Blogging at FL250

New Kid on the Block

2009-10-22T09:03:00.000-07:00

"Atlanta Ops, "NewCo Fifty-eight seventy-six."

The operations frequency is quiet.

"Atlanta Ops, NewCo 5876, over."

Still nothing. I wait thirty seconds before keying the mike again.

"Atlanta Ops, NewCo 5876, anyone home?"

Finally, the silence is broken by an anonymous jokester: "You must be new to Atlanta, NewCo...you generally call twice before giving up, landing, and taxiing around aimlessly until someone marshals you in!"

As a matter of fact, we are new to Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, the world's busiest airfield and our new corporate overlord's largest hub. NewCo started service from ATL to CLT and SDF on October 1st, so this is the first time flying in for both my FO and I. In fact, this four day trip has us flying in and out of Atlanta multiple times; not until the last day do we see any of RedCo's hubs, a very rare occurrence indeed. When I first saw this trip, I tried to trade out of it simply because flying anywhere on the fourth day of service is begging for complications. I prefer to let other people work out the kinks and report back before I sally forth into the unknown. This time, though my guinea pig role was unavoidable thanks to inadequate reserve coverage to do any trip trading, a semi-permanent state of affairs at NewCo.

Flying to any airport for the first time is bound to get an airline pilot's blood pressure up just a little bit. I know there are dozens of corporate pilots rolling their eyes at that statement, and yes, we airline pilots have it easy flying into the same couple dozen airports most of the time. I think the fact that we rely on our routines so heavily is the only reason we even batt an eyelash at landing somewhere we've never been. Knowing little things like the preferred arrival routes, most commonly assigned crossing altitudes, vectoring patterns, common taxi routes, location of gates, operations frequency, availability of services, and where to get your paperwork all cut down on workload and generally make everything run smoother. The first few times into an airport, you're collecting all these tidbits for future use. If it's a small, uncongested field, there's little stress because if there's something you're not sure about, it's a simple matter of keying the mike and asking someone.

An airport like Atlanta is another matter. The workload is quite a bit higher to begin with, giving you less time to look up information and think through problems. Air traffic control frequencies are congested and the controllers much less disposed to answering neophytes' dumb questions. There's certainly some peer pressure involved in that you don't care to look stupid in front of so many other pilots, particularly when your company is brand new to the airport. The consequences of screwing up are higher; a minor error that might go unnoticed or unpunished in Minot is more likely to earn you a trip to the chief pilot's office or a call from the feds when made in Atlanta. So while I'm comfortable flying in and out of other busy airports like DFW, IAH, PHL, EWR, and JFK, flying into a place like Atlanta for the first time does spark some apprehension.

Thorough preparation helps. On the first leg down to Charlotte, I carefully studied the charts for Atlanta. There are quite a few arrival routes, so I only looked at the most likely ones for an arrival from the northeast. The airport familiarization plates indicated that when landing east, 8L, 9R, and 10 are the most likely arrival runways, while 8R and 9L are primarily used for departures. Our company-issued airport information chart (we call it the "ten dash seven" due to its Jeppesen indexing label, 10-7) indicated that NewCo uses gates B11 through B19, which would involve a taxi to Apron Two or Apron Three. I traced possible taxi routes on the airport diagram, memorizing the names of the major taxiways paralleling the runways. Of course we will consult the diagram when ATC assigns us a taxi route, but knowing roughly where to look for a particular taxiway reduces head-down time significantly. Ramp control frequencies are one of the few things whose location is not standardized on Jepp charts, so I looked up the frequencies for Aprons Two and Three on the 10-9B chart and jotted them down. Moving on to the approach plates, I looked over the ILS 8L, 9R, and 10 charts. I noted that each runway also has a ILS PRM plate for simultaneous close parallel approaches. We're authorized for PRM approaches, I've seen the training video so many times I can almost recite it verbatim, and have flown into a number of airports with PRM approaches - but I had never actually flown one. Our ten dash seven didn't mention to expect PRM approaches so I didn't think much about it.

The flight from Charlotte to Atlanta is a fairly short one. Before departure, my FO and I talked over our assigned arrival route into Atlanta and expected approach there in addition to our normal clearance briefing. I pulled all the charts that I expected to use out of my thick Jepp binders and placed them in the ship's clipboard behind the Charlotte charts. There was little left to do. The weather in Atlanta was kind of lousy. It had been raining all day, and the ceiling was hanging around 800 feet. We took off from Charlotte and turned westward, popping above the clouds into the glare of the evening sun. I realized that we would be arriving around sunset, which would make for a darkened airport under the overcast skies. A rainy night isn't exactly the ideal time to grope your way around an unfamiliar airport.

Now, 100 miles northeast of Atlanta, I come back from my one-sided conversation with Operations to find that Atlanta Center assigned us a new arrival in my absence. Our dispatcher had filed the WHINZ One arrival, and Center wants us on the FLCON Three. I make a mental note to call our dispatcher after the flight to inform him of the preferred route as I entered the new arrival, get a thumbs-up from my FO, and hit "Activate." We are soon cleared to cross DIRTY at 14000, and begin our descent shortly thereafter. We decide that an ILS to 8L is most likely from this arrival, and I brief the approach. I put it in the FMS and we each set the frequency, inbound course, and minimums. After completing the descent checklist, I make a short PA and call Atlanta Operations again. This time they answer, informing us that we can expect gate B18.

When I reselect VHF1 in my comm panel, my FO is just checking in with Atlanta Approach. They inform us that we can expect a ILS PRM Approach to 8L. We both pull out the plate and start reviewing it for changes from the normal ILS. There aren't many: the primary difference of a PRM approach is the requirement to monitor a backup frequency on your VHF2 radio. Controllers are carefully monitoring all aircraft to make sure nobody strays far from their ILS, and if one does blunder into the "No Transgression Zone" the controller will issue an immediate breakout to any other aircraft nearby. The backup frequency ensures that a stuck mike or long-winded pilot cannot prevent the controller from promptly issuing breakout instructions. There are a few other considerations; we quickly read a PRM briefing page to review all the procedures.

We are almost to the point of turning downwind for 8L when Atlanta Approach turns us to a southerly heading, clears us direct to BOJAA, and tells us to expect an ILS PRM to Runway 10. We hunt around the arrival plate for the fix, find it, punch it into the FMS, get the autopilot recoupled to NAV, put the approach in the FMS, and dig through our charts for the ILS PRM 10 plate. By the time we have set up for the new approach and briefed it, Approach is already turning us for a tight-in right base leg. I quickly note our likely exit taxiway and potential routes for the long taxi back to the terminal complex. We are cleared for the approach, and I select the backup frequency in VHF2 and our comm panels.

We break out of the clouds just above 1000 feet to the welcome sight of approach lights guiding us to the well-lit runway. It is indeed dark down here in the driving rain underneath thick clouds. I move the windshield wipers to "fast" and the view clears a little. My FO makes a beautiful landing on the wet runway and we decelerate evenly to a crawl before I take the controls and exit on Taxiway Sierra Golf 14. It's a high-speed exit but I'm paranoid about turning too fast off of a wet runway, particularly at night when it's difficult to assess whether the runway is doing a good job of draining the water and staying uncontaminated.

Tower tells us to follow a WidgetCo 737 westbound on Sierra Golf, hold short of 9R on Romeo Three, and monitor tower one one niner point three. The 737 is already a ways ahead of us and taxiing rather fast. It's still raining hard and I can barely see the taxiway centerlines; even lighted taxiway signs are a little tough to spot. I reach taxiway Sierra Juliet in time to spy the 737 at its end turning left onto Romeo. I figure he'll be long gone by the time we get to Romeo Three but the route to get there is now obvious. We hold short of 9R for several arrivals before tower clears us to cross and contact ground "point seven five."

That controller clears us "November, Papa, cross 9L, Lima to the Ramp." I stop for a moment to verify the route on our map and the ground controller barks at us to get moving, we have traffic crossing 9R behind us. My FO assures me that it's a left turn on November so I make the turn before glancing at the airport diagram. We're basically taxiing back to the departure end of 9L to cross there, since all the departures use 9L at Mike Two. I would later discover that the north complex has a similar arrangement, using taxiway Victor to route arrivals around the departure end of 8R without getting in departing aircraft's way. This is rather different from most airports with inboard/outboard arrival and departure runways, like LAX; there, arrivals are usually held short of the departure runway around midfield and then crossed during a pause in the takeoffs. Atlanta's system results in long after-landing taxis, but also allows them to sling out departures at a very high rate.

NASA once did an aeromedical study in which they hooked airline pilots up to a variety of sensors and then measured how much stress they experienced during the various phases of a normal line flight. As expected, cruise flight was very relaxed, takeoffs somewhat stressful, and the approach and landing phase considerably more so. The surprise was that taxiing caused stress levels only slightly below landing, and parking the airplane registered the highest stress levels of all! This may surprise outsiders but it meshes with what every airline pilot knows: airline ramps are busy, chaotic places where you stand the best chance of bending metal in your career. You are maneuvering much closer to a wide variety of other airplanes, are often assisted by less-than-attentive wing walkers, and there are suicidal tugs, catering trucks, and bag carts constantly darting in front of you. Meanwhile you're looking for your gate, which is quite often occupied regardless of what operations and/or ramp control said, and likely has at least one piece of ground equipment out of position in the safety zone. Managing all these threats can be stressful on a bright sunny day, much less a dark, rainy night.

As we approach spot Two South, my FO contacts Ramp Control and they direct us into the west lane to hold abeam gate Alpha Five for traffic. A B757 is pushing from A9, and a MD90 is waiting for his gate to open up abeam B6. The B757 crew tells their tug driver to pull them forward enough for us to slip over to the east lane between him and the MD90, and on to our empty gate. As we approach the gate, wingwalkers sprint out to their positions, to my astonishment. I would see this performance repeated at the B gates several times over the next few days. When I mentioned this to a WidgetCo pilot, he laughed and said he's never seen a ramper hurry in Atlanta. We just happened to have an exceptional supervisor with a motivated crew.

What we do not have, however, is a marshaller. We stop and wait. Nobody shows up. There is a green light above the gate. Do we use an auto-park system in Atlanta? Our company ten dash seven page doesn't say anything about it... but those pages tend to omit a lot of helpful details in the early stages of service to an airport. Eventually the light turns red and a marshaller appears and vigorously waves us in. Well, okay then. I throttle up, glide into the gate, brake to a gentle halt, and then we go through our parking flows and checklist. After the passengers have deplaned, the friendly ramp supervisor comes up and tells us how to use the auto-park system. Would've been nice to know that beforehand, but he's been dealing with enough puzzled NewCo pilots over the last few nights that he knew to jump in right away and marshal us manually. I later find details on the auto-park system in a bulletin that the company quietly slipped into the FOM.

When I walk out of the jetway, the gate area is a sea of humanity; it's going to be a full load to Louisville. The paperwork is still printing so I saunter up the B concourse, scoping out the food court and grabbing a coffee. I reflect on the short flight. It was a pretty normal leg, really, even with the weather and the PRM approach. It was only stressful because I didn't completely know what to expect beforehand. Over the next few days, I fly in and out of Atlanta several times, and it gets easier and easier as I learn how they do things. For an airport handling 2700 flights a day, everything flows pretty smoothly. Of course I haven't seen Atlanta during thunderstorm season yet; I'm sure that'll be the source of a few good blog posts come next summer.

Construction

2009-10-05T15:17:00.000-07:00

"NewCo fifty-seven fourteen, holding instructions for you, advise ready to copy."

My First Officer looks up from the FOM he is studying in preparation for an upcoming training event and gives me a quizzical look. "Was that for us?" he asks.

"NewCo 5714, you copy Minneapolis Center?"

Well shoot, it was for us. NewCo recently switched their flight numbers from the 1800-2099 range to the 5700-5999 range, and I'm not quite used to listening for the new numbers. I grab the release and a pen. "Center, NewCo 5714, sorry 'bout that. Ready to copy."

"Minneapolis Center clears NewCo 5714 to SKETR intersection, hold southwest as published, twenty mile legs approved, expect further clearance two two five five zulu, time now two one five niner zulu."

I read back the clearance and begin entering the hold into the Flight Management System by selecting "Hold" from the NAV page, then entering it over SKETR on the Flight Plan page. This brings up a form where I enter the inbound course, leg length, holding airspeed and altitude, and expect further clearance (EFC) time. Punching the 6R line select key inserts the hold into the flight plan, displaying the proposed route in white dashes on my MFD's map display. My FO looks over to verify that the hold looks correct, gives me a thumbs up, and I hit 6R again to activate the flight plan. The FMS takes about ten seconds to recompute everything - I've become so used to it that I no longer make 286 processor jokes - and then displays the hold in solid white on the map display, signifying that it is indeed active. At this point, the FMS will automatically choose the correct holding entry, enter the hold, and continue until we tell it to do otherwise. It's a mockery of all that holding practice over NDBs in 30 knot crosswinds that I did as a young pup.

"Wonder what's going on in Minneapolis?" my FO muses. I shrug and request a new D-ATIS from the FMS' ACARS menu. It takes about thirty seconds to pop up; it's still the same ATIS I pulled up about 30 minutes ago. The weather isn't too bad: 2100 foot ceiling, eight miles visibility, winds out of the north at 15 knots. That last item is likely the cause of the delays. Runway 12L/30R is under construction, and Minneapolis is down to three runways that all intersect or nearly intersect each other: 30R/12L, 35/17, and 4/22. So long as the weather is nice and the winds are light or from the south, ATC can keep things humming along smoothly with approaches to runways 17 and 22 (land and hold short of 17) while they fire departures off 12R in quick succession. Meanwhile ground control lines up all the crossing traffic on each side of 12R and crosses them en masse whenever departures pause for an arrival to 22. It's a thing of beauty to watch when everything is running smoothly.

It doesn't take much to mess up the plan, though. Marginal weather takes away Land and Hold Short Operations (LAHSO) so that the arrivals must be staggered, or else ATC will use 17 as the sole arrival runway. If the ceiling gets much lower, it takes away both 22 and 17 for arrivals since those runways are served only by localizer approaches with fairly high minimums. In this case arrivals use 12R and departures use 17, which really gums up the works. Winds from the north, while not as problematic as a low ceiling, do also slow things down. Since the construction began in early September, ATC has become very good at predicting how the weather will affect the maximum arrival rate and issuing ground holds accordingly to make sure the arrival banks don't all arrive at once. This is only the second time I've had to hold so far.

Entering the hold into the FMS automatically changed the Estimated Time of Arrival and Estimated Fuel at Arrival display to reflect the extra 45 minutes of holding at FL240 and 230 knots. It's a nice feature that can make a captain lazy. However, I'm rather mistrusting of machines in general and of the JungleBus' Flight Management System in particular. If there's anything I've learned in two years of flying the JungleBus, it's to not believe a thing its computers tell me. Every software patch that fixes one bug seems to introduce two new ones. It's very reliable for navigating from point A to point B, it's just the theoretically labor-saving features like VNAV and fuel management that give us plenty of "what's it doing now?" moments.

Therefore I pick up a pen and paper to do some quick and dirty figuring. I conclude that this time the airplane is not lying to me and we will indeed land right at what I consider to be our minimum arrival fuel - 5200 lbs, enough to go to our alternate of Rochester plus 3000 pounds of reserve fuel. This is slightly more than the minimum fuel shown on the release, because their reserve is based upon 45 minutes of long-range cruise at 10,000 feet and is generally 2200-2400 pounds. I don't ever want to land with that little fuel in the tanks so I use a more conservative number. I add the fuel burn from SKETR to the airport to that minimum arrival fuel, throw in a few extra hundred pounds for vectoring, and write down our "Bingo" fuel number on the release after discussing it with the FO. We will reach it right at our current EFC time. Fortunately our dispatchers have been very liberal with holding fuel throughout the construction.

It's time to let our dispatcher know what's going on. I text him our holding point, EFC, altitude, fuel on board, and my calculated bingo fuel. A few minutes later he texts back an acknowledgement along with his own calculated bingo fuel, which of course is 800 lbs less than my number. We enter the hold and I make a short PA to the passengers about the delay.

After about twenty minutes in the hold, I start hearing Minneapolis Center extending other flights' EFC times. Several divert to their alternate airports. I query whether our 2255Z EFC is still holding up, and Center replies that it is - for now. I check the Minneapolis weather again. It's still good. The reality is that my bingo fuel number is a little more conservative than it needs to be, because it assumes that I'll be vectored for the approach, fly it to minimums, go missed approach, and then fly to Rochester. Diverting from SKETR - or even from any part of the downwind or base leg for Runway 35 - will require a lot less fuel. My FO and I discuss the fact that an alternate isn't legally required; we could have our dispatcher remove it and hold for a while longer, but still divert once we got down to 3000 lbs plus the fuel needed to reach Rochester. In the end, I decide not to officially remove the alternate, but to use our dispatcher's bingo fuel number instead of mine. The reality is that once we get past SKETR, the likelihood of a diversion drops to near zero and some 4600 pounds of fuel in the tanks on landing in MSP is plenty in this situation. The difference gives us almost twenty extra minutes of holding.

It turns out that we don't need it; as if to mock all my contingency planning, Minneapolis Center clears us past SKETR twenty minutes before our EFC, and we land with 6200 pounds of fuel remaining. It takes us a while to reach our gate on the G concourse because the departure lineup for 30L extends all the way to Runway 22! Thankfully, the backlog has mostly cleared out by the time we leave an hour later. I smile as we climb westward into the setting sun. We're going to Montana, where the beer is good, the gate agents are friendly, and even airports under construction are blissfully delay-free.

Keep Your Nose Clean!

2009-09-17T14:09:00.000-07:00

Of the several insightful comments to my last post, this one by Ron Rapp really struck home for me:

I would add another suggestion to your excellent list: if you do have a flying job, don't drop the ball there.

I mention this because many of us who are "in the pipeline" flying full time have probably been at that job for a couple of years, maybe more. These are often jobs which traditionally have high turnover rates. However, with the industry at a standstill, nobody is leaving. So nobody is upgrading. And that poor FO who's been stuck in the right seat for two years when he'd normally upgrade in 5-6 months might be getting antsy.

My advice: stick with it. Don't get sloppy on the job. Maintain a good work ethic. Why? Because someday this pipeline will start flowing again, and when it does, that Dream Job you're going to apply for may hinge on what your current employer says about you.

This is something that rarely gets talked about. Those of us working our way up the ladder tend to be very focused on our career paths, always planning that next move. Of course we learn along the way and strive to become experts at our current job, but that's pretty natural when your job, position, or aircraft is changing every year or two. You take a job, get really good at it, and move onto the next step. It's certainly not a bad thing, steady advancement, but we've become so accustomed to it that many pilots have no experience in cooling their heels at one job, one position, one airplane for an indefinite period of waiting for things to get moving again. Those who are unprepared, those who had been expecting best-case career scenarios, may find disillusionment, boredom, complacency, or even a disregard for procedures and regulations creeping into their professional life.

I have some experience in this. My last airline, Horizon, has had a very stagnant seniority list since 2001. When I was hired in 2004, upgrade times were finally falling and there was a lot of talk of further expansion. It never happened; by 2007, upgrades were approaching seven years. Captains would comment on how the most senior FOs tended to be the most difficult to fly with, those most prone to either Captainitis or being relaxed to a fault. I felt it myself as I gained experience and advancement remained well out of reach. I became frustrated, and it affected my attitude towards my work. Going back through the blog posts from my last year at Horizon, I can see it in my writing. It was one of the factors that prompted me to seek a change, with the final result being my move to NewCo.

