01-08-2008, 05:42 PM
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Banned
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Join Date: May 2004
Location: Varies
Posts: 4,741
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Nasa report on airline safety released - no reason to feel safer - Pilots asleep?
Links to comments at the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/31/AR2007123101689_Comments.html
Quote:
CJFerguson wrote:
As a B-777 Captain currently flying international routes, completely agree with the comments of RustyAimer. The American public will only hear of the significant problems facing today’s air carriers after the next accident. Of course the FAA will roll out the public relations machinery to help explain that this accident is an isolated event that won’t happen next week when you are riding on the airline, so don’t worry. The NTSB will assure you that the airlines are all operating within current FAA regulations (and then they will talk about their 10 most wanted improvements that have not been acted upon in years.)
The problem is that the current FAA regulations are not keeping up with the “new reality” in american air carrier operations. In the past 10 years with the bankruptcies of numerous major airlines and the massive concessions made by career airline employees, we are operating in a new world. In the past, the FAA did not really have to worry about many of the safety issues that face us today because the employees of the airlines negotiated contracts that assured a significant margin in safety over and above the MINIMUM requirements the FAA imposes on the airlines. Now after a trip through the bankruptcy court the corporate vultures have successfully argued that the FAA minimum safety standards are all that the company needs to comply with. There is no requirement to exceed these standards by any real margin.
In the past the FAA MINIMUM standards were just that. An absolute minimum standard of operation. Today company executives target these minimum acceptable safety standards as their operations goals. Anything above the FAA MINIMUM is just a waste of money and puts in jeopardy their management bonus payments. This is the mentality of today’s senior airline executive. Remember that the next time you go shopping for a ticket. The odds are massively in your favor when you fly today that you will arrive safely, but it is no thanks to those senior airline executives that have raped the employees and have removed a valuable layer of the safety network that we have all come to rely upon for decades to help ensure a acceptable margin of safety over the FAA minimum standards.
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Links to the article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/31/AR2007123101689.html?hpid=sec-business
Quote:
"Pilots asleep on flight deck is a problem," one pilot said. Another suggested that survey workers ask pilots how often they fall asleep in the cockpit.
The reports included discussions of pilots' difficulties in talking to controllers in busy airspace. Air traffic control "capacity inadequate to handle traffic load," one pilot reported.
"There are too many people on the frequency, and they are causing a safety problem," another pilot responded.
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