Comair Pilot Error

"Andrew Sarangan" wrote in message
oups.com...
Sure, I have made plenty of mistakes while flying. Most of them were
fairly harmless, and would only have resulted in fender benders and
bruised egos.

We don't know what mistake was made here. We don't know that whatever
mistake was made, it wouldn't normally have resulted in fender benders and
bruised egos (or perhaps no negative outcome at all). All we know is that
in this case, a serious accident happened.

Almost all aircraft accidents are due to human error, unless it was hit
by a meteor or an alien spaceship.

I've never heard of an airplane being hit by a meteor or alien spaceship.
According to you then, *all* aircraft accidents are due to human error.
Well, that's not true either.

[...]
I don't buy the argument that it was dark so it was hard to see.

Perhaps you should avoid flying when it's dark then. You don't seem to have
the proper respect for the reality of the situation.

If
that were true, we should not be allowed to fly VFR in the dark.

That's your opinion. However, the FAA clearly disagrees. It IS hard to see
in the dark, and yet we ARE allowed to fly VFR in the dark.

At takeoff speeds, airplane lighting (especially that found on small
airplanes) does not illuminate far enough ahead of the airplane for the
pilot to stop the airplane before hitting a seen obstruction. Immediately
after takeoff at many airports, there are NO outside references. The pilot
cannot see a single thing outside the airplane, and yet this is allowed
under the VFR rules. Cloud are often completely invisible at dark,
especially when there's no moon and they are not directly over a major
populated area. A VFR pilot can easily stumble right into one, without ever
having seen it.

All of these are examples of how it IS hard to see in the dark.

I frequently fly from a 3500' runway, and even on a crummy day I can see
the terminating red bars from the moment I apply power. If I can't see
the red bars, something is not right and I take a second look.

But what if you CAN see the terminating red bars? What does that tell you?
Nothing. Nothing useful at all. You can't tell how far they are from you.
You can't tell whether you are on the correct runway, and you can't even
tell whether there's something on the runway between you and the terminating
red bars.

And this
is in a spam can with no other lives at risk except my own and perhaps
one passenger. Surely a part 121 operation with paying passengers, two
pilots, flight attendant and a dispatch team ought to be held to a
higher standard.

Personally, I'd like every pilot to be held to the same standard: don't do
anything that would get anyone killed.

But so what if we do hold Part 121 operators and pilots to a higher
standard? Does that mean that any time an accident happens, we should get
angry? Does that mean that any time an accident happens, it's a foregone
conclusion that the pilots were grossly negligent?

I don't think so, and that's exactly what I said in reply to your post.

Fatigue surely has a enormous effect on human performance. But almost
all incidents due to fatigue comes from high-demand situations - bad
weather, strong winds, icing, etc..

And you base that statement on what evidence?

My own personal experience with fatigue is that it *rarely* affects my
performance in high-demand situations. Adrenaline is a powerful drug, and
when it's clear that I need to focus, my body steps up and provides that.

It's when things are calm, when I'm feeling comfortable and complacent, that
fatigue is most dangerous. It causes me to overlook things, it causes me to
think I'm doing something when I'm actually not, it causes me to see things
that aren't there, or to fail to see things that are there. It causes me to
think I've done something I haven't, or to think that I haven't done
something that I have.

I just don't see how fatigue could
play a role on a calm VFR morning departure with little or no traffic.

Frankly, your lack of understanding suggests to me that you have never truly
been fatigued. And while the worst fatigue occurs when one has gone days
without sleep, you can wake up from an eight-hour sleep and still be
suffering the effects of fatigue. It depends on how well you slept, how
well you had been sleeping the previous nights, whether your body's schedule
is aligned with the local time, and a variety of other factors.

If fatigue did have something to do with it, how do you think they
would have handled the subsequent landing at Atlanta, which is a far
more busier airspace than sleepy Lexington?

Likely quite well. As I said, when one is presented with an obviously
stressful situation, the body can often compensate, especially as long as
things remain routine. Furthermore, if fatigue was a factor (and we don't
know that it was...I'm just saying you don't know it wasn't), it's not
necessarily the case that the pilots would still be suffering from the
fatigue by the end of the flight.

Beyond that, what does how they would have handled the subsequent landing at
Atlanta have anything to do with it? Are you saying that if one assumes
they would have crashed in Atlanta even if they'd successfully departed
Lexington, then your anger is justified?

That seems like a pretty random connection, even for Usenet.

True, I do not have any first hand knowledge of this accident. No one
does. But that doesn't mean the facts are unclear.

Of course it does. That's *exactly* what it means.

What else do you suppose happened here?

I already proposed a variety of explanations that don't invoke gross
negligence.