Since I left Horizon, the airline has continued to shrink as they traded Dash-8-200s for a lesser number of Q400s; they're now talking of getting rid of their fleet of CRJ-700's by sometime next year. Fifteen percent of the pilot group is furloughed. The most junior Captain is a 2000 hire, with more downgrades (and furloughs) in the works. Unlike 2007, there are no options for trapped FOs to go somewhere else. They are stuck unless they leave the industry altogether. I keep in contact with my Horizon friends, and their frustration is palpable every time I call them.

While I was in Portland this week, I went to see my friends T & J. We go back to April 2004, when I was J's sim partner during initial training. Dawn and I became friends with her and her husband T, who was hired at Horizon about a year after us. We hiked, sailed, and barbecued together when we lived in Portland; now I try to visit them when I'm in town, but otherwise we talk on the phone every few months.

Within minutes of sitting down at T & J's kitchen counter to shoot the breeze, it was obvious that something was wrong. J was visibly distraught. The story soon came out: she had been the First Officer on the runway overrun incident in Bellingham last month. I felt a horrible sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach as she recounted what happened. It sounded as though things were fairly normal right up until the end. The Captain, who was new to the Q400, simply carried too much speed and then floated a good portion down the runway. If he had just chopped the power they probably would have made it; the Q400 will land at almost any speed once you reduce power in the flare, and those 13' propellers are extremely effective in beta. In any case, they came to rest only 50 feet past the end of the runway, with no injuries and not much damage to the airplane.

Although she was both FO and PNF, J received the same discipline as the Captain: a two month suspension without pay. At least she kept her job; others in the same situation have not been so lucky. The FAA, too, is being lenient by accepting retraining in lieu of taking certificate action. Still, an incident like this on one's record is a big stumbling block on one's career path. As I listened to J's woeful story, it struck me that she may have just become another Horizon lifer.

That gnawing in the pit of my stomach was partly pity for my friend's plight, but also uneasy recognition that this could've just as easily happened to me. J is a good pilot. She did great during initial training and the Captains I flew with all spoke highly of her. I knew she was frustrated over the lack of advancement at Horizon, but was still positive about flying. Her mistake that night was not especially egregious; she probably should have been more vocal about the Captain's excess speed, but nobody is feeling particularly vocal at midnight after a long day of flying. We've all been there.

The reality is that you don't even need an accident or incident like this one to mess up your career. A FAA violation will do just nicely; even a simple Letter of Correction in your file will require explanation at all subsequent interviews. A firing, even from a basic job like flight instructing, can prove to be problematic. FAA and employer action aside, aviation is an amazingly small world, and like Ron hinted, there's a pretty good chance your reputation will precede you on job hunts. A good reputation is worth more than a logbook full of multi time.

So while everyone plays the waiting game, don't simply bide your time. Do everything you can to become an expert at your job, and then up your guard against complacency. As my friend's experience shows, a career-changing (or worse, life-threatening) situation can develop in a matter of seconds, and you need to be mentally prepared for it. In the meantime, you never know who's watching and how they will influence your career down the road.

Aviation Survivorman

2009-09-03T06:48:00.000-07:00

These are dark times for a great many people in aviation (and outside aviation too, for that matter). Thousands in our industry have lost their jobs with little hope of finding a replacement, others have seen their incomes shrink with downgrades and displacements, and things could potentially get much worse with a few airlines - mainline and regional - teetering on the brink of oblivion. The economy seems to be getting better, but the twin threat of rising oil prices and an international flu pandemic leaves some of us wondering if that light at the end of the tunnel isn't just a freight train about to run us over!

As was heavily discussed in the comments to my last post, prospects are particularly bleak for the newest entrants to the piloting profession - those who have just completed their training, or are in the middle of it, or have just started. The traditional first timebuilding jobs are somewhat scarcer than in years past, and the few new openings are quickly snapped up by experienced, out-of-work pilots. With a pocketful of expensive licenses and ratings but little chance of getting a flying job that will support them or even build time, these pilots have to be frightened at the prospect of these conditions lasting for several more years. It's as if they are seeing their careers die before they ever began.

Here's the good news: aviation has been a cyclical industry throughout its existence. Things will get better, and when they do I think they will get dramatically better. The other thing to recognize is that there have been plenty of other downturns that resulted in conditions just like these, and many pilots, including those at the major airlines, have experienced similar stagnation early in their careers. The 70s, 80s, and 90s each had a number of slump years where nothing was moving for civilian pilots. The post-9/11 downturn was the worst of all, but it mostly affected pilots at the major airline level. Their misfortune resulted in large growth for regional and low-cost airlines, and that kept things moving for low-time pilots. We've become so used to plentiful opportunities for new entrants over the last 15 years that this downturn sounds to many like the thundering crash of the career door slamming closed, never to reopen. It will; it always has.

The intent of this post, however, is not so much encouragement as practical advice that new pilots can use right now. Most of the career advice out there, particularly from the eternally-optimistic flight training industry, assumes that jobs will be available and one will be able to advance one's career steadily, if not downright speedily. That's clearly not the case and vastly changed conditions call for drastically altered career strategies.

It seems to me that the worst of the carnage is over and, unless certain airlines go belly-up, we won't see large numbers of additional furloughs. Still, I foresee things remaining essentially static for several years until the first wave of Age-65 retirements begin and the economy gains enough traction to prompt widespread airline growth. Nobody is really going anywhere else; most are stuck in whatever position they hold now. Time is essentially frozen; we're all just playing the waiting game. That's a lot easier for those of us who have decent jobs and a livable wage; for the newest entrants, it's nearly unbearable. I suspect that many of these will give up and leave the industry before things turn around. Those who hope to still have an aviation career on the other side are engaged in a grinding war of attrition. Survival is the name of the game; putting oneself in a position to benefit from the upswing is an important but secondary consideration. The following are some tips that I think will help with these twin goals.

If you currently have a job outside of aviation, keep it. If you've already quit but have a marketable skill-set that will allow you to get a decent job for the next 2-4 years, concentrate on doing so. I know that most career-changers are getting into aviation precisely because they couldn't stomach their old jobs; you need to approach this with the mindset that it is a temporary, necessary step to launching your aviation career. You will quit as soon as you can get a full-time aviation job, but in the meantime it is necessary to have an income stream to live on, train on, and save some money for the paycut your first aviation job will inevitably entail.

If you have no marketable skill outside of aviation, consider going (or going back) to school to get one. You'll experience more than one downturn in your career and you'll be much better prepared for the next one if you have a second skill to fall back on. If the major airlines are your goal, most require a four-year degree anyway. Meanwhile, a few years away from this labor market isn't a bad thing; student loans, which will be deferred during your schooling, can include living expenses and even flight training expenses if your school offers aviation courses. I'm going to definitively say that you should stay away from expensive aviation programs like UND and Embry-Riddle; the student loan debt will be simply too crushing once you're out in the "real world," potentially making little money in entry-level jobs for several years. If you need to complete flight training while in school, look for a state school with cheap tuition and a small aviation department that contracts out flight training to a local FBO, and either get an aviation minor to go along with your non-aviation major, or take the aviation courses on an elective basis.

Don't rush your flight training. The flight training industry insists that because "seniority is everything," you ought to shell out ridiculous amounts of money for their accelerated 9-month programs. If you were beginning your training at the start of an upswing they might have a point, but in this case finishing early just means that much more time sitting unemployed, with more debt (or less of a nest-egg to live on)! If you can save money by searching out a good instructor at a smaller flight school and training part-time while still working outside aviation and paying as you go, you'll find yourself well positioned to make the jump to full-time flying as timebuilding jobs open up in a few years.

This is connected to the last point, but if there's any way it is humanly possible to complete your training debt-free or with as little debt as possible, do it. Jobs like flight instructing, freight dogging, and regional airline FO don't pay much, but it generally is enough for a single person (or married with a working spouse) to live on - unless they're also paying $500-1000/month to service student loan debt. Not having that hanging over you will really free up options later on, and right now in this industry you need every bit of flexibility you can get.

Building flight time after earning your ratings is important, but in the absence of available full-time jobs, concentrate on maintaining currency. Landing that first job with minimal flight time has always been tough, but it's a lot easier if you can show that you've been at least consistently flying. You may need to rent an airplane on your own dime a few times a month. Use the time to improve the skills needed for whatever full-time job you are pursuing. In other words, if you hope to get an instructing job, fly from the right seat and bring your sister along for free lessons.

There's a natural tendency to concentrate on full-time jobs that quickly fill the logbook and give you the satisfaction of living off of your hard-earned certificates. However, it may be a lot easier to find a part-time job that allows you to keep your non-aviation job while still maintaining currency. Flight instruction, banner towing, and skydiver hauling are three entry-level jobs that all tend to be a lot busier on the weekends. In the case of instructing it can be difficult convincing larger schools to hire you for weekends only, but it's more common at smaller FBOs, especially in rural areas. Being out at the airport at the time when most pilots are makes it that much easier to network and sniff out that full-time job you really want, anyways.

If you can't find anyone to hire you, consider becoming your own boss. Some schools and FBOs take freelance instructors, as do virtually all flying clubs. A more extreme example - but potentially very cost-effective - is buying your own airplane and setting up shop as a Flight School of One. The last few years a lot of larger schools and FBOs sold their older airplanes in favor of new-fangled glass cockpit equipment, and now find that they've priced themselves out of the masses' reach in the downturn. There is a niche to be exploited here by the savvy entrepreneur. You could potentially buy an airplane, do most of your training in it, instruct in it, and then sell it for very close to what you have into it. Your total cost of flying will be a fraction of what it'd be at an accelerated program and airplane ownership will give you a great deal more real-world experience.

Be willing to relocate, globally if need be. The aviation scene might be dead in your city but it may not be a state or two over. If you are a dual citizen or have the right to work in another country, take a very close look at any opportunities there; although the downturn is global, it's mostly US pilots that are suffering the triple whammy of a poor economy, lack of retirements due to age 65, and a glut of qualified pilots. Sponsored expat positions used to be limited to those possessing significant Part 121 command time in specific aircraft types, but this is changing; as foreign countries seek to become more self-sufficient in pilot staffing, they are starting to set up training programs for local pilots on their own soil, creating a need for foreign instructors. I realize relocation can be a problem for those with families, but let's be completely honest: by choosing an aviation career for yourself, you've already sentenced your family to sustained poverty, frequent absences, and perpetual instability. A change of scenery that gets you past the difficult early stages quicker is going to be better for your family in the long run.

Use this extra waiting time wisely. Don't just run out the clock waiting for things to turn around, actively do everything you can to prepare yourself for when they do. This doesn't have to be expensive; you don't need to fly twice a day at a 9-month zero-to-hero program to eat, sleep, and breath aviation. Read every text you can get your hands on, particularly regarding advanced subjects you won't necessarily cover in training at a small flight school. If you can develop a very thorough understanding of subjects like meteorology and aviation weather, aerodynamics, transport category systems, long-range and oceanic navigation, aeromedical and physiological research, and safety & risk management programs before you even apply for that first job, you'll be far ahead of the average pilot. Likewise, network relentlessly, both at the airport and online. In 2007's job market, basically any bozo with a pulse could get hired at an airline, but in an economy like this it takes knowing people to land even a flight instructing job. The contacts you make and maintain will prove even more valuable in subsequent stages of your career.

As I've written previously, I see a critical pilot shortage developing at the regional airlines in 2012-2014; this will present opportunities to make up much of what our profession has lost over the last eight years. In the meantime there are some tough times to slog through. Those who make smart decisions and survive will reap the benefits. If anyone has advice in addition to what I posted above, I'd like to hear it in the comments.

Experience Counts

2009-08-03T12:31:00.001-07:00

Over the last week there's been a tremendous outpouring of opinion among pilots regarding the proposed legislation I wrote about in my last post. The most controversial aspect is (predictably) the proposal to require all airline pilots to possess Airline Transport Pilot (ATP) certificates within three years. A fair amount of the opinion I've heard on the web boards, in person, and in the comments on the blog is negative. The two primary objections to the proposal that I've heard are that it represents an undue burden to newer pilots and that increasing experience won't do anything to improve safety. The first argument is understandable and not entirely without merit, but a close examination of conditions in the industry and a peek at future trends ought to ease concerns. The second argument I take much greater issue with; whether advanced out of ignorance or cynical self-interest, it is the same dangerously flawed trope that's never far from the lips of the most noxious CEOs in the airline business. It deserves a spirited rebuttal.

A lot of the alarm being voiced over requiring an ATP for airline newhires comes from those with significantly less experience, particularly those who've already invested a lot of money in training and are now trying to build flight time. I'm sympathetic to these pilots' concerns; having been in their shoes not so long ago, I'm not inclined to pull up the ladder behind me. There are too many people in aviation who are willing to throw those below them to the wolves; it is the exact attitude that gave birth to the cancer that is destroying our profession from the bottom up.

Times are tough for everyone in aviation right now. The major and regional airlines, fractionals, charter operators, and corporate outfits have all laid off thousands of pilots, including several of my friends. I'm still somewhat doubtful that my own job will survive this downturn; reportedly, WidgetCo and RedCo are collectively overstaffed for this winter by as many as 1200 pilots. For those just starting out, openings for the traditional timebuilding jobs are in short supply and competition is fierce. Even those with one of the coveted instructing jobs might not be building very much time: the sorry state of the airlines has killed career-oriented flight training and the economy isn't encouraging anyone to take up an expensive flying hobby, either. On the face of it, adding more restrictions does seem like kicking a guy when he's already down.

The unfortunate reality is that things are so bad right now that this law, if passed, isn't likely to affect anybody currently in aviation, or at least those well along in their training. The few airlines doing limited hiring (including mine) have extremely high competitive minimums. I don't think it's going to change anytime soon. There isn't any attrition at the regionals, and they're not going to grow any further; some will shrink significantly as major airlines attempt to reduce 50-seat lift. There are already many well-qualified airline pilots on the street, and it will get far, far worse if one or more major airlines goes out of business or is acquired this winter. The bottom line is that if you don't already have significant airline experience, you will not likely be hired at an airline in the United States for at least several years whether this law passes or not.

Things will eventually turn around; I personally think that the economy will recover enough to support airline growth at about the same time retirements resume after five years of stagnation, around 2011-12. Once the majors start hiring in large numbers, it's going to cause regional airline attrition to skyrocket. Initially, competitive hiring minimums will stay high as the regionals work through a large backlog of highly qualified pilots (which includes furloughees and those who've been building flight time steadily from now until then). Those currently finding it so difficult to build time will then find timebuilding jobs much easier to come by (assuming they haven't already thrown in the towel). I suspect that even without the proposed law, competitive minimums will remain at or above 1500 hours by the time most of today's commercial pilots reach the regional airlines.

The change of law will primarily affect those who begin training between now and ~2013, particularly those who jump in at the beginning of the next hiring cycle. Absent any changes to legal requirements, the relative lack of new pilots in the intervening years will cause competitive minimums to fall from 1500+ hours to 250 hours very quickly, just as happened in 2006. I'll get to why that would be a very bad thing in a minute, but now I wish to address whether requiring these future pilots to build 1500 hours represents an undue burden. Firstly, they will have entered aviation and paid for their training knowing the 1500 hour requirement. Secondly, the ability to be hired by any airline with less than 1500 hours is a historical anomaly that has only happened a few times throughout the last fifty years. Finally, it is likely that timebuilding jobs will be much more available than today (and better paid!) to those who build their time during the next shortage.

The suggestion that increasing newhire experience will not improve safety puzzles me. For the most part, I've seen it not from aviation newbies but from moderately experienced pilots who were hired at the airlines with low time during the last five years. I can understand why industry groups would fight against the requirement tooth-and-nail, but what motivation can these pilots have? Pride? A wish to justify the route they took to the airlines? I don't blame anybody for accepting a First Officer position with low time; I surely would have done so if I'd had the opportunity. To subsequently claim that the practice was just as safe as hiring more experienced candidates, however, bespeaks ignorance that hints at some of the limitations of inexperience.

I've heard three primary arguments in favor of this assertion. The first is based on personal experience and goes something like "I hired on at XYZ Airlines with 300 hours and didn't have a problem in training or on the line." Obviously, self-critique isn't the best means of judging these things; I'd prefer the opinions of check airmen and the Captains flying with the low-timers. But let's assume that our debate partner's check airmen and Captains agree that he exhibited superior aeronautical knowledge and skill as a low-time new-hire. There isn't a direct parallel to safety here. How many unusual situations happened in this pilot's early career? How many tough decisions? How many times did he have to challenge an off-the-reservation Captain? How many emergencies? Probably few, if any; I've only had a small handful in 4000 hours of airline flying. Airline flying is pretty uneventful most of the time and real tests of one's worth as a pilot come infrequently. It's very possible, even probable, that a low-time pilot will not be truly tested before he gains some experience. One cannot extrapolate this stroke of luck across the industry, because over thousands of flights per day things do happen, and any system that puts thousands of inexperienced pilots in the right seat is guaranteeing that some of them will be called upon in a dicey situation. I haven't flown with many low-time First Officers but some of my friends have, and they generally agree that most of them are fine in normal situations but many are virtually useless when things go wrong. It's not that they're bad pilots, they just haven't experienced many similar situations in their careers yet.

A frequent corollary to the above argument is "I flight instructed for 300 hours, and I fail to see how another 1000 hours of pattern work would have made me a safer pilot." If those 700 hours were flown in the same pattern with the same perfect weather and the same infallible student in a perfectly trustworthy airplane, that might be a good point. The reality is that one will encounter a wide variety of challenging situations in those 1000 hours which will develop decision-making skills, sound judgment, and practice in keeping one's composure in a bind. I scared myself and learned important lessons many, many more times in 2000 hours of instructing and freight dogging than I have in the 4000 hours since; those lessons could fill an entire post. It's worth noting that those who denigrate the value of timebuilding are generally those who didn't do a great deal of it.

The second common argument is that various organizations have employed 250-hour pilots with great success; the most common examples given are the major airlines back in the 60s, the U.S. military, and major airlines in Europe. All three are really apples-to-oranges comparisons. In the case of the major airlines of yesterday (who, by the way, weren't exactly shining examples of aviation safety), new-hires generally spent several years observing experienced pilots as flight engineers, and then moved to the right seat under the tutelage of experienced Captains. The U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marines do put pilots with as little as 200 hours in command of high-performance fighter jets, but only after a very intensive,lengthy, and costly screening, selection, and training process that weeds out the majority of candidates and leaves only the cream of the crop. The European airlines have a fairly stringent selection process, many do their own ab-initio training, and all require an ATP. Yes, it's a "frozen ATPL" until the pilot builds enough flight time - but unlike the FAA ATP, the flight time is the easy part of earning a JAA ATP. Their ATP is all about demonstrating a command of aviation knowledge far superior to that of most regional newhires in the US (and actually, many Captains as well).

If the regional airlines in the U.S. screened their 250-hour candidates intensively, put them through a lengthy, costly, and difficult training program, required them to demonstrate a knowledge level equivalent to JAA ATPL standards, had them observe line operations for a while, and then paired them with experienced Captains, the above comparisons would be valid and I wouldn't be writing this post because I wouldn't see a problem with 250 hour First Officers. The regional airlines of 2005-07 did none of the above and industry trends suggest that it will be even worse in the next shortage. If regionals were willing to take essentially anyone with a pulse and a commercial certificate after a three-hour interview process, rush them through a training program designed for much more experienced pilots, and throw them on the line after the minimum legal IOE to fly with 2000-hour Captains who just upgraded, what will they do in a deeper and more prolonged shortage at a time when the regionals aren't making the large guaranteed profits of 2005-07? Many industry players have been pushing for the FAA to adopt the Multi-Crew Pilot certificate (MPL) concept developed by ICAO, which would put "pilots" with less than 120 hours of actual flight time into the right seat of airliners. They wouldn't be legal to act as pilot-in-command of a Cessna 150, yet are somehow expected to pull their weight as part of a well-functioning airline crew. If this law does not pass, you can be sure that the RAA will be pushing hard for MPL during the next shortage.

