uh, so obviously the pilots flew poorly because they are unionized? thanks for clearing that one up for us. :D

you know, applying your logic, one could say that corporations and banks should also be outlawed. follow this path:

let's see, some unions are corrupt,(or is that all of them? according to you?), so get rid of them.

obviously, banks and corporations in general are corrupt - see enron, anyone on wall street in the last ten (?, probably more) years, what with insider trading, collateraliized debt obligations, madoffs and the like, milken and friends, halliburton with its overcharging etc. so logic suggests that... we ban them. sounds good to me.

i am sure you will agree. :D

p.s. continuous whining is not constructive, nor are broken records and one-trick ponies. just a general thought for the day. we report, you decide.:D

My dad spent his career in the Air Force, NASA, FAA and International Civil Aviation Organization. Now he has Alzheimer's and doesn't respond much to the world around him.

I thank these guys for bringing my dad out of his shell. He had a big laugh about it. I had the TV on in the familly room while he was eating breakfast. Out of nowhere he blurts out, "they're gonna be in big trouble!" Then he chuckled. He's say's he's glad everyone is ok.

Thanks guys, it was all worth it to see my dad let out a big belly laugh. :)

I said they would probably keep their jobs because the union would fight for them to keep their jobs based on what I have seen of unions. I see no reason to keep them when there are way more applicants than there are jobs out there besides not wanting to tangle with the union. That is, unless you are telling me there is a shortage of airline pilots?

Yup, that Cajun cooking has caused the very same thing to happen to me!:D

Possum, eh? Reminds me of the ol' Cajun saying, "As long as there is a ditch by a road in Louisiana, ain't nobody goin' hungry" (Jeff Foxworthy commenting on his wife's family)

That’s awesome. Thanks for posting this story.

The silver lining post of the entire thread.

BTW - Give your dad our thanks for his dedication and service to aviation.


- The TOS Crew

I do not know the nuts and bolts of the flying aspect of this whole thing (sounds like they screwed the pooch any way you slice it) but as far as the union is concerned, you're damn right they will fight for the pilots jobs back. They is their freaking job. As far as I know, they are contractually obligated to fight for your job. Whether the pilots are right or wrong make not difference. The union is contractually obligated to fight for you unless you are incarcerated or dead. The union does not have a choice in the matter. Whether the union wants you back or not does not matter. You pays dues, you get representation. Whether they have a leg to stand on is for the arbitrator and lawyers to figure out.

*** "Hey Ralph! Is Minnenipples having a "brownout" or is that in my shorts?" ***
 

When the question comes up as to why they weren't paying attention to ANYTHING IN THE COCKPIT, they could "re-spin" the story to say they were too busy TEXTING each other about FAA Rules/Regs/Procedures...and later, which wine goes best with Limburger cheese...'cause that cockpit probably turned into a similiar-smelling pit when they "eventually" realized they were over the land of cheeseheads, cow farts and Dairy-air...Wisconsin. :rolleyes: :D

BTW, how much does a gallon of jet fuel go for these days? :confused:

I'm curious how many gallons of fuel were "used" during this little maneuver over the fall-scaped fields of Wisconsin...

Also, there's two stories, now, about National Guard Jets being scrambled...one story has it that 4 were called up, but none got off the ground before the flight landed and on here, it "sounds" as if a NGJ, or two, made contact...what's the dealeo? NGJs on the wings or not?

Those NG Pilots are fairly well trained that they should have been able to see inside the cockpit (assuming that the lighting from the instrument panels were bright enough...) to see if one, or both, personnel were asleep or whatever...

As the story goes from the passengers' standpoints, none of them knew ANYTHING was wrong until they landed...so that seems to rule out the story of NGJs being in close proximity of the plane itself...so the TEXTING WHILE COCKPITTING might be the more plausible excuse (although lame, like anything else just short of saying "We were counting black sheep.")... :rolleyes:

It sucks to be them. :cool:

yes, and when slavery was legal, you had no unions either. things were really good then; perhaps we should return to those golden days.

oh, i forgot, this was a thread about two moronic, irresponsible airline pilots. hmmm. who go us off the track? survey says...?:D

Not quite all true: the articles I've seen say no jets were scrambled and the passengers weren't aware.

