Aircraft do not crash of themselves.
“Aircraft do not crash of themselves.” Tough love? Too harsh? Nevil Shute did include designers and managers in his paradigm of human error. Quote from Slide Rule: The Autobiography of an Engineer, 1954.
crash
This hits close
A new episode of the National Geographic Air Crash Investigation TV show, titled Killer Attitude is hard for me to watch. It describes the crash of a perfectly good Northwest Airlink Jetstream 31 from MSP to Hibbing, MN, on 1 December 1993. I was flying out of MSP that night, same airplane type, same airline. I knew the captain, Marvin. I remember the grief counselors in the MSP crew room for two weeks after the crash. And one of the presenters, Craig Railsback, is a friend. We met 25 years ago, as young first officers in Jetstream 31 training at this … Continue reading This hits close
1 in 5 biz jet pilots are stupid?
Ripped from the aviation press headlines: One in five business jet pilots don’t do a full flight-control check before takeoff. Actually one in five is a bit of an exaggeration. The would be 20%. The more precise number is 17.66%. And that’s actually a per-flight percentage, so maybe the percentage of pilots is a little less. But WTF Batman! 17.66%? You may have read about the fatal 2014 Gulfstream G-IV crash caused by the crew not doing a flight-control check and then trying to takeoff with the gust lock engaged. Well, now the airmanship onion has been peeled back a … Continue reading 1 in 5 biz jet pilots are stupid?
It’s no accident — it’s a crash
Interesting article yesterday in the New York Times, titled ‘It’s no accident: Advocates want to speak of car ‘crashes’ instead’. It’s about safety advocates changing language use from a car accident to a car crash. The AP recently revised their style guide. Dr Rosekind of the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is on board, saying, “When you use the word accident, it’s like, ‘God made it happen.’” The thinking is that ‘accident’ may make us shrug our shoulders and think, oh well, what can you do, accidents happen. ‘Accident’ may trivialize that most common cause of traffic incidents: human … Continue reading It’s no accident — it’s a crash
Airmanship at a distance
This is a sad story. But important to think about. For we are all our brother’s keeper. The news headline this weekend was ‘Flight school sued over death of student‘. Fox5 reported: A 21-year-old’s dream of becoming a pilot was cut short when during flight school his plane came crashing down, killing him, according to a lawsuit filed Friday in Cobb County. The father of the young man filed that suit alleging the school was negligent by forgetting to refuel the plane. “I don’t want another family to experience that kind of loss,” said Michael Hughes. This was the reason … Continue reading Airmanship at a distance