The final argument I've seen is that the airline accident record does not support the idea that inexperienced pilots pose a significant safety risk. Its supporters are quick to point out that both pilots in Colgan 3407 had flight time exceeding ATP minimums, or that the majority of pilot-error airline accidents involve experienced pilots. First off, airline accidents happen so infrequently that accident data alone is a pretty poor metric of aviation safety trends, particularly those involving fairly short-term phenomenon like the three year span in which widespread hiring of pilots with less than ATP minimums was pervasive. Secondly, low-time pilots made up a fairly small portion of all pilots even at airlines that extensively engaged in the practice of hiring low-timers due to the rapid accumulation of flight time, making statistical analysis on the basis of accident rates all the more problematic. I'd be much more interested in a study involving ASAP, NASA, and FOQA data, but no such study has been done.

As for Colgan 3407, I'd argue that experience did play a role, along with many other factors. True, both CA Renslow and FO Shaw had well above ATP minimums, but CA Renslow was fairly inexperienced for a PIC of a 76-seat airliner. That was a direct consequence of Colgan hiring him direct from Gulfstream with 600 hours, very little of which was prior PIC time. It's impossible to know for sure, but one can't help but wonder if more real-world experience before the airlines would have made a difference. Airline flying is an efficient breeder of complacency if one lets his guard down. I know that in my own case, getting bit by complacency a few times early on made me much more wary of it later in my career. The US Navy cited complacency as a primary culprit in their study of aircraft accidents that found Navy pilots were most dangerous between 700 and 900 hours of total time.

There actually is one argument against the new regulation that I find credible. If the law changes, it's possible that at the height of the next shortage, regional airlines will be so desperate for candidates with 1500 hours that they'll take anyone with the flight time regardless of prior checkride busts, violations, crashes, etc. The fact that the new legislation addresses hiring standards, as well as the fact that the airlines weren't much more selective than that in the last shortage, makes me less swayed.

Sea Change

2009-07-29T20:54:00.000-07:00

When I wrote the series of posts on Colgan 3407 back in May, I noted that the new FAA administrator appeared to be receptive to changing crewmember rest and duty rules, and that the Senate's Aviation Operations, Safety, and Security Subcommittee was preparing to hold hearings on the Colgan crash in June. I noted that it would be "interesting to see whether any substantial legislation emerges from the process." I didn't say what I thought the chances of that actually happening were. Pilots are pessimists and cynics by nature. I knew that the FAA had proposed rewriting rest & duty regulations in the past only to be cowed into submission by intense airline industry lobbying. I presumed that the Senators were simply doing what Senators do best: providing themselves with a platform to bloviate and look Senatorial (or better yet, Presidential) while the attention of the country was still focused on air safety.

I may have been wrong.

We now appear to be headed for some of the most sweeping regulatory changes the industry has seen since deregulation, or the Federal Aviation Act of 1958 before it.

The FAA has convened an Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC) to rewrite the regulations concerning crewmembers' flight time, duty time, and required rest periods. The committee, which is comprised of FAA, industry, and labor representatives, started meeting in early July and has been given a September 1st deadline to make a recommendation to the FAA. Administrator Babbitt has stated that he wishes to have new regulations in place by the end of the year. The Air Transportation Association and other industry groups are rather wisely supporting the aggressive rewrite, in public at least. These are the same airlines that sued the FAA earlier this year to halt a very modest rewrite of rest rules for flights over 16 hours.

The few rumors to emerge from the ARC thus far indicate that maximum duty time will decrease by several hours, weekly and monthly duty time may be restricted, rest periods will be lengthened or will reflect time actually at the layover (right now transportation to and from the hotel is considered "rest"), and maximum duty time may be limited for late afternoon and evening show times. Work is reportedly proceeding very quickly and the airline industry participants have not stonewalled and created deadlock as happened in several past ARCs.

Meanwhile, the members of the House of Representatives' Aviation Subcommittee have introduced bipartisan legislation H.R.3371, "Airline Safety and Pilot Training Improvement Act of 2009." It goes to the full House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee tomorrow, and if approved there, on to the full House sometime after the August recess. A corresponding bill has not yet been introduced at the Senate's aviation subcommittee, but based on statements from both the majority and minority leaders during the June hearings I don't doubt that one will be forthcoming.

The full bill isn't yet available to the public, but the summary linked to above contains the following high points:

Require all airline pilots, not just Captains, to hold an Airline Transport Pilot certificate (1500 hours total time, among other requirements).
Establish tougher screening criteria for airline pilot interviews.
Create a Pilot Records Database to include licenses, ratings, check rides, and "pink slips," both from the FAA and employers, to be used for hiring purposes only.
Require mentoring programs for new-hire pilots and command/leadership for Captain upgrades.
Require stall recovery training at the airlines, and forms a FAA task force to study requiring training in stick pusher usage.
Study whether the airlines' new hire and recurrent programs provide enough time to cover the necessary subjects in great enough detail.
Require the FAA to implement new flight time and duty rules within one year.
Requires air carriers to create FAA-approved fatigue management systems.
Require websites that sell tickets to disclose who actually operates a flight on the first page that flight is displayed on.

If this legislation ends up being passed by both chambers of Congress and is signed into law in its current form, it will be a big, big step forward in addressing a lot of the industry problems that I've written about on this blog over the years. I'm eager to read the actual legislation, but here are a few first reactions to the rough outline we have now.

First, there is no doubt in my mind that every pilot sitting up front on a Part 121 airliner should have an ATP. For most of the industry's history this hasn't even been an issue. Even back in the late 1990s when the major airlines had multiple years of record hiring and the turnover at the regional airlines was huge, your resumé wouldn't even get looked at if you didn't have ATP minimums. A few years of hard work flight instructing and freight dogging was the norm, and the regionals enjoyed a steady stream of experienced newhires. The conditions of 2005-2007, where it was possible to get hired at many regionals with little more than a fresh commercial certificate, were the direct result of the destruction wreaked upon the piloting profession in the post-9/11 era. There were still plenty of pilots out there with more than ATP minimums, there were just very few willing to prostitute themselves for poverty-level wages and the eventual chance of being hired by one of the major airlines (which themselves had become much less lucrative). Rather than offer higher wages and threaten their business model, regional airline management conveniently took the view that experience doesn't matter, and their major airline partners looked the other way. Well, experience does matter, and if the airlines aren't willing to do what it takes to attract experienced pilots, Congress is entirely right to force it on them.

I've already heard objections to this by some pilots, mostly those without ATP minimums or who were originally hired with low time. I say putting in another year or two of entry level work isn't going to bankrupt anyone - it generally pays as well or better than first year regional wages - and the experience will serve them well throughout their career. It will also weed out less committed pilots, tightening the job market and giving pilots the leverage to make a livable wage at the regional airlines. Heck, the increased labor costs at the regionals could even destroy this accursed two-tier system that was destroying their careers before they even began.

An electronic pilot records database is a welcome and overdue replacement for the inefficient mish-mash verification system in place now. Right now the airlines use a FAA database to verify certificates, type ratings, and medicals, and check whether enforcement action has ever been taken against the candidate. They then contact the candidates' previous employers for the last five years to verify that the candidate's employment, training records, and check for flying-related disciplinary actions; if the previous employer is out of business or doesn't bother to forward the records, the hiring carrier assumes everything is OK. They check the National Drivers Records database for prior DUIs or DWIs. Otherwise, they simply rely on the candidate's word regarding FAA or Part 141 checkride busts, accidents/incidents, and training or disciplinary events at employers more than five years ago. Obviously in this digital age there is a better way to do this. Many pilots will complain that airlines might not hire them based on a long-ago Private Pilot checkride bust but that's simply not true: most airlines today ask about checkride failures and are mostly concerned about a pattern of failures. Presumably they're truthfully answering the questions on the application, so why object to a database that verifies the information they willingly give the airline?

The hiring & training items - pre-employment screening, mentoring & command/leadership programs, stall recovery/stick pusher training, and study of whether airlines alot enough time for training - are all things that the major airlines and the "better" regionals do already. This is really aimed at some of the smaller or more cost-obsessed regionals who have been trying to eke by with the legal minimum. It's a recognition that safety programs and training are not the place to compete on costs.

The requirement that the FAA publish new flight and duty regulations within one year strikes me as odd given that it's well known that such regulations are in the works right now. I suspect this was inserted to put the industry groups on notice that foot-dragging and stonewalling will not be tolerated this time around. The requirement for airlines to create FAA-approved fatigue management systems is intriguing to me, I'd like to hear the details. Depending on how it's structured, it could become either a meaningless formality or a forced change to the airlines' "our crews are legal, therefore they're safe" approach to fatigue.

The final item, requiring ticket sellers to disclose who really operates a flight before the customer selects that departure, seems reasonable from a public-right-to-know standpoint, but I doubt it will actually affect many passengers' purchasing habits. At best it makes the airlines slightly more sensitive to negative publicity concerning safety programs and practices, making the adoption of voluntary programs like ASAP and FOQA more likely. In reality all the major websites (Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, Priceline, Hotwire) already make this information readily available before booking, although sometimes not on the first page.

My reaction to the new rest regulations will have to wait for when the FAA actually publishes a Notice of Proposed Rule Making, but based on what we're hearing it sounds like the rules will address the most egregious scheduling practices at the airlines today. Unfortunately it will significantly decrease pay and even time off at some airlines, particularly at those regionals without rigs or daily minimums in their contracts. That's a pill I'm willing to swallow in exchange for a safety improvement we've been demanding for so long, plus the fact that these rules will likely force airlines to increase staffing, putting many currently-furloughed pilots back to work.

Obviously none of this is set in stone; I don't doubt that as the airline industry remains supportive in public, they are furiously lobbying against these changes both at the FAA and Congress. We'll see just how much of this actually makes its way into law. That said, there's more momentum for substantial change than anytime in recent history, and I'm guardedly optimistic.

The Old Guy

2009-07-09T12:55:00.000-07:00

Larry is, in many ways, a very typical specimen of an airline pilot of a certain age. He has been flying for quite a few years, and has the head of grey hair (thinning just a little on top) to prove it. He worked his way up from the "commuter" airlines back in the day, flying the ubiquitous Beech 1900. He was then hired by a major airline, where he progressed through the 727, 737, and 757 before upgrading to Captain on the 737. He flew scheduled service and charter, domestic and international; he crossed the North Atlantic a number of times but mostly bid for mainland-Hawaii runs, which were the most convenient trips to commute into from his home near Denver. Now in his 50s, Larry has reached the point in his career where all those years of hard work start to pay off, and for his last ten years or so, he enjoys a top salary and his choice of work schedule.

Or rather, that's what he was looking forward to until his airline, ATA, hit financial troubles and shut down, abruptly putting Larry out of a job. Now he is a junior First Officer for NewCo, flying the JungleBus for $23 per hour - far less than he made flying the 19-seat Beech all those years ago, when adjusted for inflation. On his last trip, Larry flew with a 28-year old Captain who has a mere five years of airline experience and who has never been a Part 121 Captain before - namely, me. Now, one could expect Larry to be fairly bitter over this turn of events, but he's taken it in stride, and is in fact a rather pleasant guy to fly with. The same has been generally true of the many other ex-ATA, Midwest, Aloha, Champion, and United pilots I've flown with, all of whom have paid their dues and worked their way up the ladder only to be thrown back to Square One.

Larry's situation is not uncommon in the airlines today. There have recently been a lot of "old guys" who, having nearly reached the pinnacle of their careers, have seen the rug yanked out from under them. This isn't exactly a new phenomenon: twenty years ago, there were plenty of senior Braniff, Eastern, and PanAm pilots who went from hero to zero almost overnight. That said, those three failures were the result of circumstances particular to those airlines, and there were other airlines that prospered around the same time or shortly afterward. In short, while these pilots certainly lost a lot, they at least had viable options for making a living for the remainder of their careers.

What is different today is that the remaining major airlines who might otherwise form a safety net for these newly unemployed "old guys" have farmed out a huge portion of their flying to the lowest bidder. The only airlines really prospering and hiring in the last few years are those regional carriers who specialize in snapping up small-gauge flying from the major airlines whose pilots have been coaxed or forced into relaxing the amount of outsourcing permitted. The common thread connecting these regionals is that they offer starting pilots wages that break historical lows going back to the very dawn of the airlines. Experience matters for naught; if you're a new-hire, with 250 flight hours or 25,000, you start at poverty-level wages.

In jobs like computer programming or mechanical engineering, for example, experience pays. These jobs are not unionized, and productivity is closely linked to proficiency. At the airlines the relationship is not so clear. A very experienced pilot might hold up a flight in a situation where a newer, more company-oriented pilot might gladly launch into the wild blue yonder. Over the short term, the less experienced pilot's approach will probably save the company money, but in the long term the more experienced pilot's caution may well result in more safety - and more profits. In America today, sadly, the primary corporate focus seems to be on next quarters' profits, and a completely free market would likely reward less cautious pilots. This is the way that it was in the early days of the airlines; this is what gave rise to the pilot's unions of today. Unfortunately, in striving to establish a system whereby rewards come through longevity rather than malleability to management's wishes, the unions have created a system wherein overall experience is utterly ignored.

There has been no shortage of theoretical proposals to rectify this situation. One long-standing idea has been the establishment of a national seniority list, whereby a national union - presumably ALPA - would essentially become a crew-leasing company. A pilot could easily move between companies, keeping their longevity intact, choosing the employer whose contract paid the most for their overall experience. Ten years ago this idea was being pushed by those at the regionals, who (with equal parts foresight and self-interest) reckoned that this would neuter the whipsaw mechanism then being laid in place by major airline management teams. It was most opposed by the highest-paid major airline pilots, such as those at United, who figured this was a scheme by lesser-fortunate pilots to weasel their way into hard-earned contracts like their own. Ironically, the national seniority list idea was most recently floated at ALPA-National last year by a group of United Airlines pilots who have realized that their management has no intention of running a long-term profitable airline.

A major problem with a national seniority list is how you would implement it from the beginning. The USAir-America West merger is a hopeless mess because of the wildly disparate demographic makeup of the two pilot groups involved; an all-encompasing national integration would be the same situation writ large. How do you reward experienced pilots at failing airlines without upsetting much younger pilots at newer, aggressive, and profitable airlines? How do you account for a regional lifer Captain's greater experience without setting back a former regional Captain who took the calculated risk of jumping to a major airline? Very much like the move to Age-65 retirement, this is the sort of proposal that everyone can get behind so long as it doesn't set them back personally! Ultimately, any remotely fair integration would result in most pilots feeling like they got screwed, and would likely result in the mass decertification of whichever union had the audacity to propose such a scheme in the first place. This is a debilitating roadblock even before you consider how you'd get the various airline management teams to agree to such an arrangement in the first place. The right to hire whomever they please is a management right that has gone unchallenged thus far and one that they reserve rather jealously; without a costly and fundamental change in who controls hiring, management would simply hire the most junior and thus cheapest pilots, and the result would be even worse than the current situation.

Another proposal that I have heard is to decouple F/O and Captain seniority lists and stop automatic upgrades. Under this proposal, both regional and major airlines would hire both First Officers and Captains off the street; perhaps even narrowbody and widebody seniority lists at the majors would be separated. The advantage is that those most experienced in each category would naturally advance to the next-highest paying category, regardless of which airline they'd been employed at last. Guys like Larry who have a lot of experience but have suffered a major career interruption could pick up almost where they left off as soon as other airlines began hiring Captains. It would stop the phenomenon of pilots flocking to airlines with inferior contracts in hopes of a quick upgrade. This is actually not a new idea: it's virtually identical to the way that many foreign airlines hire expatriates. These airlines generally offer excellent contracts despite being mostly non-unionized; without the lure of fast advancement to larger aircraft or a quick upgrade, they must compete for qualified pilots on pay and benefits alone.

This system has important benefits to airline management that might make them more likely to sign off on such a radical change. Stagnant seniority lists are the bane of many companies: they artificially inflate labor costs through increased average longevity. A system in which pilots on a stagnant list could make the jump to another company without suffering a major pay setback would tend to even things out. Under this system, management not only keeps control over hiring but gains control over upgrades. This is actually one reason such a system might give many pilots pause: it undoes some of the protections of our present seniority system and gives management the means to reward cronies with quicker advancement by hiring them for Captain or Widebody positions ahead of those with known pro-labor attitudes.

I've had my own thoughts about what an ideal system would look like. The following proposal has been developed over the last few years and I've talked about it at length with other pilots (both in person and on various web boards). I think longevity ought to be done away with altogether, and that there should be a set formula for pay across the industry according to position and aircraft size. My suggestion is an annual base salary of $40,000 for Captains and $30,000 for FOs, with a capacity override of $1/hr/seat for Captains and $.75/hr/seat for FOs. This payrate would increase annually at the same rate as inflation as calculated by the government's Consumer Price Index. A pilot's earning power would increase throughout his career as he progressed to larger aircraft, but if one ever found himself in Larry's situation, at least he'd still have a livable wage. Just so you don't have to do the math, here's a table of annual earnings for various aircraft types based on 80 hours per month:

Aircraft CA FO
Saab 340 (30 seats) $68800 $51600
CRJ-200 (50 seats) $88000 $66000
JungleBus (76 seats) $112960 $84720
A320 (148 seats) $182080 $136560
B757-300 (224 seats) $255040 $161280
B747-400 (404 seats) $427840 $320880

While these rates are a big jump from todays depressed salaries, they are not out of line with historical airline payrates adjusted for inflation, and would not actually add that much to the price of a ticket. As an example, this payscale would add $2.60 in cost per passenger on a RedCo 757 from SFO to MSP (assuming 80% load factor, 8 year FO, 12+ year CA). This is additional cost that can easily be passed onto the passenger without hurting demand. The important thing in making the extra cost palatable is that it would apply industry-wide; every airline would be on an equal footing where crew costs are concerned. Management would also gain the advantage of fixed labor costs that are 100% known for years to come, and never having to negotiate new labor contracts.

The only way this system would work is if it were 100% universal across the industry (at least in the U.S.) and that's where the biggest roadblocks are. First, it would need to be adopted industry-wide basically simultaneously, which is simply not possible within the confines of the Railway Labor Act (RLA); it would need to be repealed for this plan to have a chance. Secondly, there would always be new startups that attempt to undercut existing airlines by offering pilots less than the standard rate, and there will always be pilots who jump at the "opportunity." The only way to discourage such behavior would be for the unions to gain power over the hiring process and ban the hiring of those pilots who have worked for less than standard wages. Thirdly, this would require a huge amount of cooperation - and indeed, devolvement of political power - not just from the various MECs within ALPA, but also between ALPA itself and the various independent unions, including a few with historically antagonistic relations with ALPA (APA, USAPA). In short, changing the industry over to a Guild system would require a lot of leadership and political will that simply is not there. I've come to the conclusion that my proposal, like the national seniority list, is a utopian idea that has zero chance of success in the real world.

That's not to say that more modest changes will not be made. In 2006, ALPA formed a Fee-For-Departure Task Force composed of representatives from various regional airlines, particularly those affiliated with WidgetCo. They've been exploring ways of more closely cooperating and preventing management from whipsawing them against each other, including a minimum standard contract and better portability of seniority and longevity in transferring between airlines. The reality is that ALPA should have been thinking about this a decade ago, but late progress is better than none at all. It'll be interesting to see if anything concrete comes out of the task force, and whether some of the ideas spread beyond the regionals. I hope so. I enjoyed flying with Larry a lot, but couldn't help but see in him myself in 30 years.