There are mistakes and crimes, and incompetence and lies. On the surface this appears to be a mistake (probably falling asleep) that they elevated into a crime (probably by lying about it).

Here's my Air Force retired, no sympathy spin on their claims: "We did NOT fall asleep. We're so bad at our jobs, that we forgot the fundamentals of flying and engaged in a gross error and went "gear up, flaps up, feet up" and let the jet do the flying. We failed to check out with Denver Center (since that's the frequency we answered over Minneapolis) and, naturally, failed to check in. We forgot about checking our ETA, the weather prior to the approach, the fuel status, and any number of basic items. Our total, absolute focus was on non-flying topics. We did not compartmentalize on-the-ground concerns and carried them into the cockpit. We behaved in an incompetent and unprofessional fashion; but we did NOT fall asleep." And this is their own defense!

I am reassured, however, that the first officer said "It was not a serious event, from a safety issue. I can't go into it, but it was innocuous."

Maybe he doesn't know what innocuous means?

Also, when there was no law against it, I could buy myself a 6 yo girl for a bride and marry her. How far do you want to stretch what I said?

It also got into whether they would keep their jobs. My bet is that the union would somehow fight for their jobs.

Yeah, or perhaps just a bad phaquin dream..... Either way you look at it, a lotta people are gonna be tryin' to live this one down for a long phaquin time...

For a pilot?? I'd say thats pretty awful, considering what they're responsible for .

Bingo !

I love it.

:D

You may be looking at this data from a 40 hr per week, 52 weeks a year standpoint. If so... Don't.

Perhaps you wouldn’t feel this way if you considered that they may only be held that responsible for 15 to 30 hours a month.

I was. Are they restricted to how many hours they can fly commercially per month?

Yes. I worked crew skd for AA for 8 years on the flight attendant side. I do not remember what the hours were on the cockpit side but there are FAA restrictions as well as contract limitations on what they can/are allowed to fly each day and how much rest is required between flights which does vary with how long the leg was.

Possums come around my place now and then. Dang, I'd have to be HONG-REE before I'd cut one of those things up and stuff it in my mouth.

Might happen one day though.

I smell a made for tv movie.

When you love to fly and your starting out, that pay isn't bad....

It's one thing to fly or do anything because of your love for it. It's quite a different story when you have to do it for a living. While I love to have sex with women, if you told me I have to come to this place, do this girl that I might or might not find attractive, do her X number of times and in certain positions, etc, etc, it might just wear on the nerves.

I remember reading an article that said that there was a huge group of men that wanted to be porno stars. HOWEVER, when push came to shove and they had a list of expectations handed to them, quite often they would get burned out.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TRAVEL/10/22/airliner.fly.by/index.html

"The crew stated they were in a heated discussion over airline policy and they lost situational awareness," the board said in a news release.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/10/24/airliner.fly.by/index.html

The co-pilot of a Northwest Airlines flight that overshot the Minneapolis, Minnesota, airport by 150 miles says he and the pilot weren't asleep and they weren't arguing.

Interesting development that begs the questions: "Were you lying then or are you lying now?" and "Why should we believe you now that you have changed your story?"

I know I certainly found it to be rather tiresome . . . .

Relax People, The Two Pilots Were Just Updating Their Facebook Pages . . .

or something on their laptop computers . . . for a really long time . . . on the flightdeck . . . ignoring the rest of the aviation communications world . . .

First it was arguing about airline policy. Next it wasn't arguing about anything. Now it is on the laptop. What next? Spacecraft from Mars?

If I were on that plane I think I would be more comfortable with the PC laptop story than the sleeping story. Neither is very confidence-inspiring.

