Originally Posted by
Air Profit
Yes, our once illustrious airline screwed up big time. However, if you spent 5 minutes in our dispatch area and had a look at the faces wearing our uniform, you would have thought you were in a fairly well funded flight school. If I sold razor blades for a living, I wouldn't bother trying to gin up business there. Expect more such headlines in the years to come. Sad decline of a once great company. Greed and malfeasance have brought us to the point of no return. The end result will be tragic.
That is unfortunate indeed. I remember in the 1980s, my dad was posted to HK for a number of years, and every summer holiday (I was in grade school) I would fly out to see him on CX. The thrill of flying into Kai Tak (the ol' checkerboard approach) was something I'll never forget. When I'd fly with my dad, we'd travel in Business or First on CX, and it was a magical experience.
Then just last year I flew CX SFO-HKG-Ho Chi Minh City-HKG-SFO in Business class. What a difference from my memories. I never thought I'd see the day that United's international business-class product would be superior to basically anyone's, but CX Business was essentially the same experience as Premium Economy.
Of course, none of that has anything to do with airmanship. I will make one comment on the discussion about the UAL crew's non-response to the RA. At our airline, if we have the conflicting aircraft in sight and are maintaining visual contact, we can ignore the RA and continue to land. Once about every 20 approaches into SFO, when they're running the parallel visuals, our TCAS will lose its mind. So I'm not entirely surprised that the UA crew did not automatically respond to the RA. Of course, I wasn't there, and have precisely zero detailed knowledge of the event.
And, let's face it, lining up for the wrong runway is something many Western crews have done (Air Canada, anyone?) Not long ago, in clear VMC on the Tip Toe arrival, we were told to expect the visual to 28R, which we had programmed into the FMS, in addition to tuning 111.7 (LOC frequency for 28R). We were then advised to expect 28L instead. We swapped the LOC frequency correctly (in our airline under VMC conditions, we can use either the LOC or the FMS to track inbound on the final approach course -- we must, however, use the LOC in IMC conditions). The PF entered 28L into the FMS and hit Execute, but the button-push must not have registered -- and I made the grievous error of not verifying that the FMS had registered the change. As we neared the 28L approach course, still in white needles but with the standby LOC needle starting to move, we both realized the airplane was going to fly through the LOC if we didn't intervene immediately. Autopilot off, left turn to intercept, and we were properly established -- it was only then we realized that while the LOC was correctly tuned, the FMS was still taking us to 28R. No harm, no foul -- we never crossed the centerline -- but given how closely spaced the runways are, it's not always immediately obvious from 15 nm out which runway you're actually lined up for.
My point with all this blather is "There but for the grace of God go I."