Northern Light

2009-06-24T17:54:00.001-07:00

Has it really been a full month since I posted anything to this blog? Whoops. Dawn and I just got back from a two week trip to Norway (with short stops in Germany & the Netherlands) and the two weeks prior to that were chock full of flying, to say nothing of preparations for the trip. I'll be writing something aviation-related in the coming week, but in the meantime I'll share some of my favorite photos from the fjords and mountains of Norway.

Thirty Years of Outsourcing Safety

2009-05-28T17:50:00.000-07:00

"Captain Renslow and First Officer Shaw did know what to do, had repeatedly demonstrated they knew what to do, but did not do it."

So stated a press release that Colgan Airlines released on the first day of the NTSB hearings into Colgan 3407. In an effort to limit the damage to their reputation, Colgan was quite willing to throw their deceased crewmembers under the bus. In the hearings, Colgan management was evasive and defensive, attempting to ward off every suggestion that culpability for this accident might not begin and end with the two individuals not there to defend themselves. In doing so, Colgan management came off looking like rank amateurs.

Nobody can deny the kernel of truth within Colgan's statement. This crew did undoubtedly make a number of serious mistakes, some commonplace and others nearly inexplicable, which compounded on each other and resulted in tragedy. Yet these mistakes did not take place in a vacuum; there were a number of circumstances that may have contributed. In my previous posts I have explored how latent training errors and self-induced distraction may have been factors. Any serious look at this accident must also examine the regional airline industry itself for widespread patterns and trends that helped create the right environment for an accident like this.

At the time of the accident, the Captain had approximately 3300 hours of flight time and the FO had 2300 hours. By most airlines' standards this was an inexperienced crew, but they actually weren't horribly inexperienced compared to some of the crewmembers at the regional airlines. At airlines like Colgan, Pinnacle, and Mesa, in the not-so-distant past one could find 2000-2500 hour new Captains paired with 250 hour newhire First Officers. Worse yet, the Captain might be new to not only the left seat, but the airline and their routes as well; all three of the above companies hired direct-entry Captains. This was because they did not have enough First Officers qualified to upgrade due to a combination of growth, attrition, and their newhires' low flight time. Captain Renslow had 625 hours total time when he was hired at Colgan. First Officer Shaw, with sixteen hundred hours of fair weather flying in mostly single-engine piston aircraft, was actually a "high-timer" for the period in which she was hired.

Colgan testified at the NTSB hearing that a particularly favorite source of pilots is an institution known as Gulfstream Academy; they hired Captain Renslow from there. This "academy" is actually a functioning Part 121 airline in Florida that flies as Continental Connection. Brand-new commercial pilots pay $30,000 to buy a "job" as a First Officer on a Beech 1900 turboprop. Few of Gulfstream's paying passengers have any idea of their crew's extreme inexperience. After 250 hours on the line, these pilots are hired via bridge programs at airlines like Pinnacle and Colgan. They are a management dream: too inexperienced to be hired anywhere else, possessing some airline time to make training go smoother, and willing to work for any wage that's an improvement on paying bucketloads of money for their job.

What these pilots do not have is the experience of taking over the controls from a student who has put the airplane in danger, or having scared themselves straight on a low approach in a decrepit old freighter - or for that matter, having practiced hundreds of successful stall recoveries. Gulfstream portrays this as boring, useless timebuilding to potential enrollees looking for a shortcut, and a certain class of airline management enthusiastically agrees. After all, the modern regional airliner is relatively idiot-proof. If management could hire monkeys to fly them, they would - provided the price of bananas did not go too high.

The noteworthy thing here is that not all airlines stooped to hiring low-time pilots from the likes of Gulfstream. There were plenty of experienced pilots to be had but for a modest price. Despite paycuts and gutted contracts and seniority list stagnation, the major airlines were flooded with resumes from supremely qualified candidates when they began hiring again. It was the regional airlines, with their inferior pay, benefits, schedules, and work rules, who had to settle for pilots with little aviation experience, and a particular class of regional that struggled to fill their classes despite no hiring standards at all.

Here's a real-life example of how Colgan's low pay deprives them of experienced pilots. In the summer of 2007, I briefly considered applying to Colgan. With 4500 total hours and 2200 hours in the Q400, I would have been much more qualified than the average newhire. I chose not to apply because of Colgan's insultingly low pay rates and lack of work rules or union protection, and because the airline's cheapness in compensation bespoke a cheapness in other areas to me.

Training is a perfect example. Like many regional airlines, Colgan has sought to decrease training costs through outsourcing (to FlightSafety), shrinking their training footprint, and allotting a minimum number of hours for Initial Operating Experience (IOE). Colgan's pilots, and those of many regional airlines, are taught by sim instructors who often have never touched the actual airplane, and usually teach for several airlines with differing procedures. Ground instructors may have never flown any airliners! Is it any surprise that Coglan pilots were a little hazy on the significance and proper usage of the Ref Speeds switch? After sim training, Colgan pilots were given 30 hours to complete IOE; any more required approval and invited unwanted scrutiny. That's not very much for inexperienced pilots learning a rather quirky airplane. At Horizon you could go to 50 hours without them batting an eye, and ANA actually requires 70+ hours for their pilots. Sure, you can hammer out the basics in 30 hours, but that doesn't leave much time for a check airman to impart the nuances of the airplane - like, for example, "Be particularly mindful of your airspeed when you put the gear down and the props to 1020, there's a ton of drag and you can get too slow very quickly if you don't pay attention."

Hiring woefully inexperienced pilots and rushing them through training is bad enough; subsequently operating under policies that encourage them to fly sick and/or tired is simply asking for trouble. Unfortunately, many regional airlines including Colgan do just that. It's another side effect of a mentality that stresses cost savings above all else and pretends there are no negative consequences for safety in doing so.

Most regional airlines operate with fewer pilots per airplane than the majors. This is partially a result of differing stage lengths, regulations, and contract work rules, but many regional airlines also intentionally short-staff themselves as far as they can and still maintain schedule integrity. Low-paid regional pilots who are trying to build hours can generally be depended upon to pick up plenty of overtime, after all. The problem is that running so close to the edge means that a few months of high attrition or recruiting difficulties can make the airline severely short-staffed in perpetuity. Pilots suffer the most under these conditions: their schedules get built to the maximum limit, they have fewer days off to recuperate between trips, and even those days are subject to "junior-manning" as desperate crew schedulers force pilots to work on their days off. A few bad months can leave one feeling chronically fatigued. A long or difficult commute only makes things worse.

Many people have correctly noted that it is a pilot's own choice to commute. This is a decision most pilots will make a few times throughout their career, and it's never easy. I chose to leave a city and area I love dearly in order to avoid a notoriously bad commute, but my choice may have been different if Dawn and I had family in Portland, or had kids in school, or if the cost of living in my base was higher. The Seattle-Newark commute has to be one of the worst out there; the FedEx Captain who gave FO Shaw her last ride to work told her as much. Her choice to move to Seattle was apparently sparked as much by financial considerations as personal ones. Ms. Shaw was barely able to make ends meet in Norfolk by holding down a second job as a barista, so New York was clearly out of the question. She and her husband had moved to Seattle to live with her parents, at least initially.

From the multiple yawns noted on the CVR transcripts, it's likely the crew of 3407 was tired. One can understand why: it was after 10pm, they'd both been up very early, and the FO likely had very little quality sleep the night before. Moreover, they'd spent the entire day in the crew room due to a cancelled roundtrip. In my own experience, this is more tiring than actually flying, especially if there's no dark and quiet place to sleep. Most airlines provide such a place near their crewrooms, but not Colgan: they actually left the lights on full-time to discourage pilots from sleeping!

The FAA is quite clear that crewmembers must be fit to fly, and must remove themselves from duty if any condition, including fatigue, would impact their performance. Virtually every airline has a fatigue policy in their contract or FOM. How they actually administer that policy, however, varies widely by airline. At most majors, calling in fatigued is a non-jeopardy event; some even let you use your sick time. At Colgan and many regionals, calling in fatigued results in loss of pay and potential disciplinary action. Fatigue calls are usually tracked and monitored for any "patterns" of fatigue, which is left up to management's discretion and may be a mere two events. Besides the threat of discipline including termination, unscrupulous managers have been known to force fatigued pilots to undergo sleep studies during unpaid time off, or even report them as chronically fatigued to the FAA's aeromedical division. Such scare tactics are meant to cut down on "absenteeism" which threatens schedule integrity at chronically understaffed airlines. The practical effect is that pilots will often just fly tired in all but the worst cases. Most of the time they make it to their destination without incident and the airline can justify their policies as being "safe."

A similar story plays out in the realm of sick call policy. Again, the airlines' policies, ostensibly in place to prevent schedule disruption due to sick time abuse, having a chilling effect on the proper use of sick time as well. To begin with, sick time accrual at many regionals is agonizingly slow. In Colgan's case, it takes a newhire nine months to accrue enough sick time to cover a four-day trip. A newhire already at poverty-level wages can ill afford an unpaid week. Secondly, sick calls are often handled in the same paranoid manner as fatigue calls. Calling in sick at many regionals prompts personal questions from crew schedulers and follow-up calls from chief pilots. If you're unfortunate enough to fall ill on a holiday, around your vacation, or even on a weekend, they'll often demand a doctor's note - procured at your own expense under often-inferior health plans. Mind you, there are many things that a pilot should call in sick for that don't require a visit to the doctor and can usually be handled with rest and OTC medications; FO Shaw's head cold comes to mind. If their policies result in such a marginal pilot deciding to fly, management doesn't seem to mind. At least the schedule gets covered, and it's pretty rare that a sick FO fails to notice her Captain doing something disastrously boneheaded.

It's easy to vilify regional airline management for this behavior, but the reality is that it is generally borne of financial necessity rather than a perverse hatred of pilots or the pursuit of personal enrichment. Regional airlines live and die by their cost structures because the major airlines they contract with have made it this way. Virtually all regional airline management is cheap; the main difference between them is the degree of their aggressiveness in cutting costs and how vile they're willing to be to their employees. The most foul - i.e., the most cheap - have reaped the most growth in recent years as they lap up contracts with major airlines. In the case of Colgan, this came in the form of 15 Q400's to be flown as Continental Connection.

Now, the major airlines do have certain performance metrics that must be met along with the baseline requirement of low cost - witness Mesa's fall from grace - but otherwise the majors generally leave their regional airline partners to their own devices. They don't concern themselves with hiring practices or minimum experience levels, training programs, or sick and fatigue call policy. They generally are not involved in whatever safety programs the regional airline participates in. In short, by their silence they endorse regional managements' view that penny-pinching in every aspect of the operation doesn't impact safety so long as everything is legal. Of course, when a regional partner suffers a crash, the majors are very quick to point out the actual identity of the carrier involved. It's a convenient about-face after selling the victims a ticket with their name on it and festooning the outsourced airplane with their livery. Those passengers likely expected a mainline standard of safety, but only after an accident does mainline fall all over themselves to explain just how little they had to do with the operation of that flight.

The circle of blame for this unholy situation only expands outward from there. You can include the Congress of 1978 for deregulation, subsequent Congresses for lack of oversight, the FAA for turning a blind eye to the regionals' most abusive practices, pilots for being willing to take such low-paying jobs in hopes of an eventual payoff, and so on. Ultimately, though, what we're seeing is the free market at work. The situation exists because it benefits all of us as a collective group of consumers. Passengers are paying less, in real dollars, than they've ever paid to fly, and they still think they're getting stiffed. Improving safety would require increasing fares, and passengers are utterly unwilling to pay more (if you doubt me, read some of the comments here). While the flying public always make concerned noises about aviation safety, most people know enough basic math to reason that even if the regionals are more dangerous than the majors, the accident rate is still so low that there's a miniscule chance of ever being personally affected. Why spend more money for something that won't affect you? The logic isn't flawed, but it does need to be followed to its ultimate conclusion for real moral clarity on the situation: I am willing to let others die so I can save a few bucks.

As collaborators get the innermost circle of hell to themselves, I've waited to the end of this post to write about one particular group's culpability in creating the environment that fostered this accident: our very own Air Line Pilot's Association. This may come as a surprise to some of you, as I've defended airline unions on this blog before and have noted that I am active within the union. I still maintain that unions are necessary in this industry to guard against management's worst tendancies, but I fully recognize that ALPA has been utterly clueless on the matter of outsourcing and in fact fully cooperated with management in creating the two-tier system we see today when it benefitted them. Having bought into management's stance that regional jet feed was necessary for mainline growth but could not be operated cost-effectively with the payrates that mainline pilots expected, ALPA's mainline MECs declined to fly the first wave of RJs but gladly shared in the revenue they produced. They didn't concern themselves with the question of who would fly those RJs or under what conditions. When regional pilots unionized - often under ALPA - and attempted to better their lot, they got little help from their mainline counterparts. ALPA granted management scope relief after scope relief, but there was never any insistance on requiring that ALPA pilots fly the RJs, or setting a minimum standard contract, or at least insisting on some oversight of the outsourced operation's safety programs. All these things were determined to be the regional pilots' problems, despite the fact that any attempt to solve them, like the Comair strike in 2001, only made mainline shift flying to other, cheaper carriers.

Even after everything that's happened since then, this mindset is still quite prevalent at ALPA. A few months ago I was involved with a group of WidgetCo pilots in a grassroots effort to force their union to at least study the feasability of recapturing 76-seat flying. Just before a meeting of the union's Atlanta council, we were called into a meeting with the MEC chairman. He rejected the idea of recapturing outsourced flying outright, saying it would be too expensive and there would be no benefit for the majority of the membership. He said not to worry about scope, that ALPA was done giving up scope (this was a few days after he had granted scope relief to increase the allowed number of 76 seat airframes!); he then stated that outsourced flying was good for mainline pilots because the low cost flying brought in revenue they shared in. This is coming from the popular union head of the world's largest airline, and a likely future candidate for ALPA's presidency. I left that meeting utterly shaken that ALPA would or could be part of the solution to the mess we're in, at least in its current form.

If anything is going to change, it will likely come through the legislative response that has already begun in response to the Colgan hearings. Randy Babbitt, the FAA's new administrator, is much more favorable to changing duty and rest regulations than previous administrators have been; meanwhile the Senate's Aviation Subcommittee is going to be holding hearings into working conditions and safety at the regional airlines in early June. It'll be interesting to see whether any substantial legislation actually emerges from the process. In the meantime, those of us at the regionals can do our own little bit to keep our airlines safe, whether that means enforcing cockpit discipline, making an active effort to refresh our knowledge of systems and procedures, or standing up to management intimidation when we shouldn't be flying.

Thirty Minutes of Distraction

2009-05-19T08:40:00.000-07:00

At 22:16:27.4 EST on February 12th, 2009, the crew of Colgan 3407 experienced a stick shaker activation. They were hardly the first crew to do so; although one wouldn't describe a stick shaker as a common event, it's not unheard of either. A stick shaker is a warning, a clear and unmistakable message to watch thy airspeed lest the ground come up and smite thee. Most crews in this situation heed the warning and take appropriate action, and the only subsequent danger is to their careers. For reasons that will remain unknown to us but possibly include some of those delineated in my previous post, this crew did not take the correct action, and paid the ultimate price.

The fact that the fate of this crew and their passengers was determined by their response to the stick shaker, and the fact that stick shaker activations usually have happier endings, does not mean we should not examine the circumstances that led to the stick shaker activating in the first place. There are more lessons for the average pilot here than there are in the ultimate cause of the accident. Most of us find it very hard indeed to imagine pulling back on the yoke in response to a stall warning, but a great many of us have found ourselves distracted at a critical moment of flight.

If the CVR transcript did not have timestamps, an experienced pilot's first impression upon reading it would be how utterly normal the conversation contained within it was. They talk about the aircraft logbook, reminisce about past flights and old airplanes, discuss upgrades and future career plans, talk about favorite air traffic controllers, and discuss their respective experiences in icing conditions. Even the First Officer's now-famous statement about her lack of previous experience in IMC and icing, taken in its entirety and without interruptions, isn't nearly so scandalous as it's been made out to be:

"Yeah, that's another thing. All the guys— @ came in when we interviewed and he said 'Oh yeah, you'll all be upgraded in six months into the Saab' and blah ba blah ba blah, and I'm thinking, 'You know what? Flying in the northeast, I have sixteen hundred hours. All of that in Phoenix.' How much [actual] time do you think I had, or any in ice? I had more actual time on my first day of IOE than I did in the sixteen hundred hours I had when I came here...I'm not even kidding. The first day! All these guys are complaining, they're saying 'you know how we were supposed to upgrade by now' and they're complaining; I'm thinking, 'You know what? I really wouldn't mind going through a a winter in the northeast before I have to upgrade to captain. I've never seen icing conditions. I've never deiced. I've never seen any— I've never experienced any of that. I don't want to have to experience that and make those kinds of calls.' You know, I'd have freaked out. I'd have like seen this much ice and thought 'Oh my gosh we were going to crash.'...but I'm glad to have seen, oh— you know, now I'm so much more comfortable with it all."

This is the stuff that cruise conversations are made of. This portion of the conversation, however, did not take place at cruise. They were at 4000 feet, and later descending to 2300 feet, on vectors for the approach. Indeed, the last lines of the conversation - from the Captain - were spoken only two and a half minutes prior to stick shaker activation. As even many private pilots know, this is a major violation of FAR 121.542, which states:

(a) No certificate holder shall require, nor may any flight crewmember perform, any duties during a critical phase of flight except those duties required for the safe operation of the aircraft. Duties such as company required calls made for such nonsafety related purposes as ordering galley supplies and confirming passenger connections, announcements made to passengers promoting the air carrier or pointing out sights of interest, and filling out company payroll and related records are not required for the safe operation of the aircraft.

(b) No flight crewmember may engage in, nor may any pilot in command permit, any activity during a critical phase of flight which could distract any flight crewmember from the performance of his or her duties or which could interfere in any way with the proper conduct of those duties. Activities such as eating meals, engaging in nonessential conversations within the cockpit and nonessential communications between the cabin and cockpit crews, and reading publications not related to the proper conduct of the flight are not required for the safe operation of the aircraft.

(c) For the purposes of this section, critical phases of flight includes all ground operations involving taxi, takeoff and landing, and all other flight operations conducted below 10,000 feet, except cruise flight.

One of my commenters in the previous posts noted that nearly all of the conversation below 10,000 feet was at least nominally about icing - which the aircraft was accumulating - and interpreted the FO's statement as being a very passive, beat-around-the-bush way of suggesting to the Captain that she wasn't comfortable with the icing and that he should do something about it or at least reassure her. Perhaps. I personally think that the conversation as a whole was decidedly "nonessential," to use the regulation's wording, but this will no doubt be argued back and forth to exhaustion by the various parties' lawyers.

In his testimony at last week's NTSB hearings, Captain Rory Kay of ALPA's Executive Air Safety Committee pointed out that there is the letter of the regulation, and then there's the intent of the regulation. The intent was clearly to minimize distractions at times when the crew needed to focus on their duties, and there are duties to be completed above 10,000 feet. Some airlines actually call for sterile cockpit below 18,000 feet; Captain Kay noted that he personally also enforces it during any climb or descent. To my mind, the most troubling thing about the Colgan crew's chatter was not that some of it took place below 10,000 feet, but that it was fairly incessant throughout the short flight and it does seem to have impinged upon other things that needed to get done. The descent and approach checklists were both skipped until quite late in the flight, three minutes before the upset as the crew descended to 2300 feet on a base leg for the approach. Both were hammered out in the space of twenty seconds, and one critically important item got glossed over: speed bugs. Even as the crew interrupted a discussion on the perils of icing to do their approach checklist, there was no discussion of what effect that icing would have on their approach speeds. They bugged a speed that was twenty knots too slow.

