gj83

Can someone explain something to me: Why was the FO so against being deiced?

Does the cost of deicing come out of his pay check?

Does he get docked pay if the flight needs to be deiced and arrives late?

or is it just a power trip?

Bobster

We know for a fact, based on independent corroboration, that the plane left the gate with ice on the wing and then returned for de-icing. There may or may not be an innocent explanation for that, but we simply don't have the facts to judge anybody. If the FAA couldn't figure it out, what makes us able to figure it out?

calitequilasippergirl

I often have been told by many people in the industry that pilots are like doctors, they are 'always right' and don't like to be told otherwise.

Larry, I noticed you spit out a bunch of 'facts' and then when those were refuted, your next post ignored such and simply stated that the FO was right.

Hmmm .... you said you were a pilot right?

Bobster

Well, pilots are almost always right and doctors are not. Look at how many people die from doctor errors compared to pilot errors. So I can understand why pilots don't like being told otherwise.

GalleyWench

And then you have the absolute WORST combination. Doctors that fly their own little airplanes on the weekends.

Beckles

Do you know for a fact that the deicing crew was employed by the airport? I actually assumed that they would be employed by a third-party contractor (I wouldn't think America West had their own deicing crews in Calgary and deicing is not a service I've typically seen provided by the airport itself), and if one was cyncial one could easily claim that the deicing crew may have just been protecting their company's revenue stream and therefore their jobs by getting America West in trouble for trying not to deice ... I'm not cynical myself, so I wouldn't say that ... but I could see how a cynical person might ...

I'mOffOne

LarryJ is an experienced pilot who knows exactly what has to be considered in this situation, and was pointing out that winter operations and deicing in particular have many facets that aren't always apparent to someone sitting outside the cockpit. When it comes to deicing calls, the pilots use many pieces of information to make the call. The reason it's the captain's call is because he or she is the place where all that information comes together. Weather reports and forecasts, airport traffic congestion, ops specs, specific aircraft considerations, and the visual inspection of the exterior are all factored in to the decision. The pilots use set procedures, their training, and many pages of charts to decide if and what type of deicing is required. It is complex, but it is not subjective. Virtually no one else, and no one else on the ramp, has all of that information except the pilots. So it can be a bit annoying to pilots (myself being in this group) when someone that doesn't has access to that information or know what is considered in making a deicing call criticizes that call. Knowing what information is available to the pilots vs. the ground or inflight crew makes me naturally inclined to assume the captain made a safe and correct call.

However, sitting here at my computer I have access to exactly zero pieces of actual information concerning this situation, so I can't comment on whether or not the captain made the correct call in this case. For this to get to the point of a lawsuit makes me think the interpersonal issues here went beyond a deicing decision.

BoeingBoy

However, the whole CRM concept was developed to get away for the "I'm the captain so I know better" syndrome which caused several crashes over the years.

Thankfully the days of never questioning a Captain's authority are mostly behind us.

Jim

ClueByFour

As someone who has met one of the survivors of US 405, I naturally disagree. It's not like that particular calculus have ever resulted in error and/or death.

Let's ponder this for a moment, and consider that you obviously have a heavily type-A CA and/or FO, a ground crew in Calgary who presumably sees more ice than a PHX based flight crew thinking that the contamination would require a de-ice.

[quote[For this to get to the point of a lawsuit makes me think the interpersonal issues here went beyond a deicing decision.[/QUOTE]

I tend to agree, but I'm not going to automatically assume that the ATP holding PIC has his stuff together.

icurhere2

As a non-pilot, one can still have questions for resolution.

The FO did affirm to the FAA that there was at least a "small patch of ice on the right wing"; knowing that the two sides of a story tend to overestimate/underestimate, are there general guidelines on how much ice is permitted on a wing before de-icing is necessary, and do acceptable tolerances vary between the U.S. and Canada?

Bobster

US 405 was a Fokker-28 with a solid wings (no slats) especially sensitive to wing contamination. The weather was freezing precipitation. The FO called Vr at 11 knots below the correct Vr and the captain rotated at 5 knots below Vr. The NTSB said they might have survived if they took off at the correct Vr.

ClueByFour

Negative. This is exactly what the NTSB said, the bolding is mine:

IOW, they found the icing to be the primary cause and the rotation speed to be contributing.

You have US 405, Air Florida out of DCA and into the 14th street bridge complex, the CO flight out of DEN in '87, Dick Ebersol's plane a few years back, etc. The notion that merely being the PIC and having information at hand leads to better decisions about icing may well be true, but it sure as hades is not universal.

GaryZ

Of course, it seems that this lawsuit is exactly about that. From glancing at the Court's minute entries, it appears that the entire issue has nothing to do with the deicing but more that the FAs violated company policy and went directly to the FAA at which time their collective stories were a little fuzzy as to 'who said what.' Unfortunately since the FAA didn't take any action or offer any real guidance, this kind of thing is allowed to perpetuate at the public's expense.

I can understand US Airways not providing legal assistance for them, and since it's outside normal employee grievance procedures, why their union is not obligated to do so now, but what I don't understand is why F/O Gannon needed to spend $21,000 to represent himself in front of the FAA. Shouldn't have the union provided him assistance?

I also see that his claims for mental duress have been thrown out, so it's not likely he would be awarded anything more than legal fees if he prevailed.

It looks like the "system" failed in many ways which led to this whole messy situation.

BoeingBoy

I don't know the exact date, but the pilots weren't unionized until 1993, the same year the incident occurred. So it's quite possible that they were non-union at the time.

My CRM comments were directed at the post which basically said that the flight deck crew had all the information so their decisions shouldn't be questioned. By the F/O's own admission that wasn't the case here (or they had the info and chose to ignore it).

There was a US incident a number of years ago in which the F/A's had information that the flight deck didn't have. By alerting the front end as the plane started it's T/O roll, the F/A's almost certainly averted an accident.

Jim

calitequilasippergirl

I'm Off -

I don't deny Larry is an experienced pilot. BoeingBoy is at least equally as qualified and or knowledgeable. My point point was that when BoeingBoy countered Larry's list of 'requirements' for de-icing with the correct information and/or more specific, Larry's response was basically 'the pilot is always right'. Personally, not someone I want in my cockpit.

I disagree, there are situations when the flight officers (captain, fo) DON'T have all the information. While they may have more information, they don't always have it all.

It definitely sounds like there is more to the story than what we know, like personality issues between the F/O and flight attendants.