Toolonginthisjob stop trying to defend BA on this issue. Colgan Air for starters had virtually nothing to do with commuting, as an ex Dash 8 Pilot and having read the report it is pretty clear what happened. Two unfit pilots (both reported to work unfit through illness rather than fatigue - you can hear them coughing and spluttering on the CVR) and both less than competent aviators (not my opinion look at the training record of the Captain prior to the accident) managed to react completely inappropriately to a stall warning that was set at an artificially high speed. In addition to the captain pulling back on the stick in response to a stall warning (huh?) the First Officer inexplicably decided out of nowhere to dump the flaps at the same time as the nose high attitude.
Why the hell should a short commuting flight (by which I’m talking one of an hour or so) be included in the FTL’s for the duty in question? You’re a passenger and you’re not part of the operating crew, sitting there as pax is far less tiring than doing the equivalent time on a motorway as a driver which many people do every day. I fail to see the distinction here as to why one activity has to be factored into FTL’s but one doesn’t despite being scientifically more tiring.
Anyway we’re rehashing old ground. I just wanted to put the record straight as regards to Colgan because the commuting thing gets trotted out every time we talk about that accident but it wasn’t contributory.