Distraction likely wasn't the only culprit here. I don't doubt that fatigue - and a possible head cold on the FO's part - made the crew less sharp than they might've been. Reading through the NTSB's post-accident interviews, it is also clear that there was a lack of guidance and training at Colgan concerning the use of deice equipment and appropriate icing speeds. Most of the crewmembers interviewed were vaguely aware that the Ref Speeds switch changed the parameters at which the stall protection system activated, but could not give specifics, and there was no consensus on when exactly it could or should be turned off for landing. Likewise, when asked about when one would use a Vref-ice speed, the answers were varied, few matched Colgan's guidance, and none tied it to the use of the Ref Speeds switch, which in fact decreases stick shaker activation from 12 degrees angle of attack to 8 degrees. All of this was hammered home repeatedly in initial and recurrent training at Horizon; I suspect they had a few stick shaker activations of their own in the Q400's first year or two. It was a deficiency that was clearly not picked up on or acted upon by Colgan management. In fact, less than a month after Colgan 3407, another Colgan crew experienced a stick shaker on approach to Burlington, Vermont. Again, the ref speeds switch was selected to INCR, and they were using non-icing speeds (in this case, they really were well out of icing). This crew wasn't sick or fatigued, and there was no sterile cockpit violation; they actually had a check airman in the jumpseat conducting a line check.

Using non-icing speeds with the ref speeds switch at INCR will not, by itself, set off the stick shaker; it just considerably decreases the margin between Vref and the low speed cue. Unlike the Burlington incident, this was not a case of simply getting a few knots below Vref. In this case, the airplane was level at flight idle and a high-drag configuration from 170 knots down to 126 knots with no interference from the Captain. There are really two possibilities here: that the Captain really was intending to go straight to the Vref of 118 knots and simply called for Flaps 15 too late, or his attention was diverted elsewhere at the time and he didn't see the airspeed get low. I think the latter is more likely than the former: you seldom plan to fly the entire approach at Vref, and looking at the PFD would have made it painfully clear that Vref would put him under the low speed cue without a configuration change. If he wasn't looking at the PFD, though, nobody knows for sure why. You can't blame it directly on the chatter; all conversation had stopped by then. It's clear that he was distracted at a critical moment, though, and there had been a pattern of distraction through the last thirty minutes of the flight. While the violation of sterile cockpit didn't directly cause this accident, I personally think that it was merely one of many holes that lined up at the wrong time (think swiss cheese model).

The only reason I devote an entire post to it is because I do think it's a hole we allow to line up way too often. Most of us, in our most honest moments, will admit that sterile cockpit is not always followed as strictly as it should be. It's generally not willful disobedience, it's usually a matter of letting a few words slip out before remembering that you're below 10,000 feet. The other crewmember will usually reply with a grunt, a few words, or silence, but very rarely with an outright challenge. I've been as guilty of this as anybody. Nobody wants to be known as the "mean Captain" who jumps all over his First Officers for minor slipups. The problem is that not strongly enforcing the rule creates a culture of acceptance. Although the violation might not have been egregious, ignoring it means that when we get two "Chatty Cathy's" flying together, there isn't an cultural taboo that makes them clam up when they should.

From my time jumpseating and from talking about this to fellow pilots, I do think this problem is more acute at the regionals than it is at the majors. The accident record certainly paints that picture. Of the last three regional airline accidents, violation of sterile cockpit was a factor in two, and was also present in the third as one of many manifestations of wildly unprofessional behavior throughout the flight. You have to go back a ways to find a major airline accident in which it was a factor. Why the difference? Some can probably be attributed to differences in age and maturity level, some to the majors' longer stage lengths that provide more time for conversation in cruise. Ultimately, though, I think it's a difference of culture.

The last thirty years have seen a real transformation of the major airlines to where a culture of professionalism prevails. Deviation from standards and regulations is simply not tolerated. The hiring process has changed to emphasize CRM skills and professional attitudes over stick and rudder skills. Management, primarily those in flight operations and training, has helped set the tone by seeking out negative trends and addressing them early on. You do not see this sort of proactive safety culture at all of the regionals, or even at most of them. There is a reason that many major airline pilots will not let their families fly on regional airlines. I myself have prohibited my parents from non-revving on certain carriers.

Don't get me wrong, there are a great many excellent pilots who exhibit the utmost professionalism at the regional airlines. The airlines, however, do not go out of their way to attract and retain these pilots, or give them superior training, or provide them with the support they need to do their jobs well. Nor have they done a stellar job of weeding out weak pilots, or those with poor judgement, or those who simply need more experience. Most of all, they give safety a lot of lip service and always proclaim in to be their first priority, but in reality they seek the highest level of safety that is possible without raising costs.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. There were a lot of holes that lined up in this accident, and some of them were lined up by airline management and their enablers over the past years; they deserve their very own post, which will be my last concerning Colgan 3407. This cannot obscure the fact that there were several holes that were lined up by the crew's own action, and they are holes that all of us who consider ourselves professional pilots must be on our guards against.

Thirty Seconds of Confusion

2009-05-15T19:49:00.000-07:00

Beep!

"Three thousand for two thousand."

It was a dark night; the landing lights lit up the thick layer of clouds slipping rapidly around us. The plane bobbed rhythmically in light turbulence as we descended at flight idle power. Paul, my First Officer, slid his seat forward and cleared his throat.

"I was talking with what's-his-face the other day, our ALPA communications guy."

I looked over at Paul. "Yeah? What about?"

"Advertising. It occurred to me that we could do a much better job of getting out our message to the general public."

"Definitely."

"So why don't we put out some ads that capture people's attention?" Paul continued. "I was reading a magazine the other day, and there was this really brilliant ad. It featured a lovely voluptuous young lady, and she didn't have any clothes on - this was taken from the back, mind you - but this ad was for -."

PPPPPRRRRRBBBBBBBBTTTTTTT! DING DING!

The cockpit erupted into a cacophony of alarm horns and lights as the autopilot disconnected and the yoke began vibrating furiously. I snapped back to the instruments to find the airspeed dangerously low and the torque still at idle. I grabbed the yoke and shoved the power levers forward. "Set power!" I commanded.

It was obvious what had happened, we had leveled off at 2000 feet during the conversation without me noticing and bringing the power back up. Now, with the engines at full power, the airspeed stopped decaying and started creeping back. The stick shaker stopped momentarily.

"Altitude!" Paul called out.

Crap, we had drifted below 1900 feet. I applied some back pressure to the yoke. PPPRRRBBBBTTTT - the stick shaker started up again and the wings began a light burbling back and forth. Ish, don't want that. I eased the back pressure and gingerly nursed the altitude back to 2000 feet. The airspeed finally crept up to a safe number and I started breathing easier.

Fortunately for my career, this incident took place in a SF340 simulator rather than the JungleBus, and my "First Officer" was actually the director of training for a well-known regional airline. This company does stall training completely differently from most airlines, and in the aftermath of Colgan 3407 and Turkish 1951, Paul invited me to fly their jet and turboprop simulators and experience it for myself. We did departure stalls just after departure, approach to landing stalls while approaching for landing, and high altitude stalls at high altitude. A great many stick shaker events in the real world involve distraction at a critical time while on autopilot, so we did the scenario described above. While all of this might seem quite logical to an outsider, it is actually a revolution in the airline world. Moreover, it is done in apparent contravention of the FAA's Practical Test Standards.

In the last few days, a great many pilots - including some of the commenters on my last post - have been asking what in the world could possess a presumably competent airline pilot to pull up in response to a stick shaker - or for that matter, to use 80 to 120 pounds of force to override the stick pusher that might've saved his life. It's the most puzzling aspect of this crash. Even if the crew was relatively inexperienced, it is drummed into pilots from day one that you don't pull up in response to a stall. What could cause an airline pilot to abandon this most elementary of precepts?

Even if the pilot did survive to answer for his actions, I'm not entirely sure that even he could've given a satisfactory answer to the question. Since he is not around, all we - or the NTSB - can do is speculate about some of the possible culprits and do our best to eliminate them as potential causes of future accidents. There are three primary possibilities that have been discussed: 1) the Captain was a poor pilot to begin with; 2) he simply got confused in the heat of the moment; 3) there was some latent defect in his training. These are not mutually exclusive theories, all three could have come into play simultaneously.

By now it has been widely reported that the Captain failed five checkrides in his career. The first was his instrument checkride, back in 1991, on the partial-panel VOR approach and the NDB approach. He disclosed this failure on his application at Colgan. The next two failures, on his Commercial-Single Engine and Commercial-Multi Engine rides, took place in 2002 and 2004 respectively, and were disapproved for a fairly wide range of tasks. He only disclosed the instrument ride failure on his application. At Colgan, he failed a recurrent Proficiency Check as a First Officer and his upgrade/ATP ride. He also had to repeat a small portion of his initial PC as a new FO in the SF340.

There are a great many capable pilots who have a checkride bust or two in their past, but a long string of them raises warning flags. The interesting thing is that when you read through the NTSB Human Performance Group's interviews, everyone describes Captain Renslow as a good, consciencious pilot. Many FOs he flew with described him as above-average. Perhaps it's simply a case of not wishing to speak ill of the dead, but if he really struggled on the line you'd think the NTSB could've found someone who would have told them about it. It's hard to reconcile the popular Captain with all the checkride busts. It's possible that he simply wasn't a good test taker. That's not insignificant for our purposes: falling apart on tests can be a symptom of not coping well with pressure, period.

There was plenty of pressure to be had in the last thirty seconds of Colgan 3407. That the stick shaker was a complete surprise is self-evident. We don't know where the Captain's attention was in the moments before stick shaker activation; perhaps looking at the wingtips to see how the deice boots were coping, perhaps around the cockpit to see if anything had been missed during the rushed descent and approach checks. Maybe the long day had got to him and he was simply zoning out. It doesn't really matter; it's very unlikely he had any clue that the stick shaker was coming before it went off. It is difficult to explain to those who have never flown airplanes with stick shakers just how jarring their activation is - even in the sim, much less the real world. The whole idea behind them was to have one signal in the cockpit that is so overpowering and unmistakable that the crew cannot possibly ignore or misinterpret it. Both yokes shake so heavily that you can feel it even if your hands are nowhere near the yoke. Loud clattering noise fills the previously quiet cockpit. The autopilot disconnects with the accompanying lights and aural warnings. In the Q400's case, this is a loud horn that repeats over and over until you acknowledge it by pressing the autopilot disconnect button on the yoke. The Colgan crew never did so - they had their hands full enough already - and that sound must have surely contributed to the chaos and confusion that filled that cockpit in the last 30 seconds.

The sudden cacophony had a clear meaning: do something, now. The Captain indeed reacted very quickly, within half a second. More than a few pilots have suggested that he had tail stalls on the mind. It's possible. He'd just transitioned from an airplane that was known to be susceptible to tail stalls (early models, anyway) and had recently viewed the NASA video on tailplane stalls in recurrent training. The crew had been talking about the icing only a few minutes before. With a tailplane stall, of course, one would not expect to see the stick shaker activate, as that indicates a high aircraft angle of attack and, by extension, a low tailplane AoA. I'm not sure that the distinction would be evident to anyone within the space of a half-second, but by the same token I'm a little skeptical that anyone would think of a tailplane stall within a half second in the first place (much less remember that the corrective action for a tailplane stall is to pull up). It's possible that five or six seconds later the Captain mistook the stick pusher for a tailplane stall (they would feel similar in an aircraft with unpowered flight controls, although not in a Q400) and that's why he fought it. It's very easy to play these parlor games after the fact, having reviewed the NASA video and FAA circulars and discussed among ourselves. At the time, caught by surprise and with little idea of what's going on and events moving far faster than he could really think about them, I rather doubt that the Captain consciously thought about what he was doing, in the same way that the First Officer obviously wasn't thinking about what she was doing when she retracted the flaps in the middle of a stall. Amid the confusion, pure instinct took over.

Why that instinct might involve pulling when new pilots are taught over and over again to push may have its roots in the way that most airlines teach stalls. To begin with, they are not even stall recovery procedures; they are stick shaker recovery procedures. The ATP PTS directs you to recover at the first indication of a stall, which includes the stick shaker. Many pilots will never experience a stick pusher or a real stall in the simulator unless they request it; it was never part of the syllabus at Horizon or NewCo. The maneuver is typically taught and checked well above the ground. The setup is far from realistic: the applicant usually hand-flies and stops trimming well before the stall. The reason to do so is that it makes the recovery easier: the plane won't pitch up when you apply power. The purpose of stall training is really to prepare the student to pass the maneuver on the checkride rather than to prepare them for the possibility of being surprised by a stick shaker on the line.

And this brings us to the most outrageous thing about stall training at many airlines. Applicants are taught to hold their altitude throughout the maneuver. Again, this is due to the Practical Test Standards, which state that an applicant must:

Recover to a reference airspeed, altitude and heading with minimal loss of altitude, airspeed, and heading deviation.

The FAA never defines "minimal loss" of altitude. A great many instructors and check airmen have substituted their own standard, often 100 feet as several Colgan instructors testified. People can be and have been failed for trading altitude for airspeed during a stick shaker recovery. Instead, you are taught to immediately go to full power, and use whatever yoke force is needed to keep the airplane level while it accelerates. This often involves "riding the shaker" for some time. Let me say that again: we are being taught to stay in the shaker for longer than is necessary. Because we stop trimming at such a high airspeed, this can involve significant back force on the yoke until the airspeed increases again. Therefore, you are developing the exact motor memory that, if applied to a real-world situation like Colgan 3407's, will induce exactly the wrong control movements.

It's entirely possible that the Captain was reacting to the stick shaker exactly as he did in the simulator and simply overreacted a bit with the adrenaline rush. It didn't take that much back pressure to start the abrupt pitch-up after the shaker, only about 25-30 pounds according to the Flight Data Recorder. The fact that the autopilot was engaged right up to the stick shaker meant that the plane was trimmed for the speed at which the autopilot disengaged, which certainly didn't help matters when the Captain shoved the power levers forward during the pitch-up. I don't doubt that he was as surprised as anyone that his reaction to the stick shaker induced a 30 degree pitch up and subsequent stall. It was still a recoverable situation at that point; it was fighting the stick pusher the whole way down and retracting the flaps mid-stall that ultimately doomed the crew. These actions may reasonably be attributed to panic at a situation that had quickly spiraled out of control.

So why did stalls come to be taught this way? I think I see the FAA's original reasoning. A lot of training and checking used to be accomplished in real transport category aircraft, many of which reacted very poorly to full stalls. In the interest of safety, the FAA decreed that recovery be initiated at the very first sign of a stall. Simply increasing one's airspeed from a low number to a high number doesn't seem like a very difficult task, and nobody wants crews to be diving transport category jets at the ground in a low-altitude situation, so the FAA added the language about minimum loss of altitude. Transfer this to the simulator, where the element of danger is removed, and many check airmen began treating it not as a survival maneuver but a proficiency maneuver not much different than steep turns.

Many major airlines at least include simulator training to the stick pusher for their pilots, but as far as I know only Paul's regional airline has completely revamped the way they do stall training. They teach their pilots that reducing angle of attack promptly is the most important thing in recovering from a stick shaker, and that this involves both increasing power and lowering pitch to trade some altitude for airspeed. I tried both their method and the traditional method in the sim, and using the new method resulted in far less time spent in the shaker in exchange for altitude loss generally no greater than 200-300 feet (the scenario I described at the beginning of this post was using the traditional recovery method). Just as importantly, this airline trains and checks stick shaker recoveries using the most common scenarios in which real crews have encountered stick shakers: accidental reversion to pitch mode after takeoff, mountain wave at high altitude, leveling off on a non-precision approach, and turning base leg to final approach. Most scenarios involve the autopilot being on and trimming all the way to the low airspeed. They often give students low speed scenarios when they're not expecting them, and make ready use of distraction. In my own case, I knew exactly what Paul was doing when he struck up the conversation about the ad with a naked woman in it, yet I still found myself surprised when the shaker went off. The end result is that if one of their pilots ever finds themselves surprised by a stick shaker at low altitude, it won't be the first time they've had that experience, and they'll have accurate motor memory to call upon for the recovery.

So why haven't more airlines changed the way they train stall recovery? Surprisingly, the FAA isn't standing in the way: they wholeheartedly approved of the changes that Paul introduced to his airline's training program. A lot of it is simply institutional inertia. Until now, few have thought there was a problem that needed addressing. This a symptom of a reactive rather than proactive safety culture at many regional airlines. Another element is cost: many regionals' training programs are all about turning out pilots as quickly and cheaply as possible while maintaining a basic level of competence and safety. When you compare regional airline training syllabi to those at major airlines, you typically see fewer simulator sessions despite having similarly sophisticated aircraft and less experienced pilots. That means that certain things get glossed over, and no "superfluous" training is included. This accident will of course change the way we teach stalls - I fully expect to be using Paul's method next year (and I hope they call it "Paul's method" in recognition of his foresight) - but I do worry that it will take future accidents to expose other weaknesses unless there is a fundamental change in the safety culture at the regional airlines. I'll write more about that in my next post.

Thirty Seconds of Silence

2009-05-13T00:21:00.000-07:00

By now you've likely heard the news accounts of Colgan 3407's last minutes as captured by the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR). The NTSB released the CVR transcript today along with hundreds of pages of analysis, much of which is actually more informative than the CVR. Of course, the contents of the CVR transcript are easiest for the general public to grasp - and appeals most to voyeuristic impulses - so that is what was mostly reported.

Most news accounts that I saw focused on the two most sensational elements of the transcript: a statement by the First Officer regarding her inexperience in icing several minutes before the crash, and the crew's last expletives and cries in the moments before impact. Both tidbits are completely irrelevant to the investigation in and of themselves, yet do indirectly offer some clues. The First Officer's statement - that she'd never been in icing before Colgan and was glad to get a winter under her belt before upgrading - was noteworthy mainly in that it was part of a rambling, unceasing conversation that began in cruise and didn't abate until a few miles outside the marker. Put bluntly, sterile cockpit was not observed. The crew will be harshly and universally condemned for this, from the NTSB to the web boards to the lawyers. It is important to note that one cannot point to this conversation as the cause of the accident because most everything was normal while it was ongoing, and the oversight that resulted in the upset took place several minutes after the conversation had ceased. The superfluous chatter may, however, be taken as a symptom of a crew that was not 100% focused on the task at hand.

The last thirty seconds of the CVR, meanwhile, are notable for just how little gets said. Beyond the few exclamatory comments relayed by the press, there are only a few fragments and half-sentences exchanged from the time that it becomes clear that all is not well until impact: "uhhh," "I put the flaps up," "should the gear up?" and "gear up oh #!" It's an indication of how thoroughly surprised and quickly overwhelmed this crew was. There were no standard recovery procedures used, no callouts or coordination, only furious reaction. If the CVR was the only tool at the investigators' disposal, the one and only clue it would provide is a constant noise in the background through the end of the recording: the staccato chatter of a stick shaker.

The Flight Data Recorder (FDR), on the other hand, tells the grim story with an accuracy and clarity that the unfortunate crew never knew. It records in exquisite detail the status and output of every single major sensor and system on the aircraft, 121 parameters in all. The NTSB painstakingly graphed out every pertinent piece of data against various timelines, from the entire flight to the last desperate seconds. Simply thumbing quickly through the graphs gives the very distinct impression that things went south very quickly: the lines go from straight and orderly to severe and chaotic in a manner of seconds. Much closer study of the data contained within, taken alongside the CVR transcript, gives one a very good idea of just what happened on that snowy February night.