Between the actual observed deficiency in situational awareness and the lack of truthfullness afterword, fire both these morons, rip up their pilot (and driver) licenses, and ensure that they don't "pilot" anything more dangerous than a 21-speed mountain bike for the rest of their lives.

I'd be a lot more comfortable if they admitted their mistake first. Right now, we don't know which of the 3 stories to believe. Was there an argument about airline policy? Was there an argument at all? Was there the laptop porn viewing?

Turns out now, they may have been diddling around on peachparts.com and lost track of the tme . . . .

Darby! Shelby! Was that YOU?:D

I've seen the pics of one of the pilots. I hope not.

Playing with their laptops ehhh? So, whaddya figure, a heated game of Madden NFL '10 and it went into overtime?:P

Probably viewing some porn and paid for the movie. As such, they wanted to watch it to the end.

Hey! I agree with Aklim on this one!;)

Hah!

Too true!

The FAA revoked the licenses of the two pilots in question.

Seems pretty appropriate.

Well, guess the union won't be able to try to get them reinstated as long as the revocation is permanent.

If it was for lying, yes.

If they had come clean (whatever the truth might be) you would want them to be able to keep flying?

It's one thing when the company fires the pilots.

It's quite another when the FAA pulls their tickets. The union has absolutely no standing with the government. It has nothing to do with a "permanent revocation". The revocation is, by definition, permanent, unless the pilots mount a successful appeal to the FAA.

Good luck with that.

One of the early theories I heard was that sun spots increased the strength of the bong hits the crew were taking, and that’s why they got distracted.

Good thing that turned out to be a red herring :rolleyes:

That's good..........because a pilot without a ticket has very limited employment options............other than..........."Hi, welcome to Wal-Mart".............

Seeing as we don't know what happened, that would be hard to say. Obviously they are hiding something when the volunteered to take a BAC test. It buys them some time and tries too hard to prove their innocence. This means we definitely cannot trust a word they say now or in the future. That is why I hope that they can never fly more than a kite.

That said, if the had come clean the minute they landed, we could evaluate whether it was their fault or not and take the necessary actions. If it was because they had an especially difficult 2 weeks, perhaps a few months suspension would be in order. In the meantime, revamp the scheduling so it doesn't happen to other pilots. If they were partying for 3 nights in a row before that flight, that would be a different story.

So lets say I would be more willing to listen to mitigation and returning them to the air after disciplinary action were taken.

You too ?? Pretty spooky, huh?

There’s got to be some unknown planets lining up out there in deep space someplace.

I’ve found myself in agreement with more than one of his posts this past week or so.

Talk about weird.

But I think it’s a change in him, not me.
I base this on the fact that it took him this long to bring up sex (porn) in this thread.
I figured the old Aklim would have made the comment that the two pilots were engaged in some homosexual activity and lost track of time back on page two.

But then... Come to think of it....The way these two "Ex-Pilots" have been changing their story, I wouldn’t be surprised if that is the secret they are hiding.

Your “...very limited employment options...” being very understated.

I might bet on the union fighting to let them sell tickets or throw baggage. But then, keep in mind that the pilots union (ALPA) is in place to represent/fight for airline pilots. Neither of these guys are airline pilots anymore. Not sure how they would see it. And the airline certainly no longer has to keep them.

If the captain is really lucky, he might be allowed to assist in simulator training.
I wouldn’t bet on that one though.

In this economy. These guys are screwed.
That I would bet on.

Spread pretty thin between this site and BO. Also, there wasn't that much material to work with in this thread. Add that to the fact that their story kept changing, it is hard sometimes.

Implausible. No one loses track of time here.

They could have been studying a foreign language on Rosetta Stone software . . .

Buenas noches damas y caballeros, les habla su Capitán . . .

Hey, there ya go. Does an FAA ban prevent one from flying for Mozambique Air?

Perhaps they should have been studying the classifieds more closely. :D