jmastron

This is great, except that another set of AC pilots (at least I hope it wasn't the same ones) ignored their eyes and almost landed on a taxiway with a line of planes on it at the same airport just a few months ago. I shudder to think what would have happened if those pilots had a "radio malfunction" also, since despite their after-the-fact explanation, it's pretty clear they only realized what they were doing after hearing that first pilot exclaim "Where's this guy going? He's on the taxiway!"

Having 3 redundant methods isn't so much redundancy when 2 of the 3 have failed. And AC not instituting procedures to ensure proper data collection after something like this is completely inexcusable.

If there was an equipment malfunction that was not positively identified and fixed, the airplane should not have been allowed to depart again until it was. If there was a human mistake, the pilots should not have been allowed to depart, and certainly the CVR should have been preserved to help figure out what happened, and whether it was a one-off situation requiring training for them, or a systematic issue that calls for procedure changes. But I guess we won't know until a "normal landing" like this results in a plane that can't be flown away to erase it :-(

YEG_SE4Life

So, the absence of your knowledge that something exists means that it doesn't exist?

ChrisA330

Of which you have very little of unless you're considered an interested party to the investigation(s),

Stranger

Surely that would have been the requirement, if the equipment in question was on the MEL. Which surely includes having fnctional radio communication.

Why would that be the case? No basis for that.

That we don't know what happened does not mean the airline does not.

Communication failures happen everyday. Sometimes lead to sending fighter planes to identify an airliner. In the current instance, just happened at a crucial time.

YEG_SE4Life

When confronted with facts, you just resort to emotion? For the record, I believe, and have previously stated, that the attempted landing on the taxiway was a very serious event. I have said it truly needs to be investigated to determine the root cause and that, as a result of those identified root causes, barriers need to be reviewed.

You didn't answer my direct question. How will you know that things have changed, and you can fly them again?

Zorak

I'm not nearly informed enough to have an opinion on AC's safety relative to other airlines, but from a logic standpoint "these incidents provide exactly the warning needed" is a non-sequitur response to the charge of "nobody cares."

The existence of warning signs does not in any way indicate whether those signs are being acted upon.

I will grant that evidence of being acted upon may be slow and non-obvious (internal review/reprimand/remediation may not be disclosed publicly, low-frequency events are hard to judge, etc.)

Stranger

Perhaps because that's how the system *is supposed* to work?

YEG_SE4Life

The segment that you quoted was a response to the notion that incidents would not occur if management cares. It was not meant as evidence that management does care. All I am saying is that, just because incidents occur, that is not evidence that management doesn't care. What they do about the incident, after the fact, demonstrates their concern. We don't have access to that information.

Zorak

I'm not sure what you're trying to say. I was just pointing out that YEG_SE4Life's reply was non-responsive to rankourabu's charge.

Sure, I mostly agree with this, except the statement wasn't that "if management cares there would be ZERO incidents," it was that "the fact that 'incidents' keep happening is a good indicator that noone cares." (emphasis mine)

One could make the argument that because these events are still fairly low probability that there isn't enough data to draw that conclusion (if the same number comes up multiple times in a short period in roulette that doesn't necessarily mean the wheel is biased). But that isn't what you said.

canadiancow

Typical FT argument.

Alice "A because B"
Bob "B is not true"
Alice "How dare you say that A is not true! There's so much evidence of A! You're an idiot!"

In this case, you're Bob, and correct.

nomad420

Seems easy to confirm, being from SF the local news outlets have not said anything regarding confirmation of radio failure. I have to believe that plane was immediately taken out of service and the radio equipment completely evaluated. If nothing is found wrong that pilot probably better look for work at Starbucks.

After Burner

Again, nobody ever said there was a radio failure. The pilot used the vague, ambiguous phrase "problem with radio" which translates to operational error. He never said "COM Failure." I doubt he even realized the seriousness of the situation at that point. He thought all he had missed was the runway exit instruction. But it would've registered with him when he contacted ground and they read to him the dreaded FAA phone number that he was instructed to call after shutdown.

BTW. AC's A320s have 3 radios.

canopus27

I have not seen anything implying that there was a fault within the radio itself. The pilot said they had "a radio problem" (ref), which includes things like operator error.

Stolen from pprune, here's a hypothetical scenario:

Bohemian1

I imagined that ruined his/her day.

After Burner

You might have a more knowledgeable source than me but my information is that they did, in fact, pull the CVR.