The best place to start is at 22:16:00 Eastern Standard Time, a mere 53.9 seconds before impact. Up to this point, everything is utterly normal so far as aircraft control goes. The Q400 is level at 2400 feet and 180 knots, intercepting the localizer for Runway 23 at Buffalo; the flight has been cleared for the approach. The autopilot is engaged, and the flaps are extended to five degrees (Flaps 5). The Captain is the Pilot Flying and the First Officer is the Pilot Monitoring. The aircraft has a moderate amount of ice on it, but not enough to affect performance significantly. The crew has correctly switched the "Ref Speeds" switch on the ice protection panel to "Increase," which decreases the angle of attack at which the stall protection system activates. During their preparation for the approach, the crew set a V-app speed of 118, which was correct for their weight and configuration but did not include the mandatory 20 knot icing additive. It's a small but important detail that got overlooked during their conversation.

At 22:16:00, the Captain reduced the power levers to flight idle to slow down for landing. A few seconds later he called "gear down, loc's alive" and the FO extended the landing gear and moved the condition levers to their maximum position, 1020 RPM. Both landing gear and flat-pitch propellers on the Q400 are quite draggy, and the rate of deceleration increased. In the next ten seconds, the airspeed decreased from 170 knots to 149, already a fairly slow speed for Flaps 5. At 22:16:21 the FO noted "gear's down," and the Captain immediately called "Flaps 15, before landing checklist."

Perhaps the FO noticed the low speed cue rising menacingly on the Primary Flight Display, because she paused a few seconds before moving the flap handle, only put it to 10 degrees, and began "uhhh...." One second later, the stick shaker began clattering away, almost immediately accompanied by the autopilot disconnect horn. It would continue to blare through the rest of the recording, although it could've been silenced by pushing the autopilot disconnect on the control wheel. At the moment the stick shaker activated, 22:16:27.4, the flaps were moving through 6.7 degrees and the airspeed was 126 knots.

Neither the Captain nor the FO said anything about the stick shaker. In fact, neither pilot said anything at all for a full ten seconds. The Captain did react, however, immediately and decisively. Within half a second, he hauled back on the yoke with almost 30 pounds of force. It was enough to send vertical acceleration from 1G to 1.44G. He subsequently relaxed the back force somewhat, but pitch continued to increase to a maximum of 30 degrees by 22:16:33. Meanwhile, the Captain advanced the power levers to around 70 degrees and left them there; neither he nor the FO seem to have noticed that they weren't at the rating detent, much less the mechanical limits. The Q400's engines can produce up to 130% torque in an emergency, but in this case they never went above 80%.

The Q400 is notorious for its left turning tendencies when power is advanced, and they were magnified by the aircraft's slow speed. As the aircraft pitched up, it also began banking left despite increasing right rudder. By the time the aircraft reached its apex of 2600' feet, it was in a 45 degree bank. The Captain responded with significant right control wheel deflection, which deployed the roll spoilers on the right wing.

We don't know exactly when the stick pusher fired because the FDR only samples it once every four seconds. We know it was active by 22:16:34, and that the Captain responded with renewed stick force of around 40 pounds. The airspeed was now under 100 knots; angle of attack reached 23 degrees. At 22:16:34, the aircraft simultaneously pitched down rapidly and snapped to the right, rolling straight through level and reaching 110 degrees of right bank within seconds. It was at this point that the Captain muttered "Jesus Christ," the first word he spoke since calling for Flaps 15 and the before landing checklist. At the same moment, the First Officer put the flap handle to zero without prompting, and then announced "I put the flaps up." The flaps move slowly on the Q400; they only reached Flaps 0 a few seconds before impact. Its questionable whether the situation was recoverable at this point, but retracting the flaps certainly didn't help matters.

Using full deflection left aileron and rudder, the Captain was actually able to recover from the past-vertical right bank to a shallow left bank. The pitch was bobbling near zero, and the angle of attack fluctuated between 15 and 25 degrees. The stick pusher momentarily stopped firing, and suddenly the control wheel back pressure increased to over sixty pounds. The pusher fired again, and the Captain overrode it for the last 12 seconds with 80 to 120 pounds of force. The plane snapped right past 90 degrees bank again; this time the nose dropped well below the horizon, to about -45 degrees pitch. "Should the gear up?" the FO asked; the CA responded, "gear up oh #."

The crew fought to the end, getting the bank back to around 30 degrees and the pitch to -25 degrees. The airspeed momentarily increased to 160 knots. The angle of attack, though, was still well in excess of 20 degrees and the rate of descent was around 10,000 feet per minute. The crew's last words make it clear that they knew the gig was up a few seconds before the recording ends.

It was 27 seconds from the time the stick shaker went off until impact. When the shaker went off, the airplane was still flying just fine; in fact, the angle of attack was only about 8 degrees. At this point the recovery procedure was fairly straightforward; the Captain practiced it several times quite recently in the simulator. Why he instead reacted by yanking back on the yoke is going to be the cause of a lot of speculation throughout the aviation world, but will never be truly known. Even after the pitch up and subsequent stall, recovery was not out of the question with the right stall recovery technique. Most airlines, however, do not teach stall recovery, and even if Colgan had it is impossible to say whether this crew would have recalled and executed it in time to save the airplane.

This is the easy part of an accident investigation: finding out what happened. Investigating why it happened can be much, much more difficult. This is what the NTSB is focused on now; they'll have plenty to say on the subject, and I'll have a few things to say myself. In the meantime though, this accident provides a reminder of how quickly things can turn bad in our profession. A read through Colgan 3407's CVR transcript should provide more than enough motivation to focus on the matter at hand and leave the distractions at cruise altitude.

Canary In the Coal Mine

2009-05-10T19:02:00.000-07:00

Since I wrote the post about Colgan 3407 three months ago, more details about the events of that tragic flight have come to light. They have taken the investigation further along in the direction that it was starting to go when I wrote that post. Most of these details have not been made officially public, but have leaked out and have spread around the aviation community. I've resisted posting details here or commenting on them because the investigation was ongoing. On Tuesday, May 12, the results of that investigation will be made public and the NTSB will hold hearings into some of the issues that their investigation uncovered. While the final report on the accident will not be issued for some time, we will know most of the pertinent facts on Tuesday (you will be able to access the public docket here); I think at that point it is reasonable to discuss what is revealed.

Much of the discussion will likely center around three broad topics: Professionalism and Safety Culture at the Regional Airlines, Training at the Regional Airlines, and Fatigue & Working Conditions at all airlines but particularly the regionals. I have some pretty strong opinions on all of these topics, as anybody who has read my blog for a while knows, and I'll likely be writing more posts on these topics as they relate to Colgan 3407 in the coming weeks. I'd like to talk about them in general terms now, however.

In November of 2007 I wrote a post titled "Are the Regional Airlines Safe?." My conclusion was that yes, statistically speaking they still were, but there were some worrying trends in the industry that, left unaddressed, could cause safety problems down the road. When I wrote the post, one of the most worrying trends was a dramatic decrease in experience levels at the regionals. This trend has since reversed, not due to any management effort to address the root causes of the regionals' inability to attract experienced candidates, but due to the one-two punch of high fuel prices and crashing demand for air travel that has brought the airlines to their knees and sent pilots scrambling for jobs. There are few, if any, first officers with less than 800 hours at the regionals these days. However, the conditions they are working under are as miserable as ever, but now without growth and advancement to soften the blow. The schedules are as fatiguing as ever, and management still insists that there's not a problem, that the few cases of pilot fatigue out there are individual pilots' own fault. The trend towards cheap outsourced maintenance has continued apace. The FAA continues to be irrelevant at best and a hindrance at worse as they myopically nitpick paperwork snafus while doggedly ignoring the things that are actually killing people.

When I wrote that post about regional airline safety, I regarded Pinnacle 3701 as a "Canary in the Coal Mine." That accident was a quintessential regional airline accident. I don't think it could have happened at the today's major airlines. Once upon a time the majors suffered a string of similarly senseless accidents, but they ended up taking the lessons to heart, changed the way they did a lot of things, and ended up with a safety culture where reckless and careless behavior simply isn't tolerated. There were a lot of lessons the regional airlines could've taken from Pinnacle 3701. Nobody really changed anything of importance, though. Maybe two lives and a destroyed airplane and house weren't enough to grab their attention. Maybe it was too easy to write the pilots off as two loose cannons and miss the broader implications of their behavior.

If anything, Pinnacle got worse after 2004. They continued to hire lower and lower time pilots; their upgrade minimums were relaxed several times. Their management got more aggressive and abusive with things like sick call policy and junior manning. Continuous severe understaffing pushed their crewmembers' schedules right up to the legal limit. Pinnacle pilots have been working under an expired contract for four years, their pay frozen while management endlessly stonewalls the union negotiators. I'm not just picking on Pinnacle here, this is a disease that has rapidly spread through the regionals the last five years. The worst offenders are the ones that got all those new 70-90 seaters. The airlines that haven't followed suit in this behavior - the Horizons, ExpressJets, and American Eagles of the world - are shrinking into oblivion. ALPA in its current state is clueless and helpless on its good days, and a collaborator the rest. When I spoke with ALPA's MEC chairman for the world's largest airline, he unblinkingly told me that outsourced regional jets were good for his mainline pilots.

If the warnings of PCL3701 went unheeded, CJC3407 is a much bigger canary that's a lot harder to ignore. These hearings are going to shine a light into some hitherto rather murky corners of the industry. Some of my fellow regional pilots are pretty uncomfortable with that. Yes, I'm aware that all of us will likely come under public scrutiny along with our companies. Yes, this is a bad time to give people another reason not to fly. We really do need to change the way things are done at the regional airlines, though, both for the sake of public safety and for our own profession. This accident needs to be our Tenerife, our Eastern 401, the wakeup call that shows everyone that the way we are doing things is broken. As these hearings progress, I suspect that the industry groups are going to try to make them about the individuals who were involved in this accident. I think the NTSB recognizes, though, that there are industry-wide issues that must be addressed head-on if we don't want another repeat.

Oops #2

2009-05-01T19:37:00.000-07:00

Sigh.

Apparently I have a hidden talent for wrecking my laptop computers in unique and spectacular ways. In late 2007 I reversed the polarity on a universal power adapter, frying my ancient Dell Inspiron. It turned out to be a good excuse for buying myself a new MacBook, which I fell in love with. My Mac has been rock-solid reliable for the year and a half I've owned it; my only complaint is how easy the edge of the plastic case chips, a common problem Apple subsequently solved with the new aluminum unibody MacBooks (for a $300 premium over the plastic versions!).

On the morning of my birthday a few weeks ago, I woke up at 7am in my Pittsburgh hotel room to a faint crackling sound. I thought I was imagining things so I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. Then I heard it again; I sat upright and caught an acrid whiff of electrical smoke. That got my attention very quickly; I jumped out of bed and followed the crackling sound. To my horror, it was coming from my MacBook, which was sitting in a pool of clear liquid on an ottoman next to the bed. I snatched the laptop out of the puddle, took out the battery, and ran into the bathroom to towel it off as well as I could. Then I tried to figure out where the liquid came from.

My lunch box was sitting on the same ottoman and was at the very epicenter of the puddle. My first thought was that an ice pack burst. When I investigated, though, all ice packs were accounted for and intact, and there was no moisture inside the cooler.

I decided to touch and smell the mystery liquid that was now quickly drying. As near as I could tell, it was just plain water with a slight twinge of burnt silicone to it. I checked the ceiling for any sign of leakage and asked the hotel's maintenance guy about it. He agreed that it didn't look like there was any water damage to the ceiling, and pointed out that it hadn't rained and there were no water pipes near that location.

I still have absolutely no idea where the water came from. It crossed my mind that, having enjoyed a number of adult beverages the night before in celebration of my birthday, I might have risen half-awake in the night and mistaken my MacBook for a commode. There was none of the smell you'd expect to accompany any such event, though. One of my flight attendants helpfully suggested that since I'd neglected to deadbolt my door, perhaps a mischievous cleaning lady had opened it and lobbed in a water balloon. When I rolled my eyes she quite correctly pointed out that I don't have a better answer. The Apple techs couldn't come up with any hardware-related explanation.

I left the battery out of my computer for the rest of the trip. When I got home, I let the computer sit in a pan of uncooked rice for a few days. It's possible that this is merely an old wives' tale, but I've heard that doing so will draw moisture out of waterlogged electronics. Amazingly enough, the computer booted up on AC power! Reinserting the battery, however, led to smoke and imminent destruction by fire. My local tech suggested that perhaps only the battery-to-logic board cable was damaged, but closer inspection revealed widespread damage to the logic board itself, making repair uneconomical. Since then I've been using the computer on AC power only, and it's been shutting down unexpectedly with greater and greater frequency. This morning it shut down and refused to boot back up. The mystery liquid's path of destruction had finally run its course.

The bottom line is that I'm typing this on a brand new 13" MacBook - yes, still the plain-jane white version rather than the snazzy unibody. I picked it up this morning from MicroCenter with a $200 rebate, making this the cheapest new MacBook I've ever seen and easing the pain just a little bit. My next purchase? A waterproof case, in which my computer will spend every instant that it's not in use. You never know when a puddle of water will appear out of thin air and turn your $1000 computer into sizzling, smoking garbage.

...and Leaving It

2009-04-06T08:06:00.000-07:00

The first draft of my last post was actually more negative than the version I ended up posting. I'd been getting a little burned out. I've been flying quite a bit, as has everyone at NewCo thanks to management's decision to drastically understaff the airline. When I'm not flying, I'm often volunteering for the union on jumpseat and other issues, or writing about flying for this blog and my other project. Sometimes it gets a bit much and I just need to get as far away from my job as possible. March was one of those times.

Fortunately, Dawn had a week off of teaching for Spring Break and I had vacation time, so we travelled as has been our practice for the last three Spring Breaks. Two years ago we went to Thailand, last year to Singapore & Malaysia; this year we went to Greece. We spent the last ten days in Athens and on the islands of Naxos, Ios, and Santorini. The flights worked out pretty well; our first flight into London's Heathrow was delayed enough that we wouldn't be able to make our connection at Stansted in time, but the judicious use of backup passes got us to Athens at the same time, although we had to make another connection in Frankfurt to do it. On the way back, we took Aegean from Santorini to Athens, KLM from Athens to Amsterdam, and RedCo back from AMS; the first RedCo flight was full but we made it onto the second flight two hours later. The only other wrinkle was that a general strike shut down the ferries on the day we were to go to Santorini, so we ended up spending three nights in a very sleepy offseason Ios and only one on beautiful Santorini. Even that worked out, as we took a late flight from Santorini to Athens so we were able to spend most of the last day exploring the island and saw most of what we wanted to see.

I immensely enjoyed exploring the Acropolis, Ancient & Roman Agoras, Hadrian's Library, Temple of Olympian Zeus, and other ruins in Athens. Wandering the Plaka at night, eating at the streetcorner souvlaki stands, and sharing a bottle of wine while looking over the lights of the city at St Paul's Rock were also highlights. On the islands, it was still the offseason so a lot of businesses were closed and nobody was on the beaches, but that also made for a very laid-back experience. We rented motorscooters on all three of the islands, which was a lot of fun and made exploring some of the out of the way corners easier. We enjoyed Naxos' fertile olive groves and beautiful rugged mountains, Ios' quaint town center with its labrylynth of narrow, twisting streets, and Santorini's spectacular crater with whitewashed villages clinging to its sides. The weather was occasionally cold, cloudy, and blustery, but we had some gorgeously sunny days as well. We ate delicious food at restaurants, tavernas, and gyro stands alike; we drank wine, ouzo, citron, and more ouzo. On the whole, it was a very pleasant trip, and I'd love to go back - especially when it's warmer.

I'm usually a little despondant on returning from a good trip overseas, but this time I feel refreshed and ready to go back to work. It helps that I know we have another big trip to Europe planned for a few months from now. We'll be going to Norway with some close friends of ours who are also nonrev fiends; we've been trying to take a trip together for some time. I'm really looking forward to it.

In the meantime, here are some of my favorite photos from this trip.

Athens

Naxos

Ios

Santorini

Loving It

2009-03-26T05:32:00.000-07:00

A lot of pilots I fly with come from flying families; many of them have parents working at or retired from RedCo. I know a few pilots that come from veritable flying dynasties, with three or even four generations of airline pilots. These people grew up around the airlines; nothing in this industry surprises them. I, on the other hand, am the only pilot of any sort in my extended family, and didn't even know a single airline pilot until I was in college. It's been a learning process for me since day one.

When I was in my teens, scraping together enough cash to take a flight lesson at the end of each month, I was absolutely and unalterably infatuated with all things aviation. I wasn't simply nerdy, I was obsessed. If I couldn't afford to fly every day, I could certainly read every aviation magazine and textbook I could get my hands on, write essays on aviation, build model planes, fly Microsoft Flight Simulator, code flight planning software, pore over the pages of Trade-A-Plane, and absentmindedly doodle new designs for homebuilt aircraft whenever obstensibly engaged in some activity not involving flying. All these things made me almost as happy as flying itself. The few times that I did have contact with airline pilots through these years, their blasé attitude towards flying startled, puzzled, and finally infuriated me. Here I was, wishing every minute that I was flying, and these guys who got to do it every day didn't even particularly like it! "I will never be like that!" I proclaimed with adolescent fervor.

I remember the first time I actually didn't want to go fly. I was in college, finishing up my instrument rating. I'd been flying a lot the previous several semesters, and this was my third or fourth lesson of this particular week. I remember walking out of my last class of the day, realizing I still had to fly that night, and groaning. My first inclination was to cancel the lesson. Suddenly I realized that this must be what it's like to fly for a living: doing it day in and day out, whether you feel like it or not, whether the conditions are ideal or not. Doubts swept over me. Am I pursing the wrong career? I gained some empathy for the airline pilots I had damned so harshly in years past.

During my internship at TWA in Spring 2001, I did a lot of jumpseating and was able to talk to a great many pilots. I'd often ask whether they still enjoyed flying. The question usually surprised them, as if it was an irrelevancy they hadn't bothered to think about before. The answers ran the gamut from a profound appreciation for the beauty and mystery of flight to a sincere wish for retirement to come quickly and to never touch another airplane thereafter. I found that the answers were much more negative if I asked whether they enjoyed their job, and even moreso if I asked whether they liked the airlines. I would also get rather positive responses to the question, "what part of your job do you like best?" Even the crabbiest old Captains would reply to that question by sweeping their hand across the panorama of a moonlit landscape unfolding outside the cockpit windows and saying "this is great." It was a revelation that most pilots consider flying to be the one good part of their job, and the other, less pleasant aspects of the job completely overshadow it for many.

This spring I'll have been flying for fifteen years, and for the airlines five years. The industry and the profession have taken some very serious blows in that time, and ever more pilots are finding reasons to hate their jobs and get out of aviation as soon as possible. I've flown with pilots who've been in the airlines for less time than I have who are so disgusted they can't wait to quit. I don't blame them; many have taken much worse hits than I have, with multiple furloughs in the last year or two. Although my career has been fairly trouble-free, I do wonder how long that will last, and furthermore whether my profession will ever gain back even a portion of what it has lost. It can start to intrude upon my outlook on the job as a whole. On trips when I'm dealing with crummy weather and broken airplanes and overworked dispatchers and surly coworkers, I put on my uniform in the morning, look at myself in the mirror, and sigh as I think about how much I really don't want to go to work today.