Did a demon appear in the cockpit and steer the
airplane to the wrong runway?

Uh, no. Why is that the only alternative to gross negligence that you can
think of? Lots of mistakes are made by humans without demonic intervention.
Most of those mistakes are NOT gross negligence.

Even an NTSB official was quoted as
saying he was angry at this accident.

So, he did it so it's okay for you to do it? That's your defense?

I think anger is a normal reaction to this type of accident.

It probably is. People get angry at all sorts of stupid things. That
doesn't make it right though.

It doesn't mean you have to go sue someone and collect damages.

I don't doubt that that will occur. I don't think you need to be angry to
collect damages, nor do I think that being angry ensures that one collects
damages. I fail to see the connection.

We just need to take steps to better educate pilots.

Better educated pilots are a good thing. It would be great if we do learn
something from this accident that improves safety for everyone else.

But I don't think one needs to be angry in order to better educate pilots.
Why do you think one does?

That doesn't have to wait until NTSB comes back with an
answer.

Actually, it does. If you want this accident to directly contribute to the
cause of safety, you need to wait until you know WHY this accident occurred.
You can immediately start remphasizing training areas that appear to be
relevant, but you cannot use this accident as a direct training aid until
you actually understand what caused the accident.

And I seriously doubt that the NTSB will come back with
something very different from what we know so far.

Why would they come back with something different from what we KNOW so far?
Do you think the facts might change over time?

No, what they might do is come back with something IN ADDITION TO what we
know so far. And given that we know almost nothing about WHY the accident
occurs, it's safe to say they will have a LOT of new information if and when
they release it.

My point is that "what we know so far" is precious little, and hardly enough
to justify any anger.

Pete

We don't know what mistake was made here.

Sure we do. They took off from a runway that was too short for their
aircraft.

Ron Lee

We don't know what mistake was made here.
Sure we do. They took off from a runway that was too short for their
aircraft.

A more useful statement is that that was a result of a mistake (or
series of mistakes). This is why we look further.

Jose
--
The monkey turns the crank and thinks he's making the music.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

"Ron Lee" wrote in message
...
We don't know what mistake was made here.

Sure we do. They took off from a runway that was too short for their
aircraft.

That is only the "final" and most obvious mistake. It doesn't answer the
question of WHY that mistake was made.

And I put "final" in quotes because if you want to get technical about it,
the actual final mistake was crashing the airplane. In a lot of aircraft
accidents, the final mistake is crashing the airplane. But thankfully, the
NTSB goes a little farther in their investigations than saying "probable
cause: the airplane struck the ground in a manner inconsistent with a
survivable landing".

Pete

Peter

I think you are taking the phrase "angry" to an extreme. It is not that
I am sitting here pounding my fist on the table and crying for revenge.
I am angry that the pilots were so careless and took so many innocent
lives with them. No, it was not a deliberate attempt, that would be
murder or terrorism. This was a mistake due to carelessness and
negligence. If no one had died, we can call it a simple careless
mistake and leave it at that. When 50 people die, I call it gross
negligence. I am not a lawyer, so may be there is a deeper meaning to
"gross" than what I am aware of.

Yes, most aircraft accidents are due to human error. Aircraft is a
machine built by humans. When it fails how could it not be human error?
The difference is, some errors are simple and clear and be traced to
one or two individuals, while other errors are more complex,
intertwined and involves many thousands of people. We often equate the
former as human error and the latter as policy failures. But
ultimately humans are responsbile for all our errors.

Perhaps I am being naiive, but I have experienced fatigue due to lack
of sleep and long flights in IMC. When that happens, I make a
deliberate attempt to check, double check and triple check everything.
When I know I am vulnerable, I take the obvious steps to prevent a
mishap. That is why I sometimes take a commercial flight if I am unfit
to fly myself. I would never expect the person sitting in the cockpit
to me more unfit than I am.

I don't buy the argument that it was dark so it was hard to see.

Perhaps you should avoid flying when it's dark then. You don't seem to have
the proper respect for the reality of the situation.

That is a pretty cheap shot. Night flying is harsher than day, but not
because you can't see the end of the runway. Certain things are easier
to see at night than day, and runway lights is one of them, especially
when you are lined with it. Other things are harder to see at night,
like clouds, emergency landing sites and small print on charts. But
those are not what we are talking about here.

"Andrew Sarangan" wrote in message
oups.com...
I think you are taking the phrase "angry" to an extreme. It is not that
I am sitting here pounding my fist on the table and crying for revenge.
I am angry that the pilots were so careless and took so many innocent
lives with them.

Equivocate all you want...your post expresses more than just a general
feeling of angry resentment, and the use of term "gross negligence" goes way
beyond anything anyone has learned yet.

