Originally Posted by
deja vu
God help you if you ever become fallible. Just love these twerps.
Well thank you, that's kind of you.
As a fairly normal - and therefore completely fallible - human being, I personally think it is most important to check such things as the pitot and static probes before attempting every flight* - for the very reason that we are fallible and covers might have been left on for whatever reason or whatever mistake. Do you disagree with this precaution? Why do we do a walk around and what is it we should be doing during one?
As for the gorilla effect someone else mentioned. Are they saying that pilots might miss seeing a cover or a streamer on a probe because normally they don't see one there? Just look at each actual probe as part of your walk around - your life might literally depend on you checking them. If you don't see normal, unobstructed probes, then there is obviously a problem which needs resolving - we shouldn't need streamers etc, to tell us; we should always look at each probe and port, and vane etc.
(If the traffic lights are red, and the green man is lit up; do you just walk across the road without looking or do you check in each direction that no traffic is coming and it is safe to cross?)
And another crew that continued accelerating along the runway with confusing cockpit displays - previously a FD that did not indicate 'fly up', now, no IAS. I am confused by this. Do pilots no longer do RTO training in the Sim? Where is the command decision making? How are these pilots passing their Sim tests?
What is happening to pilots? We seem to be witnessing accidents caused by allegedly well trained and allegedly correctly checked pilots, but who are making the most fundamental errors - errors that have killed people in the past and that we were all supposed to learn from. There are more and more tests to pass when applying to an airline before even getting to the interview stage, but we are seeing these fundamental errors. What's going on?
*and that the gear pins have been removed and the engine cowls are closed and locked, and the flight controls are full and free and in the correct sense.