Originally Posted by
Luke SkyToddler
Holy **** you guys
The captain IS responsible
Yes of course we are all only human, and there are factors i.e. he's new to the company and I believe hadn't flown the RNAV20 approach before.
Isn't that the biggest reason of all to be very cautious and make a full briefing, keep the autopilot engaged, get stable early, follow the RNAV lateral & vertical profile, cross check EVERYTHING. The RNAV appch takes you straight to the threshold at 500'. I flew it today and in my opinion it's damn near impossible to misidentify it from minima if you're on profile. You NEVER call visual if you're in ANY doubt as to runway position. Your FO appearing to be confident of his position, is not an excuse that will save your ass in court.
I know IA1166 to be a damn good and conscientious instructor and I'm sure him and many other instructors are tearing their hair out about how can they train for this kind of screwup. Let's hear some of you guys' practical suggestions, as to how the instructor team can actually write a sim syllabus that will "train" people to not do something as crazy as misidentifying a half built runway in CAVOK conditions when you have so many visual cues like the ND and the lack of PAPIs and the complete lack of rubber marks on the runway etc etc etc.
Some of you guys are still talking "us" vs "them" as though you still think you're better. "We" the expats are the ones responsible for two pretty big insurance claims in the last few weeks. The rainy season is here now and it's dangerous out there. Time to walk the talk that we are professional pilots, and double down on caution and situational awareness and yes, following SOP
So, the company had NO responsability? It was not the company that hiered the lad? It was not one of the pilots, like IA1166, who released that fella? And there is no fault on behalf of the Chief of training for not revising their training outlines? Perhaps a few extra flights by a local Instructor as an observer? Nah, would not have changed that, right?
I agree with both you and IA, yeah, we skippers are “ultimately” responsible for everything, but both of you have to admit there is something really wrong in this company about it’s recruitment and training traditions; upon arrival here, I myself went through 5 days of “laziness” ground training with mediocre English speaking local instructors here in HCM, followed by 6 flights, that’s 3 only Days, of flight training; that was IT! No Simulator Training, no Operational indoctrination, just a quick hop in the office to fill out paper work, two pages of standard PA announcements, and the request to “follow SOP’s”. That was three years ago and at one point I was actually looking for a new fan club to go to because I thought to myself “they can’t be serious; they are playing around but not hiring me!”.
If I was a manager here, a personally responsible part for the direction and longevity of this company, my EGO by itself would dictate a LOT more indoctrination training than what I got here. I get the fact that Emirates or Qatar is way too extreme, but VNA is nothing in comparison; can’t it be something in the middle?
And while I have the attention of some Expat Instructors here, what is up with the Chief Pilot wanting to meet up with Expats on their day off? Yeah, so, the safety consciousness suddenly kicks in with him, probably because he’s getting a lot more phone calls from the CEO now, and the way to fix it is by having a pow-wow with selected Expats when they have BBQ plans and supposed to be on their legal rest day off... it puzzles me; seems they are trying very hard to adapt western cultures, too (sarcasm!). So, with this in mind, I’m confused, is this a critical situation for VNA, or not? Because if it was, then shouldn’t they schedule me for this meeting, so Mr Chief Pilot can actually have my full attention of the message he wishes to convey?!?
This month’s Blame and Shame game has officially been scheduled for tomorrow, and I would like to know why my schedule hasn’t been adjusted, accordingly? Is it because I’ll be flying to Cam Ranh myself tomorrow?
Fact is, the SMS in VNA is a non-exsistant joke! It’s in the books, yes, but with the turn over that this company has, it is neither adecuate nor able to do its job. Instead of helping identifying risks and dangerous patterns in order to adequately train and modify behavior, it’s simply abused to punish its most important participants: the pilots! And while the locals have an economic solutions to getting their slates cleaned by, occurrences like this one by Expat Captains get the local pilots into a frenzy. Some of ya should go by the fleet office in Saigon these days; when they see an Expat head sticking through the door it gets VERY quiet suddenly...
Sorry, I for my part am not impressed at all, as usual...