[...] When 50 people die, I call it gross negligence.

Then you are ignorant of the correct use of the term.

I am not a lawyer, so may be there is a deeper meaning to
"gross" than what I am aware of.

"Gross negligence" has a very specific meaning. If you use it for other
than that meaning, you are in error. Here is one example of the dictionary
definiton for "gross negligence" (from Webster's):

an extremely careless action or an omission that is willful
or reckless disregard for the consequences to the safety or
property of another; also called very great negligence,
culpa lata

If that is not what you mean, then you should not be using the term.

Yes, most aircraft accidents are due to human error. Aircraft is a
machine built by humans. When it fails how could it not be human error?

Lots of mechanical failures are due simply to normal wear. And there's a
wide variety of normal wear that is either simply impossible to detect
during any normal inspection of the airplane, or which occurs after a proper
inspection was done and was not detectable at that inspection.

It is just as ignorant to claim that ALL mechanical failures are due to
human error as it is to claim that there is enough information in this
accident to judge the pilots grossly negligent.

The difference is, some errors are simple and clear and be traced to
one or two individuals, while other errors are more complex,
intertwined and involves many thousands of people. We often equate the
former as human error and the latter as policy failures. But
ultimately humans are responsbile for all our errors.

But not all accidents are caused by human error.

Perhaps I am being naiive, but I have experienced fatigue due to lack
of sleep and long flights in IMC. When that happens, I make a
deliberate attempt to check, double check and triple check everything.
When I know I am vulnerable, I take the obvious steps to prevent a
mishap.

You have no reason to claim that these pilots did not do exactly that. Even
as a person may recognize their reduced performance and may take steps to
attempt to mitigate that reduced performance, fatigue may prevent them from
recognizing that the steps they have taken did not prevent a mistake.

Beyond that, you seem to *really* be too focused on the individual
possibilities. The very fact that you see a need to argue against each
hypothetical is proof positive that you are jumping to conclusions. If you
had enough information to fairly judge the pilots, you could explain to all
of us exactly what happened.

You don't have that information, so you're left trying to fight off each
possible explanation one at a time. Even if you successfully argue against
a possibility (and you haven't so far), the fact remains that you have NO
IDEA what happened, and are not in a position to fairly judge whether the
pilots acted in a grossly negligent (or even plainly negligent) manner.

The most you can say is that they made a mistake. You have no idea why they
made that mistake, and you cannot even claim that you would not have made
the exact same mistake in the exact same situation.

[...]
Perhaps you should avoid flying when it's dark then. You don't seem to
have
the proper respect for the reality of the situation.

That is a pretty cheap shot.

Why? You're the one saying that it's not harder to see when it's dark. I
think most of us recognize the reality that it's harder to see when it's
dark. Your claim is exactly opposite from how most of us understand
darkness. I simply pointed that out.

Night flying is harsher than day, but not
because you can't see the end of the runway.

No one (except perhaps you) is saying that seeing the end of the runway
would have prevented this accident. So what's your point?

Certain things are easier
to see at night than day, and runway lights is one of them, especially
when you are lined with it.

So the pilots saw the runway lights? How would that have helped them avoid
the accident? Are you claiming that they DID see the runway lights, and
that the runway lights DID provide unmistakable evidence that they were on
the wrong runway, and that they DID ignore that unmistakable evidence? And
if you aren't saying that, then why do you bring up the question of seeing
the runway lights?

Other things are harder to see at night,
like clouds, emergency landing sites and small print on charts. But
those are not what we are talking about here.

What we're talking about here is the fact that when it's dark, it's harder
to see things, especially those things that would have made it easier for
the pilots to recognize that they were in the wrong place.

Pete

On 2006-08-29, Andrew Sarangan wrote:
I think you are taking the phrase "angry" to an extreme. It is not that
I am sitting here pounding my fist on the table and crying for revenge.
I am angry that the pilots were so careless and took so many innocent
lives with them. No, it was not a deliberate attempt, that would be
murder or terrorism. This was a mistake due to carelessness and
negligence.

With all due respect, we don't know that yet! It may well have been due
to carelessness and negligence (hopefully, the FO and CVR tapes can shed
light on that). But it may not have. I'll reserve my judgement on
whether it was an unfortunate mistake or gross negligence until the NTSB
sheds more light on the issue.

I have experience of making a mistake that could have been just as
catastrophic given the wrong set of circumstances.

It was a nice sunny day in Houston, but a rather wet low IFR day in
Austin as I departed in the club's (perfectly functional) Beech Bonanza
to go see a friend who was in Austin for the weekend. I wasn't tired, I
wasn't rushed, maybe a bit sweaty because it was an incredibly humid
morning in Houston - but once I was cruising IFR at 6000' in clear air,
that had all gone. The flight was going smoothly, the plane was trimmed,
the workload was low.

