rumrunner102

BY ANDY PASZTOR

The Federal Aviation Administration on Friday disclosed it is stepping up oversight of American Airlines in the wake of three botched landings by the carrier over an 11 day period.

The latest incident, which prompted heightened FAA scrutiny of American's operations, involved a jetliner whose wingtip struck the ground while landing in Austin, Texas, on Christmas Eve.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...767660078.html

Excerpted due to copyright restrictions. I spoke with a pilot for southwest a bit over a month ago. Even his opinion was that American Airlines attracts the very best pilots. He stated that ex military pilots especially have an affinity for AA. A few random events does not a trend make, but hey the FAA has to act like they're doing something for safety I guess.

rollthere

I have no reason to doubt your source, I just wonder if a military guy can afford to be picky once he makes the decision to get out--he just needs to find a job. In these days when 23 year old kids will work for less than peanuts to get multi-engine turbo time with a regional carrier that leads to their ATP, won't a 35 y/o military guy with no ATP still have to start at the bottom? I don't know the answer, can a guy with 1500 hours in a C-17 with his ATP hop right into a 737, or does he have to start with a regional these days?

All other things being equal, as former military myself, I' rather have an ex-military gut up front!

^^^
Government kneejerk reactions seems to be en vogue.

CantwinwoWN

Generally military pilots go straight to the major airlines when they exit the service. They come out fully qualified to hop right into a 737 or Airbus. The regionals usually see low timers trying to build flight time so they can make a later jump to the majors.

So yes, a C-17 pilot can hop into a 737. They usually come out of the service with more than 1500 hours unless they are guard pilots who want to have dual careers.

grahampros

Let's not foget AA has not had to hire a new mainline pilot since at least 2001. Between the downsizing and the TWA group now all gone there has been no need.

There are no pilots flying around in mainline on AA even recently out the military.

There may be reason actually here to investage. AA has had more aircraft losses for a major carrier than any one over the last 10 years or so.

rollthere

Thanks. I guess it depends what you fly and the branch of service. Transport guys can really rack up some hours, but I've met some helo guys that hadn't reached 1000 hours at the end of their initial obligation and were looking to get to transport/jets looking for a future in the real world. Of course these days everyone's getting more hours due to operations than 10 years ago.

JDiver

Whether negligence or operational issues are surfaced or not, the FAA would be negligent themselves to not investigate. It's not sufficient to make me avoid AA and fly another carrier .

grahampros

Agreed. However there are enough instances on AA that it would indeed be negligent not to investigate. The fact remains they have a higher incident of hull losses than anyone in the last 10 years vs any other US carrier.

There does seem to an issue there related to pilots.

Herb687

There does seem to be a high rate of hull losses at AA compared to its competition - plus a near hull loss that was narrowly avoided on an undershoot at BDL; not much publicity on that one. A lot of AA incidents seem to be related to poor airmanship and/or poor judgment (CLO, KIN, LIT, possibly the JFK AB6 but that one seems controversial).

Offhand I can't think of a single pilot error related hull loss at a U.S. legacy carrier other than AA in the past 10 years.

WRCSolberg

If you discount 9/11 and the mx incident at LAX with the 762 - AA has only lost two aircraft in the past decade. One(A300) of those also being debateable as to whether it was pilot error or mechanical failure(probably a combination of both).

Through much of that decade, AA was also the biggest airline in the world, so is it really statistically significant?

It's not something I'm going to lose sleep over.

grahampros

Indeed. They are now under the miscrsope because the most recent incidents are sending the statical modeling for a single carrier off the charts. The rate of incidnet is now falling well beyond the norm so it's a good thing they are under investigation.

The earlier talk about the miltary is way off base. There are no pilots that have come from the military on the mainline in last 10 years. Something else seems to be going on.

Herb687

Isn't the count three? JFK A300, KIN B738, LIT MD80.

Possibly. How much smaller are DL and UA, each with, I believe, zero non-9/11 losses in the past decade?

EleanorMcDaniel

Do you have more info on that, I searched and came up empty.

WRCSolberg

LIT happened in 1999, so technically it didn't happen in the past decade.

grahampros

Yes streching the time frame by 6 months. LIT was June 1999. Going back even a bit futher to 95 the Columbia crash, all to this point have been largely attributed to pilot error.

It can happen with any carrier sure, but here is the reality, combine UA, CO. DL NW during the period and how many of them combined have had the same level of incident?

CO had the one incident back in Den,, the rest i don't think have a had a single one

Herb687

I had forgotten that it was more than 10 years ago but here's the NTSB report:

http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/1996/AAR9605.pdf

Flight was AA1572 on 12Nov95.