Another almost near disaster

[HiloJulie]

Oddly enough, pilot pay is regulated by the 1926 Railway Labor Act.  The median salary is about $220k and the highest paid pilots make over $400k.  That sounds pretty good, but they generally only get paid while flying.  Or more accurately, when the aircraft is moving: Most airlines use a system based on "block hours" which is the time from when the airplane pushes back from the gate to when it arrives at the destination gate.  Sitting around waiting for their delayed aircraft to show up doesn't necessarily qualify them for compensation.  A friend of mine was an airline pilot and quit.  It appears like a glamorous occupation but after a few years of never being home, sleeping in hotels every night, eating crap food, and having a mind-numbingly boring job he couldn't take it anymore.  Basically his job was to take off and land the aircraft, and in between the two the job was 99% watching the aircraft fly itself. 

Another friend of mine is a retired air force pilot.  He got his civilian pilot's license just because but he never flew again after the military.  I don't know what happened but he has some form of PTSD.  He told me one of the more difficult airfields he took off and landed from was at PTA.  High altitude and warm weather, a short runway for the type of aircraft he was flying, and the wind was blowing in different directions depending on which end of the runway it was being measured.

The pilots’ rate of pay is what is negotiated between the respective airlines and the union representing that airlines pilots. The 1926 Railway Labor Act regulates the procedures and methods of behavior by and between the various airlines and their pilot unions.

Any pilot making 400K or more a year, is going to be at least a 15 to 20 years of service pilot, would be crossed trained on numerous aircraft with considerable flight hours on each type and would be flying long haul flights in mostly wide bodied 767, 777, 787 or the Airbus equivalents for the major airlines. They would also be Senior Captain in rank. They would be the equivalent in terms of flight hours, experience, training and dedication to aviation as Sully.

But then, you have the “regional” and “low cost” airlines that fly short haul/commuter flights. Those pilots can achieve the rank of Captain in as few as 4 to 5 years – Senior Captain in less than 10 and only be certified on 2 maybe 3 small narrow bodied aircraft. With significantly less flight hours as well. At best, those pilots would earn 200K a year.

And in as much as pilot pay has increased since the Hudson River landing, what’s still an issue today is training. In fact, the 2 737 MAX jets that crashed, killing all onboard, was due to a revised highly sophisticated computerized flight control system that Boeing spent tens of millions of dollars to produce and then spent tens of millions of dollars lobbying the FAA to not require any training of the pilots about it – even going so far as to removing sections about its operation from pilot manuals. Further, Boeing then found out it that this system was prone to failure and would do EXACTLY what it did on the 2 737 Max accidents, but again, spent millions of dollars burying the issue instead of dealing with the issue. In the case of the 2 737 Max crashes, in addition to the clear lack of training, the relative inexperience of the pilots in actual aviation was a contributing factor to these crashes. Further, the airlines all licked their chops at not having to spend any money for pilot training.

In as much as I can call myself a “well-seasoned, experienced flyer,” I would not dare to say I can fly a plane. However, I would think I am smart enough to know that if my computer controlled plane is sending me into a death sentence, I’d have the wherewithal to know how to stop that and fly the plane manually.

Another contributing factor to airline safety is the “block hour” pay method. 15 years ago, the pilot rule was 8 hours of rest before next flight. In the case of the Continental 3407 flight, it was determined that both pilots “clock” the night before ended as the plane stopped at the gate. After disembarkation of the passengers, paperwork, the shuttle ride from the airport to the hotel and then back to the airport the next morning and doing all the paperwork and preflight procedures, all non-compensated – but when 3407 pushed back from the gate, it was indeed exactly 8 hours later when their clock restarted. The pilots got less than what could be considered an actual 4 hours of sleep that night.

And now, today’s late breaking news “admission” by the outgoing CEO of Boeing – “Yes, we did retaliate against whistleblowers.”

WOW – just wow!

For me, I agree that with today’s modern aircraft the pilot is more or less watching the plane fly itself. Heck, most times its even landing by itself. But I sure as hell want the 2 people in the cockpit to know what the hell to do when something goes seriously wrong. And in as much as the Hudson River Landing was (I also hate this term) an “act of God” that caused the bird strike in the first place, Sully’s and Skiles’ TRAINING, EXPERIENCE AND KNOWLEDGE is what saved the day.

As for the Southwest flight issue, the junior pilot programmed the plane’s navigation computer with incorrect information, causing it to descend horrifically. The seasoned Captain was the one who realized what happened and was able to immediately turn off the navigation system, took manual control and made that jet climb back up like a rocket.

With all of the available computer guided systems available today, I would think that maybe we need to create some more synthetic voices like the ones that blare ‘TOO LOW” “TERRAIN” “PULL UP” added that when a pilot instructs the plane’s computer to perform what can only be called a death sentence maneuver, it would start to blare ‘YOU STUPID FU&^ING IDIOT – DO YOU REALLY WANT TO KILL EVERYONE ONBOARD?”

Sorry, I babbled so long!

Here’s a joke to make you laugh:

What do you call a black guy flying an airplane?

The Pilot, you racist bastard!