Approaching Austin, I started going into the clouds. There was only a
little light chop, and the Bonanza trimmed for hands off flight was just
running along nicely. I had the approach plates ready, and had the
frequencies all tuned by the time Austin approach had cleared me for the
approach into 35R at Bergstrom Intl. That's the runway GA uses there.

But after I passed the outer marker, it was quite clear that the
glideslope was as dead as a stone. The cloud bases were too low to make
it into a loc only approach, so I kept my altitude and told tower my
problem. I asked for an approach into 35L instead because I was certain
that the glideslope was fully functional in that plane, I'd only used it
the previous week. Tower turned me back to approach, and I got vectors
to fly. While I was doing that, I was double checking I had the radios
tuned in properly the last time, and then tuned the new frequencies for
the ILS to 35L, the runway used by the airliners. Talking to ATC and
twiddling knobs on the radio at the same time is pretty routine - I had
done it on real flights and training countless times without an issue.

More vectors.

"Bonanza 45U, maintain 2000' until established, cleared ILS 35R," said
the approach controller.
"45U, 2000 'til established, cleared ILS 35R", I replied.

A bit more flying and extra checking to make sure that the glideslope
was going to come alive as I flew towards the approach path. Sure
enough, the glideslope needle had gone to the top of the instrument and
was unflagged. Everything looked good.

"Bonanza 45U, it looks like you're trying to line up on 35R", came
approach's voice.
Huh?

Yep, I'd told tower I wanted 35R, but the message had got lost. I had
retuned for 35R. However, when the controller cleared me for 35L I
actually read back the clearance he gave me correctly, and failed to
spot that I was cleared for the wrong runway. Not the controller's
fault, entirely my fault for failing to notice the word "right" when I
wanted "left". In the eventuality, I replied to the controller that I'd
asked for 35L, and the controller immediately cleared me for 35L
instead, and I flew an uneventful approach and landing.

Gross negligence or a simple human error that could happen to any IFR
pilot? If it was gross negligence, then surely any mistake that could
result in an accident is gross negligence?

I did a lot of soul searching after that (and wrote an ASRS report).
With different circumstances - an approach controller that was possibly
distracted, lots of traffic coming into 35L, it could have resulted in a
collision with an airliner stuffed full of people and we'd have all been
dead.

Could the crew we're talking about been distracted by an equipment
problem? We don't know yet. I'm VERY interested why they selected the
wrong runway because I want to recognise the symptoms before they result
in a possibly catastrophic error. It may have been simple gross
negligence - they may have been joking around in the flight deck and not
paying attention. On the other hand a bit of comms intereference may
have made them both hear "26" instead of "22". We don't know. We won't
know until the NTSB have reviewed all the data. I'll reserve anger until
I know more about their mistake, because through first hand experience I
know that they CAN be made even when making your best efforts to be
careful and thorough. So until the NTSB offers more data, I'm reserving
my judgement.

--
Yes, the Reply-To email address is valid.
Oolite-Linux: an Elite tribute: http://oolite-linux.berlios.de

"Peter Duniho" wrote

My point is that "what we know so far" is precious little, and hardly
enough
to justify any anger.

Anger, and a person's reasons for becoming angry, is a very personal,
experience driven reaction.

I would suggest that you accept and respect other's anger, produced in
reaction to the incident, and that others respect your need to withhold
feelings of anger in reaction to the incident.

Nobody is going to change the other's mind in this case. Best to respect,
accept, and move along.
--
Jim in NC

"Morgans" wrote in message
...
Anger, and a person's reasons for becoming angry, is a very personal,
experience driven reaction.

Frankly, if all Andrew has said was that he was angry, that would've been
fine. But he took it further. He made unfounded accusations of the pilots.
Angry or not, that's not reasonable.

I would suggest that you accept and respect other's anger, produced in
reaction to the incident, and that others respect your need to withhold
feelings of anger in reaction to the incident.

Then why can't you accept and respect my anger, produced in reaction to a
person throwing around unfounded accusations?

Okay, I admit...I'm not exactly angry. Extremely annoyed is probably more
accurate. But still...your "live and let live" advice cuts both ways. Want
to practice what you preach? Then stay out of it.

Nobody is going to change the other's mind in this case. Best to respect,
accept, and move along.

See above.

"Peter Duniho" wrote

Okay, I admit...I'm not exactly angry. Extremely annoyed is probably more
accurate. But still...your "live and let live" advice cuts both ways.
Want
to practice what you preach? Then stay out of it.


Once again pete, You prove what an ass you are capable of being.
--
Jim in NC