should have to take the greyhound.
Autothrust Blue
"Well, on the Brasilia..."
Chipdetect2230
Is this real life?
jhugz
Guppy gear swinger
It's a typical arguement with you Todd, same thing back in the GoJet days. Instead of you having a civil discussion you go right for the throat. You attack my maturity and my ADM. Then when I push back, I'm a dick and lose the respect and future recommendations while you guys play the guilt trip. I'm not a FA without a commercial pilots licenses anymore, I'm a captain on a turboprop. I have seen a lot of things you guys have, and contrary to your guys beliefs, I can have my own opinion on these subjects.
Tommay85
Well-Known Member
I REALLY haven't seen a single post in the entire thread that implies machoism. I haven't seen a single member use the words "I" or say "I would NEVER make that mistake". You're pulling way to many extra things out of some of these posts. Please take what's ACTUALLY written at face value, sarcasm aside. I don't know how I'm coming across to you, but I assure you there's no anger or frustration in my exchanges with you. Maybe there was a little bit yesterday, but I'm perfectly fine with agreeing to disagree. Maybe you just HATE my sig? Hint: scroll down