But I go anyways, and an hour later I'm hurtling down the runway at 130 knots with both engines roaring at full power. My FO calls "Vee One," then "Vee R" and I ease back on the yoke and the nosewheel below me stops rumbling as it lifts off the pavement. The plane rears up and sits like that for just a moment, as if in hesitation, then the wings load up and everything goes silky smooth and silent as the earth rapidly falls away. This is one of the best feelings in the world. There are a lot of other things I like about flying, but the moment of liftoff is the instant that whatever else has gone wrong that day melts away, and the frustrations and difficulties of my job are insignificant.

My career is still young. In the thirty seven years I have before retirement, I may yet turn into the crabby old Captain who can't wait for the day he remains forever earthbound. If that ever happens, I would hope that I could quit and do something else that I really enjoy. Right now, though, I still enjoy flying enough that it overshadows all the things that make some people really hate this job.

High & Hot

2009-03-15T21:33:00.000-07:00

We're high. Really high. I'm not sure just how far above a 3 degree glidepath we are, because Runway 35 at Philadelphia is not served by an ILS or a VASI, and the GPS approach we loaded in the FMS is not displaying a glidepath because we intercepted the approach inside the final approach fix. If any of the above were available, though, I'm pretty sure they would be pegged. This runway is somewhat short and wide, so if we look high, we're really high.

"Flaps 5, speed 140,"

"Flaps 5, speed 140."

We are cooking along over the ground with a 20 knot tailwind. The Delaware River is quickly approaching, and Runway 35's 6500 feet of pavement loom beyond it. My FO, who is flying the airplane, pitches up slightly to get below the maximum speed for Flaps Full. I glance over at him; his facial expression mirrors my own thoughts: this sucks!

"Flaps Full, V-approach, landing check."

"Flaps Full, V-approach, landing check. Gear?"

"Down for 35"

"Down for 35. Flaps Full set, flight attendants notified, cleared to land 35, landing check complete. 1000 feet, instruments, uh...normal?"

We're fully configured now and the airplane is coming down good. I have serious doubts about whether it'll be enough to salvage this screwed up approach. There's plenty of temptation to do so. Philly is busy today, really busy. There's a reason they asked us whether we could accept a visual approach to 35. There was about an 8 knot tailwind component so I had looked up the performance; we were well under the maximum weight for landing on 35 with a 10 knot tailwind. Of course, when we told approach we could do it we had no idea they'd be clearing us for the visual from a 4 mile base at 1500 feet with a speed restriction of 190 knots until turning final and a 20 knot tailwind aloft. Mind you, Piedmont Dash 8's have been making successful visual approaches in those conditions all afternoon. But this is not a turboprop, its a slippery jet whose very low-drag efficiency is proving its Achilles' heel in this moment. It should have been apparent to me from the moment they cleared us for the approach that this was unworkable, and I should have requested a vector back around. But I didn't realize it then, and once committed to a certain course of action, there's a strong mission-completion bias in the heart of most pilots, a natural tendency to play the cards one's been dealt and make it work. There is, however, a point at which the laws of physics win out over the steeliest determination.

We're approaching 500 feet above the ground, the point at which our company requires that we have a visual approach stabilized - that is, configured, on glideslope, and on speed. Time to evaluate how things are going. We're configured, and coming down quickly. That's good. However, we're nearly 30 knots above Vref, and the sight picture is showing that we're still pretty high. Suddenly I'm not flying a NewCo JungleBus into Philly, I'm on a Southwest 737 approaching Runway 8 at Burbank. There are only two ways this can end: in a go-around, or in a gas station across Hollywood Way. The choice is clear.

"Screw this, man, go around."

"Go around, Flaps 4."

"Flaps 4. Philly tower, NewCo 1808 going around.

"Roger, NewCo 1808, fly runway heading, maintain 2000, contact approach 124.5"

"Runway heading two thousand twenty four point five NewCo eighteen oh eight."

"Heading."

"Heading. Here's 2000 set for the missed."

"One thousand for two thousand. Flight level change, speed 210."

"Flight level change...uh, speed 180 for Flaps 4."

"Ah, right, 180. Flaps 3."

"Flaps 3."

"Flaps 2, speed 210."

"Flaps 2, speed 210. Philly approach, NewCo 1808 on the missed from Philly 350 heading and two thousand."

"NewCo 1808 roger."

"Flaps 1."

"Flaps 1."

"Flaps zero...speed FMS."

"Flaps zero, speed FMS."

Well, that wasn't so bad. A whole lot happened in those two or three minutes, and although a go-around is theoretically a routine maneuver, this is only the second one I've done in the JungleBus. You do them often in the sim, however, and that training comes back to you quickly. The passengers, on the other hand, probably aren't quite so familiar with what just happened. Once Philly Approach turns us onto the downwind for an ILS to 27R, I make a PA to the main cabin.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, what you just experienced is known as a go-around. Long story short, air traffic control brought us a little too close in to the airport while we were high and fast, and we weren't able to descend steeply enough. I decided the safest course of action was to climb away for another approach. We're being brought around for another runway now, and I expect that we'll be landing in the next five to ten minutes. Thank you."

When things don't go as planned, it's easy to get thrown off your game. A big part of having a professional pilot mentality is being able to put setbacks behind you and concentrating on the task at hand. I assure myself that the go-around was the right decision, check our fuel state, and set the FMS up for the next approach. There's still a little voice nagging me in the back of my head: you accepted the approach clearance when you shouldn't have. I silence the voice as best as I can for the landing, but it's apparent that I'm still a little distracted: I forget the "Flaps Up, After Landing Check" call upon clearing the runway until my First Officer reminds me.

As the passengers deplane, many of them thank us for getting them there safely, something I've noticed more of in the weeks after Cactus 1549 and Colgan 3407. Our lead flight attendant notes that many of them seemed anxious during the maneuver but relaxed once I made the PA. I realize that while accepting what turned out to be an unflyable approach clearance was a mistake, it wasn't an egregious one like a decision to continue the approach would've been. Risking a monumental blunder in hopes of covering up a minor misjudgement would have been unforgivable. Now that I've made the mistake of accepting a visual approach from 4 miles out at 1500 feet and 190 knots with a tailwind, I won't do it again. Because many others have made the mistake of continuing grossly unstabilized approaches, that's thankfully a lesson I won't have to learn through my own errors.

Saying No

2009-02-27T10:08:00.001-08:00

As a Captain, you can distill the whole of your many daily tasks down to two simple, overarching duties. The first is to transport your craft and your passengers from point A to point B, on a set schedule and with the utmost reliability and efficiency. The second duty is to shout "stop" and abandon your first duty whenever you determine that it cannot be done or is not being done safely and legally. Technically, every airline employee has these dual responsibilities. At some airlines, the second is emphasized as strongly as the first. At others, management merely pays lip service to the second duty while making very clear through their actions that moving airplanes is their primary concern. This seems to be particularly prevalent at the regional airlines, where performance numbers are one of the primary criteria by which their mainline partners judge their suitability for continued business. Sometimes it can feel very lonely to be the only person holding up the operation when everyone else is saying "go, go, it's allright."

A little over a month ago, I was starting out a three day trip with a Chicago-Midway turn. It had been snowing fiercely in Chicago, and although the weather was forecast to improve, visibility was still near approach minimums. My First Officer, whom I had never flown with before, was fresh off IOE, although he had flown the JungleBus previously at his last airline (from which he had received his second furlough in under a year).

Twenty minutes before our scheduled departure time, two maintenance personnel appeared in the cockpit door and announced that they were going to upload a new FMS database, since the current one was due to expire a few hours after our arrival back to Minneapolis. Passengers were already boarding but we were assured the update wouldn't delay our departure. It's usually a quick, routine matter.

This time that did not prove to be the case. For whatever reason, the FMS froze partway through the upload process and was unresponsive to subsequent attempts. The maintenance guys told us to recycle the ship's power, which we did. That compounded our problems: not only did the FMS continue to refuse the new database, it dropped the current one out of the system! Further attempts at getting the system to respond were futile.

After conferring with maintenance control, the mechanics informed us that their solution was to defer both FMS's for now and worry about solving the problem later. I referred to our Mininum Equipment List (MEL), and sure enough, it permitted the aircraft to be flown with both FMS units deferred. This effectively turns the JungleBus into an old-school DC-9, confined to navigating from VOR to VOR. Now, back in my freight dog days I could do that, single pilot, without an autopilot, in solid IMC and moderate turbulence, while filling out paperwork and listening to the ballgame on the ADF - but these days I'm a little out of practice on that sort of thing! The FO and I reviewed the MEL and a related portion of our Flight Operations Manual; it laid out, in great detail, how to accomplish lateral and vertical navigation without either FMS. I reviewed the routing and approach at MDW; they were uncomplicated and easily accomplished "green needles." I checked the weather in Chicago, which was rapidly improving. Finally I conferred with the FO and determined that we were both comfortable operating the aircraft in this condition. That settled, the mechanics began signing off the logbook, and I turned my attention to my preflight flows.

I quickly realized there were greater problems than a simple lack of FMS navigation capability. I couldn't access any of the MCDU pages other than the Radio and Thrust Setting pages. Some of these, like Navigation, Route, and Flight Plan were to be expected - but some, like ACARS and the Performance page, seemed wholly outside the scope of the MEL. The Performance pages are especially important to the operation of the JungleBus. Without them, we have no way to set our takeoff and landing airspeed bugs. Moreover, there is no other place you can enter the takeoff flap setting for the takeoff configuration warning system. We had no idea whether we'd get a "No Takeoff" warning when we advanced the thrust levers on takeoff, necessitating a mandatory abort. Finally, the inability to enter a zero fuel weight in Performance Initialization disabled our flight director until we selected a vertical mode at 1000 feet AGL.

I told the mechanics about these problems, and stated that in my opinion this was outside of the scope of the FMS deferral. I pointed out that the MEL contained very detailed operational information on how to navigate laterally and vertically without FMS navigation or VNAV, but was utterly silent on how we were supposed to work around the lack of access to the Performance pages. They disagreed, saying that Performance is one of the FMS's functions and therefore the MEL applies. I told them that I would accept that if they could provide supporting documentation, including Operator notes on how to cope without the Performance pages. They began perusing the MEL, randomly pointing to anything containing the word "Performance" no matter how unrelated to the problem (ie, "Required Navigational Performance"). I was unmoved; they were exasperated. "There's no way anyone would build a plane so automated that you can't fly without the automation!" one exclaimed. It was clear that they just wanted us out of their hair. They called maintenance control to report our recalcitrance. Meanwhile, I went back to the cabin to report to the passengers why we still hadn't left - it was now well past departure time - while keeping the specifics fairly vague.

When I returned to the cockpit, the mechanics handed the phone to me. On the line was the maintenance controller, who told me that it was his opinion that our condition was indeed covered by the FMS MEL, but I could talk to the supervisor. When the supervisor picked up, I again recited the litany of problems and reasons it didn't appear that the MEL covered them, and repeated my offer to reconsider if anyone could provide any supporting documentation for their contention that we were good to go. He said he didn't have anything beyond the MEL, but thought that the Director of Maintenance might have better answers. "Sure, transfer me to the DM," I said.

The DM was initially even more strident that we were legal than the others. "The FMS modules in the avionics cabinets handle the performance pages," he said. "The MEL covers the whole FMS." That might be so, I answered, but if that was the intention of those drafting and approving the MEL they certainly didn't make that clear, given the explicit operational guidance on how to operate in lieu of LNAV and VNAV but the absolute dearth of information on how to substitute for speed bugs or flight director and how to ensure the takeoff warning system worked correctly. At this he began to back down: "I don't know anything about VNAVs or bugs or anything," he sputtered, "I just know that it's all in the same module and that module can be MEL'd!"

It was well past time to get the Chief Pilot's Office involved. I called the Chief Pilot and the two assistant CPs; nobody was answering. I left a short message for the Duty Chief Pilot to call me ASAP. Then I called our dispatcher, who was rather curious about why I was refusing an airplane that everybody from the line mechanics to the Director of Maintenance said was legal. I gave him the rundown and told him I certainly wouldn't be leaving until a chief pilot called me. He said he'd try to track one down. I hung up and went back to the cabin to update the passengers. We were over an hour late now. I tried to give them more specific information without letting on that this was essentially an argument between me and the company. I admitted that I didn't have a timeframe for a go/no-go decision at this point. Several passengers requested that they be allowed to deplane. I coordinated it with the harried gate agent; shortly after, half the plane got off, to her exasperation. Finally I settled back into the my seat in the cockpit to await a call. My FO and I talked the situation over again. He agreed with my interpretation, and pointed out that even if they were correct and it was legal, operating with this condition would involve making up several procedures on the fly, and it wasn't our job to make up procedures.

A few minutes later, my phone rang. It was the Duty Chief Pilot. I summarized the problem, our interpretation, and the response from the maintenance department. He was rather taken aback: "We can't be operating without the Performance pages!" he exclaimed. That was a relief, as I was wondering if everyone in the company would push me to go. He said he'd call the Director of Standards, the man who had written the MEL, to make sure that our interpretation was correct. He called back a few minutes later and said the Director of Standards definitely agreed that the Performance pages were not intended to be covered by the MEL, and the aircraft was unairworthy in its present state.

I informed the mechanics that I was refusing the aircraft and asked whether they would attempt to fix it. They told me they had "bigger fish to fry" and stormed off in disgust. Dispatch said they were attempting to find another airplane for us to take. I told the remaining passengers this airplane wouldn't be going to Chicago; they filed off glumly. Shortly thereafter we were assigned a new aircraft so we quickly packed up and hurried off to the new gate. As we deplaned, our gate agent was in an animated argument with her supervisors. Nobody, it seemed, was very happy that I hadn't simply accepted the mechanics' word and launched with a very questionable airplane. C'est la vie.

Afterward, I wondered what I would've done if the Chief Pilot who called me had backed the maintenance department up and said the airplane was airworthy. Ultimately, it shouldn't have made a difference: it's the Captain who determines if his craft is airworthy. Practically, though, it would've added immensely to the pressure to go. Most chief pilots, although they're management, are pilots first and foremost. Most would've been like the one I talked to and recognized that from a pilot's standpoint, the aircraft was probably not airworthy and there certainly wasn't enough guidance to operate it safely. There are a few chief pilots out there, however, who believe their primary mission is to ensure that the peons keep the metal moving. I'm not claiming any of my chief pilots are that way, but they are scattered throughout the industry. They make it harder for a Captain to say no when he needs to say no, but don't in any way relieve him of that responsibility. Ultimately, a Captain may have to pay the price for doing what is right. Having some good contacts among the Feds can help. Being part of a union is better yet.

A few words about Colgan 3407

2009-02-18T09:41:00.000-08:00

My story related to the JungleBus' FMS will have to wait for the next post. I've been debating whether I should write about Colgan 3407; I generally take the "let's wait for the investigators to do their jobs" approach to airline accidents. Unfortunately the media doesn't share this sentiment in the least, and in their drive to solve the accident before the wreckage is cold they've put out a tremendous amount of disinformation in the last week. Few of the media's sources appear to have any experience flying turboprop airliners, much less the Q400. While my knowledge of the airplane isn't perfect and has faded a bit in the year and a half since I last flew it, I do have a few thousand hours in it.

I'm not going to speculate on what caused the crash. All that I know about the circumstances are what's been reported by the NTSB thus far and repeated in the media. The morning after the crash, enough was already known that there were only a few likely culprits. I myself suspected it was one of two scenarios. The first known facts made one seem most likely, and subsequent information is now shifting the investigation towards the second possibility. The media hasn't reported accurately on either scenario, with a few exceptions. There's a decent chance that more information will come to light that will take the investigation in a completely different direction before it's all over. To say I have any idea what really caused this accident would be a farce. I will, however, give my take on some of the ways the known information has been interpreted and reported to the general public.

"Significant" versus Severe Icing

Because the air traffic controller was prudent enough to collect icing PIREPs from other pilots immediately following the accident and the audio of those interactions was immediately available on LiveATC.net, speculation that this was an icing accident reached a fever pitch before the fire was even out. The investigation now seems to be proceeding in a different direction, but it could came back to icing as a contributing factor.

The media seized upon the NTSB's statement that the crew noted "significant" icing on the descent. They've treated this term as the equivalent of severe icing, even though the NTSB has specifically said they have no reports or evidence of severe icing in the area. There were a number of other airlines that landed just prior to and after the accident aircraft. One that landed a half hour later was another Colgan Q400. There were also several light aircraft in the area at the time. The very worst reports of icing were for what would normally be considered moderate. None of the airliners requested routing or altitude changes to get out of the ice, and nobody even bothered giving a PIREP until the controller started soliciting them after the accident. That's not what a bad ice night in the northeast sounds like. Although icing conditions can vary significantly over small changes of distance and time, it seems rather unlikely that one crew could encounter severe ice when multiple pilots around them were barely noting it.

Ice and the Q400

Horizon has been flying the Q400 in the Pacific Northwest, Montana, and southwestern Canada since 2000. This area gets its share of bad icing conditions every year, and the Q400 has shown itself to be up to the challenge. It does have deice boots, but they generally do an excellent job of keeping the leading edges of the wing and tail clean in moderate icing. The one problem spot is that the deice valves sometimes freeze closed, but this is immediately annunciated in the cockpit with a "Deice Pressure" caution message and nine times out of ten the crew can cycle the system off and on and get the valve to unstick. The NTSB has indicated that the deice system was turned on before the aircraft entered icing conditions (which was Horizon's procedure, too), and there were no obvious, annunciated malfunctions of the system.

It's easy to tell when you're getting a lot of ice on the Q400. The windshield wipers are excellent collectors of it, and there's a little plastic pin on the top of them that accumulates ice before any other part of the airframe. The cockpit even has a built in light to illuminate the pin at night. All of the wings outboard from the engines are visible from the cockpit, as is the unprotected propeller hub. Both are well illuminated by ice inspection lights.

As soon as the ice detection probes detect ice, a message starts flashing on the EICAS and won't stop flashing until the pilots select the ice speeds switch on. This makes the stall protection system speeds 20 knots faster, forcing the pilots to use adjusted ice speeds for landing.

I've had decent ice loads on the Q400 several times, including one thankfully short encounter with icing possibly falling into the "severe" category. The airplane has so much excess power, especially down low, that performance wasn't even an issue. I never felt that controlability was an issue either, although I suppose it's pretty easy to get to the edge of controlability in ice without realizing you're at the edge (more on that later).

Turboprops under Fire

Given that the Q400 is a turboprop with deice boots, there have been (premature) parallels drawn between this accident and others involving turboprops with boots. There has been a fair amount of insinuation that turboprops are inherently dangerous in ice. Today, former NTSB chairman Jim Hall, who now partners in an aviation litigation firm, carried this idea to it's ultimate, idiotic conclusion: all twin turboprops ought to be immediately grounded.

It's true that jets are superior to turboprops in ice. The reason has a lot less to do with equipment than with performance. Yes, hot leading edges are nice and do a better job of keeping the wing perfectly clean in "normal" conditions. In severe ice, though, hot wings are just as susceptible as boots are to runback (ice forming behind the protected area). A jet aircraft's main advantage is that its superior performance and greater altitude capabilities allow it to get out of ice quicker and stay out for longer.

That said, I believe turboprops can be safely operated in icing conditions so long as their pilots monitor the situation carefully, know the limits of their equipment, and always have an out if things get nasty. Overall, turboprop pilots have done a great job of doing just that. Two icing accidents out of 30 years and millions of hours of flying small turboprop airliners does not make them inherently unsafe, as some would have it - especially when you look at what actually happened in those accidents. One involved prolonged flight through supercooled water droplets (SLD), which wasn't widely understood but we now know is the worst kind of severe ice, because it runs behind the protected areas before freezing, with drastic implications for controlability. The other involved getting too slow in an iced up airplane on which the deice system had not been activated. Both of these had little to do with the systems or limitations of a turboprop aircraft, and could've as easily happened in a jet. To use these accidents, plus a currently unsolved accident in which ice may have played a factor, to call for the grounding of all turboprops is the height of insanity.

