Admiral Ackbar

I respectfully disagree with that statement. There has been/is/will be a lot of discussion in the pilot community about the erosion of hand flying skills as the automation put in place in the 90s led to a mentality that pilots would evolve towards 'automation managers'. This pleased the finance/accounting part of airlines to no end as this meant less expensive training.

Before I go on, I would gladly step on board the vast majority of airlines today and the crews are still highly skilled professionals, for the most part. But there is a definite loss of hand flying skills due to the way pilots are trained now. That is where the military pool was valuable to draw from: They knew how to fly before becoming airline pilots. Not the case anymore, especially with 'pay-to-fly' schemes where the initial recruitment criteria is can the student pay for the training instead of does he/she have flying skills.

mkjr

i was going to say this earlier but in the instantaneous media age, no point in doing that anymore. although it was stupid in the first place.

cartoon is a little early IMO.

why fly

Someone needs to look up some history, im pretty sure AC has done this in the past.

Geoflying

Since the conversation seems to have turned to pilot skills I will share this nugget. A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to sit down and chat about flying with a senior AC pilot on one of the types that regularly flies YYZ-YHZ (not 320). Since I do that route a few times a year I naturally asked them if they flew it. Their response was "Oh no. The weather conditions are far too bad there. I leave that to the junior pilots."

In the light of this incident, that response is rather disconcerting. Obviously I am not inferring anything about the skill level of the specific pilots in this incident but it is worrying that the way assignments are made allows for the more experienced pilots to avoid the more challenging routes.

CZAMFlyer

I agree that there has been an erosion - to an extent - of stick & rudder flying skills in the industry. It's evident in certain cultures and I've heard anecdotal evidence that it's noticeable at some airlines who select and train their own candidate pilots from Zero Hours and plunk them in the right seat of an airline at <300 hours.

I don't think we can be too concerned within Canada yet. Newly hired AC (and WS, Transat, Air North, Sunwing etc) have earned their requisite hours the hard way. We are fortunate to be driven around the skies by pilots who have cut their teeth in the military, or flown medevacs to icy minimums in northern Manitoba, or spent years bashing in and out of unprepared strips in the Yukon, or charter passengers single-pilot IFR through miserable conditions in Labrador. I'm sure there are piss-poor pilots employed by major Canadian airlines. But they are a rare exception among their colleagues who have thousands of hours with hands physically on the yoke.

But the Fly the Airplane First mantra has never been more true than it is today.

superangrypenguin

This doesn't surprise me. There's skill and then there's experience. This is proof that a pilot that flies for 20 years may not be more skilled than the pilot who flies for 5 years. Skill and experience are two separate things and it annoys me that people lump them together. My day job pays me for my skill, not my experience, so when people equate skill = experience, it boils my blood.

Geoflying

I'm not equating them - but I think that an emergency situation is best handled when those in charge have both.

superangrypenguin

Fair point, as long as the one that is experienced is still competent

One can be skilled without being experienced, and one can be experienced without being skilled.

Cale905

A couple of years ago during a layover in EWR, I sat across from a retired United DC-8 pilot (he said he was ninety, but could have passed for a few decades younger) and chatted him up about flying. He said he had sat in the simulators of some of the newer aircraft and, while impressed by the new technology, was skeptical about its tendencies to reduce situational awareness with pilots. He specifically mentioned the Air France crash in the Atlantic, saying that the pilots reacted in the complete opposite way to correct a stall (ie. pointing the nose down to recover airspeed). When he retired, he said that UAL was just starting to transition to aircraft with glass cockpits, but still preferred to eyeball the traditional ADI rather than the magenta display. Interesting.

Jagboi

The engine isn't detached, it's flying in formation

FlyerTalker683455

...it exited the runway

Stranger

OK, guys.

Klaus Goersch is not the most articulate guy on the planet. So he made a bit of a fool of himself.

clearly was poor judgment to have him in front of the camera. Poor judgment on whose part? himself, his boss, some PR person? Who knows.

But I must say I feel a bit sorry for the poor guy. His talk was not just the usual spin, "enhancements" and the like. Just that he hard a hard time picking words. Not really double talk.

I understand he is German. Started as a pilot with LH. Moved to the US, went to Embry Riddle and joined the evil empire of management with two low cost, first Mesaba, then Air Tran.

Anyway, once again we see AC having a huge communication issue. But as they say, fish rots from the head.

Hard to say whether he has turned into a bean counter or not. Totally or not?

tracon

As for the 50 minutes it took to pick up the passengers.

In this age of instant gratification, some need a breakdown of basic math to see how long it takes to accomplish a task using manual labour.

I've heard a couple different lines from the media. 50 minutes and up to 50 minutes.
Presumably some were picked up quicker.

50 minutes is not unreasonable. Below is a scenario that I have made up that outlines what will likely happen.

If the plane crash happens at, times below presented as minutes,

0:00 Crash happens, crash alarm activated. If there is an airport operations department, they will start calling in off field responders. They will not be worrying about getting shuttle buses to the scene. Nor do they know if they're is a requirement to do so.
1:30 CFR shows up. They see no fire, but a severely damaged a/c that may have fuel leaking
10:00 Scene "secured" in the sense passengers moved far enough away. Remember there may only be a few firefighters working. The exact number I have no idea. If you think it's 4-5/vehicle and 3 or more vehicles, you'd be mistaken.
First ambulances and off airport fire backup might be showing up.
Triage taking place. Who's injured, how severely.....
15:00 Someone determines they're are a lot on non injured people that need to get inside.
There is numerous hangars nearby. Are they unlocked? Do people/should people want to trudge through the snow to get there.
16:00 It is determined that parkade shuttle buses will be used. The drives need to be contacted. And sent to the appropriate gate.
These drivers are not airside certified. They will need escorts from the fence.
25:00 Shuttle bus(es) are lined up at an airside gate.
26:00 Airside escort starts. This procession will probably not be going faster than 50k/hr.
30:00 Shuttle buses arrive at the scene. These buses look like they couldn't carry more than 25 people each...crammed in.

At a minimum of 5 minutes/round trip, it's not hard to see why some people were left outside for 50 minutes.

Yes this is Canada. Canadians should be smart enough to not return from their vacations in shorts. Blaming an airport authority because one can't dress themselves is irresponsible.
Yet I see at every airport, people not dressed for the arrival conditions.

I always wear pants and shoes when I fly. Shoes come off when the flaps are retracted. Back on when flaps are extended.

AftOf245

How much money did you lose?

pitz

In addition to a proper and thorough crack-down on carry-on baggage which I've suggested in other thread(s) (which probably includes getting rid of the checked bag fees, and getting nasty with the people who use the rollaboards), I'd support adding the requirement of wearing footwear during takeoff and landing to the safety video. Much like AC requires seatbelts to be worn at all times when in one's seat, even when the seatbelt sign is not illuminated.