Tailplane Stall

One subset of the icing scenario which attracted the most attention among pilots but received fairly little coverage from the media was the possibility of a tailplane stall. The reason it caught so many pilots attention was the NTSB's announcement that Colgan 3407 suffered an upset immediately after the pilots selected Flaps 15, and NASA's previous research has shown that flap extension can cause a nearly-stalled tailplane to stall. Subsequent information from the flight data recorder, however, appears to contradict the tailplane stall sceneario.

On all conventional aircraft, the wing is positioned so that the center of lift is behind the center of gravity (which is essentially the pivot point of the aircraft during maneuvering). This causes a nose-down, tail-up pitching moment whenever the wing is producing lift. To compensate, the horizontal stabilizer is designed to generate tail-down force. It does so with an airfoil much like an upside-down wing. Like a wing, the horizontal stabilizer can only generate lift up to a certain angle of attack. Beyond that critical AoA, it stalls, or ceases to generate lift. When that happens, the aircraft rapidly pitches down thanks to its natural pitching moment.

Under normal conditions the tail is pretty hard to stall. At slow speeds where the boundary layer might tend to separate, the aircraft is usually flying at a higher AoA, which is actually a low AoA for the tail. Lowering flaps decreases the aircraft's AoA, making it greater for the horizontal stabilizer, generally at slower speeds where the boundary layer can detatch more easily. High-wing aircraft with conventional tails, like the Twin Otter, also generate quite a bit of downwash on the tail with flap extension, which further increases the A0A. Throw in some ice contamination and you have the potention for real trouble: an unexpected, rapid pitch down at presumably low altitude. It looks a lot like a conventional stall, but the recovery is exactly opposite: pull up, retract flaps, and go easy on the power. Aircraft with unpowered elevators can be very difficult to recover from a tailplane stall, with stick forces of well over 100 pounds required.

The Q400 has a hydraulic-powered elevator, which would make recovery from a tailplane stall much easier, assuming you know it's a tailplane stall and take the appropriate recovery steps. I'd be surprised if this accident had anything to do with a tailplane stall due to more recent information that's come to light: the initial upset was a pitch up, not down, and the autopilot disconnect was precipitated by the stick shaker. A stick shaker indicates critically high aircraft angle of attack, which would be a low AoA for the horizontal stabilizer.

If you're interested in learning more about tailplane stalls in icing - and if you're a pilot who flies in ice, you should be - there's a very interesting NASA video for you to watch here. Of particular note is the inadvertent tailplane stall they experience in a Twin Otter.

On Autopilot Usage

For a few days there was an absolute uproar over the fact that the aircraft was on autopilot just prior to the upset. If anything indicates the media's cluelessness about how we operate airliners, this is it. I'm a big proponent of turning off the automation and hand flying the airplane at times. A dark, snowy night when I'm about to shoot an approach is not one of those times. That's when you use the automation to keep your workload low. Yes, if really iced up, I'll turn off the autopilot early to get a feel for the plane. But there's nothing in the Q400 manual (or Colgan's procedures, apparently) that says you have to hand-fly the airplane except in severe icing. The media acted as though Captain Renslow was being negligent merely by having the autopilot on in fairly normal icing conditions. That's baloney.

Now, automation does pose its own hazards. You need to make sure its doing what you want it to do, and you have to do your own part. The Q400 has a very capable autopilot but it doesn't have autothrottles. You need to pay attention and bring up the power when leveling off from descents or its possible to get into a low-airspeed situation very quicky; those 13 foot props produce a lot of drag at flight idle.

A Big Upset

The most recent information the NTSB has released is that the aircraft was approaching the marker and was at 134 knots at the time gear was selected down and flaps selected to 15. If that number turns out to be correct, that is a very, very low speed in the Q400 without being in the landing configuration. Shortly after the flaps were selected to 15, the stick shaker and then the stick pusher activated, which automatically turns the autopilot off. An upset occured at that time, with pitch angles as high as 31 degrees nose up and 45 degrees nose down, and bank angles as high as 105 degrees.

That's a pretty huge upset, and one difficult to recover from at 1500 feet even if done perfectly with a clean, undamaged airplane. Although it's only been about a day since the media started letting go of their ice obsession and began reporting on the low speed upset, there's already been a fair amount of finger-pointing that the pilot flying let the aircraft speed get so slow, or that he supposedly pulled up and fought the stick pusher. Suffice it to say that we know very little about what was going on other than those basic numbers that the NTSB has released. It'll come out soon enough; this investigation is unusual in that the NTSB has been releasing information more or less as they find it out rather than waiting to put together a final report in a year or two. The point is, though, that until a lot more is known, about all we can say is that the aircraft appeared so suffer from a low-speed upset. We don't know why, we don't know whether icing was a contributing factor, we don't know whether recovery was possible. All those answers will come with time; in the meantime, any certitude on the part of the media, most of their sources, bloggers, or web board participants is mere affectation.

JungleBus Systems Post: Flight Management System

2009-02-12T19:06:00.000-08:00

Jeeze. It's been a while since I've posted. If I still have any readers left - sorry! I turn around for one second, life happens, and it's suddenly nearly a month since I've written for the blog. I actually have weekends off this month - probably a one-time fluke, which I'll write about in another post - so I've been spending my days off with Dawn. That's certainly a good thing from my perspective, but it does mean less time for writing.

I have a good story that happened to me about a month ago, but understanding it requires some knowledge about the JungleBus' Flight Management System (FMS). That's as good of an excuse as any to revive the JungleBus Systems series, along with the fact that a reader specifically requested a post on the FMS a few months ago. I'll write about the FMS in this post, and tell you the related story in my next.

One note: the FMS is one system where I think it's prudent to keep some details vague. Information on how various aircraft systems work isn't generally security-sensitive - someone with nefarious intentions probably isn't too interested in the purpose of Electric Hydraulic Pump 3A! - but the FMS is an exception. I have no interest in helping some Mohommed Atta wannabe navigate their way to Washington DC, so I'll confine myself to theoreticals rather than a detailed walk through of the FMS' functions.

The Flight Management System in the JungleBus is manufactured by Honeywell and is an integral part of their Primus Epic integrated aviation system. To light plane pilots, the Primus Epic is most analogous to the Garmin G1000 system. It covers a great many of the features in the JungleBus' cockpit: the flat panel Primary Flight Displays, Multifunction Displays, Engine Indication & Crew Awareness System (EICAS) Display, the trackpad-like cursor control devices, the autothrottle, flight director/autopilot, FMS units, communication radios, ground proximity warning system (EGPWS), and Multifunction Control Display Units (MCDUs). Because all these components are so interrelated, it's hard to delineate exactly where the FMS ends and another component begins.

Many of the Primus Epic's components are visible in the above photograph - but not the FMSes. They reside in the belly of the airplane, in several Modular Avionics Units (MAUs). The identical boxes on the forward portion of the center pedestal are commonly referred to as FMSes, but they're technically MCDUs. The MCDU is the pilots' only interface with the FMS. On some airplanes, that's all that the MCDU does, so the terms MCDU and FMS became roughly interchangeable. The Q400 is that way; you can actually turn the MCDUs/FMSes off in flight if you want to, and all you'll lose is GPS navigation. On the JungleBus, though, the MCDUs also handle a number of non-FMS functions such as communication and navigation radios, ACARS (Aircraft Communication Addressing & Reporting System), and engine thrust setting selection. The FMS itself has a number of non-navigation functions that are separate on less integrated airplanes. I'm guessing that we use the MCDUs more than any other single peice of equipment on the airplane - including the control yokes! There is no way to turn off the MCDU on the JungleBus short of pulling circuit breakers.

The most basic feature of the Flight Management System is navigation. It's easy to think of the FMS as an overbuilt GPS unit, but GPS is actually only one of the signals that the FMS considers in determining aircraft position. The Inertial Reference System (IRS) also provides input. Surprisingly, the system also automatically tunes and triangulates good old fashioned VORs and DMEs to help determine position. From all these inputs, the system not only determines aircraft position but also calculates its own margin of error, a number known as ANP (actual navigation performance). Most of the time, ANP is less than .1 nautical mile. If ANP exceeds certain parameters for varous phases of flight, or if the two FMSes disagree with each other, the pilots get a warning that navigational performance is degraded. If GPS signals are lost for whatever reason, the system can still do a reasonably accurate job of determining aircraft position using only IRS or VOR/DME.

Navigation is accomplished by entering waypoints into the FMS' flight plan. It uses an internal worldwide database of airports, navaids, and airways that's updated every 28 days. It's relatively easy to make a mistake while entering a flight plan, and this has led to more than one accident in the past. For this reason, the FMS will not actually use any changes to the flight plan for navigation until you go through the second step of activating it. It's standard operating procedure for both pilots to thoroughly review the flight plan before any changes are activated. The Primus Epic makes this easier by displaying the proposed route on the Multi-Function Display as a dashed line. The complete cleared route, including destination and alternate airports, is always entered, reviewed, and activated before flight.

Besides entering the flight plan, the pilots will also initialize the performance function of the FMS before flight. This involves entering speed profiles, cruising altitude, average wind & temperature at cruise altitude, zero fuel weight, and reserve & holding fuel. The FMS automatically gets fuel on board numbers, and calculates time and fuel required to each waypoint. This is automatically updated while enroute, since the FMS calculates current winds aloft and incorporates this into its calculations. The FMS' fuel calculations can easily be checked against the printed flight plan prepared by dispatch. The FMS also has a handy "What-If" performance function where you can check the effect that changing altitude or speed will have on time and fuel required to your destination.

Assuming that the performance function has been initialized, the JungleBus' FMS is capable of not only lateral but also vertical navigation. Wheras the Q400's VNAV was only usable for descents, this one can be used for both climbs and descents. This is particularly handly for RNAV departures and arrivals, where there may be multiple crossing altitude and airspeed restrictions in a fairly short period of time. As long as these restrictions are properly loaded into the flight plan, compliance is as easy as setting the flight guidance panel's altitude selector to the final cleared altitude, coupling VNAV as the vertical mode, and setting the speed selector to FMS. Of course this can lead to complacency, and more than one pilot has busted their clearance by entering restrictions into the FMS improperly or asking the airplane to do something it physically cannot do. You really need to keep a close eye on the magic to make sure it's doing what you want it to do.

Like the Q400, the JungleBus' FMS is approach approved, with the VNAV usable for approach. We can fly VOR, GPS, or NDB approaches using the FMS, with a vertical path on nearly every approach. Interestingly enough, we don't even have an ADF receiver in the airplane to receive NDBs, so we can only fly those approaches if they have GPS overlay. Unlike the newest general aviation boxes, we cannot use LPV minimums - we use the LNAV/VNAV minimums. Given how many major airports with ILSes that we fly to, I don't shoot FMS approaches nearly as much as I did at Horizon.

One feature that the JungleBus FMS handles that's critical to my next post is takeoff and landing speed bugs. These are displayed on both pilots' Primary Flight Displays and are called off by the pilot not flying. The First Officer normally enters the takeoff speeds in the FMS during his preflight flow. He uses the same menu to set the takeoff flap setting, which the takeoff configuration warning system uses to verify that the flaps have been properly set when the thrust levers come up for takeoff. During the same flow, the FO uses another menu to set the takeoff thrust setting; this is technically not part of the FMS, but another MCDU function. One could operate the JungleBus without FMS navigation easily enough - there are still airliners like the DC9 that do it every day - but without MCDUs you'd be in a very unusual situation indeed. This is an important distinction for my next post.

Overall, I think the JungleBus' FMS is pretty well-designed. It's fairly easy to use once you get used to it; the software seems to have been designed by pilots rather than engineers. There are a nice few features that the UNS-1E in the Q400 has that this one doesn't, but the Q400's FMS isn't nearly as well integrated with the rest of the airplane. My chief complaint with the Honeywell unit is that it's awfully slow sometimes; we often joke that they used recycled 286 processors. The VNAV is also rather glitchy; you just have to keep a close eye on it and sometimes use other autopilot modes to ensure smooth transitions.

One final comment is that the FMS that's in the JungleBus is a far cry from the FMS that was in the airplane when I went through initial training. It's the same hardware, to be sure, but the software has gone through several major revisions since then. Whole menus have changed in some cases. The funny thing is that the simulator was one revision behind the airplane even when I went through initial training, which made for a few surprises during IOE. The sim's revision still hasn't changed since then, so when I go back for recurrent it feels like I'm being tested on my historical knowledge of JungleBus software loads!

No Accident

2009-01-20T06:37:00.000-08:00

Last Thursday, I had a long Newark layover that got in around noon. As soon as we got to the hotel, my FO and I changed and took the train to NYC. My FO hadn't been to New York since 9/11 so we visited the site - little construction has taken place since I visited two years ago, sadly - and then walked around visiting other sights in Lower Manhattan. Around 3:40, we were in line at the Staten Island Ferry Terminal when my FO noticed a number of Port Authority Police boats rushing over to the Hudson with their lights on. Two news helicopters were hovering nearly motionless at around 1000 feet over the Statue of Liberty; they were soon joined by five others. It was obvious something was up.

We boarded the ferry and peered up the Hudson as we steamed out into the harbor. A lot of other people were too. I asked around whether anybody knew what was going on. One girl told me there'd been a plane crash in the Hudson. "Was it a small plane?" I asked. "Yes," she replied, "around 150 seats."

My heart sank. It's been over two years since the last fatal airline crash in the US, and the last big crash for the majors was American 587 here in NYC in Nov 2001 - an amazing stretch of safety unparalleled in the history of aviation. Perhaps this girl had her facts wrong? I got out my phone and loaded CNN's website. Sure enough, the breaking news: a USAirways flight from LGA to CLT had crashed in the Hudson. It was accompanied by a single picture that suggested an outcome very different from what I feared: an intact airframe bobbing tranquilly afloat as the passengers filed out onto the wings to await rescue.

Since then the details of this remarkable flight have emerged and seized the world's imagination. It was an improbable accident with a seemingly even more improbable outcome. Many of us within aviation are just as amazed as the general public. Ditchings in airliners do not have a history of turning out well. To carry out a textbook ditching within three minutes of having both engines fail while over the Bronx will stand as a great feat of aviation for a long time. Captain Sullenburger has become an instant hero to not only the general public but many airline pilots as well. Even Dave at FL350, who is an experienced Captain on the same plane for the same airline, says he thinks that not more than a dozen pilots on the line could've pulled this off. I've been meaning to post my thoughts on this since Thursday but Dawn and I hopped over to London the last few days to take advantage of the 3-day weekend, so I'm a little late to the party.

It's obvious that if you're going to have this happen while you're riding in the back, Captain Sullenburger is one of the guys you'd want in the front left seat. Beyond being an experienced Captain with a lot of time in the airplane, he's been deeply involved in safety throughout his career. He was USAirways' ALPA safety committee chairman, has investigated accidents with the Air Force & NTSB, served as an instructor with USAirways and helped pioneer their CRM program, and most recently started a consulting firm that advises non-aviation companies in how to use processes gleaned from the airline world to better their reliability and safety. Although we don't know much about what happened in the cockpit during the ditching yet, we do know that Sullenburger was a Captain's Captain in his conduct during the evacuation and afterwards.

That said, there were a lot of things going on here that go beyond Captain Sullenburger. First off, he wasn't the only crew in that airplane. Both the First Officer and the flight attendants were very experienced, and obviously very capable. The aft flight attendant, in particular, is known to have stopped panicking passengers from opening the rear doors, which would've sunk the airplane much more quickly. Luck played a pretty big role, too. If they'd hit those birds at 500 feet of altitude instead of 3000, this could've turned out very differently. If the 1/2 mile visibility in snow that prevailed earlier in the day had stuck around, I doubt the outcome would've been so positive. If you're going to have to ditch an airliner, you can't really beat a calm Hudson River just off midtown Manhattan.

I'm going to have to disagree with Dave in his assessment that only a handful of pilots could've pulled this off. I personally think that a majority of airline pilots, if put in this situation, would rise to the occasion. This outcome was no accident in the same way that the safety record of the last eight years hasn't been an accident. It is instead the product of a safety culture almost unique to the airlines, one which has the efforts of thousands of pilots like Captain Sullenburger at its core. The fact that the crew responded so well to a scenario nobody trained for isn't only a testament to the crew, it's also a testament to a system that has in recent years recognized that the most serious situations are usually those that are unforeseen and has responded by adjusting training to emphasize dealing with situations there's no checklist for. It's a system that recognizes that truly safe pilots are made, not born. It's a system that seeks out deficiencies and remedies them, that hunts down threats and reduces risks.

So in short, my hat is off to the entire crew, as well as the passengers who mostly behaved well and those who quickly came to their rescue. My hat is especially off to Captain Sullenburger, not just for his excellent job ditching the airplane and supervising the evacuation, but for his role in shaping a system that creates thousands of pilots just like him in cockpits across the nation.

Clear Skies & Tailwinds, Captain Barry

2009-01-10T10:49:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about Captain Carl Barry ever since I heard the news two weeks ago. I had only flown with Carl a few times when I was an FO, but we ran into each other quite a few times since and he always stopped to chat. Carl was one of those people who loved to talk and seemed to befriend everyone he met. He had a thousand-watt grin that was on display more often than not, and you wouldn't guess that he had a tough two-leg commute from Syracuse NY with one very young child and another on the way and a wife who was pretty unhappy about the situation. The last time I talked to Carl was the week before Christmas; he called me and offered to pick up a day trip I had posted on the tradeboard for December 28th. He was pretty bummed that he would be flying over Christmas without enough time between trips to go home, and figured he'd rather fly than sit in his crashpad. I thanked him profusely; I had picked up the trip accidentally, it interfered with a family Christmas function, and I had tried to trade it away without success.

Carl never flew the trip. On the night of the 27th, he collapsed and died of a heart attack while working out at a gym near his crashpad in Minneapolis. Carl was young and in top shape; he was actually training for a triathalon. I found out the news the next morning via a thread on Airline Pilot Forums, which quickly turned into a tribute to Carl from many people who knew him at NewCo and his former company, Air Midwest. Reading the comments there is an inspiration to live and treat others in such a way that I'll be similarly remembered when my time comes.

I've never solicited money for my writing on this blog or placed advertising or even a tip jar on it. That said, if you find value in what you read here and think its worth a few dollars, I'd encourage you to donate to the memorial fund that has been set up for Carl's young son and still-unborn child. Checks may be sent to:

Wings Financial Credit Union
Carl Barry Benefit Account (ID #0001156737)
14985 Glazier Ave, Suite 100
Apple Valley, MN 55124-6539

Welcome to Philly!

2009-01-10T10:46:00.001-08:00

Ripples in the Stream

2009-01-03T06:25:00.001-08:00

A Resolution

2008-12-28T16:58:00.000-08:00

The aviation blogosphere is a fairly small place, and the closest thing it has to an organization is a Pilotbloggers email list I subscribe to. A bunch of the other members are participating in a mass post today regarding New Year's Resolutions. Well, I don't normally do New Year's Resolutions - I moreso have a master list of long-term goals that get updated occasionally. But I haven't been a very good member of the aviation blogosphere lately - little reading, less linking - so I feel I should post something today.

My initial thought for a resolution is to remain employed as a pilot by the end of 2009. That's not really a good goal, though - there are too many factors outside my control. So that's more of a hope and a prayer than a resolution.

So my official resolution to finish the book by the end of the year. Not published, just finished.