Not at all surprised to read of the terrain encounters. One would imagine that this would set off alarm bells, but then that would only occur in a well functioning flight operations environment.
As a long time trainer (since resigned in 2021) I had a front row seat to the declining quality of flying standards. As is well laid out in thousands of posts on this forum, a nefarious management with a penchant for hating their pilots, embarked on a deliberate course of sacrificing pilot quality on the alter of cost cutting. A linear decline in qualitative pilot recruiting standards occurred over time and culminated in the lowest possible pilot hiring standard among legacy airlines….zero pilot experience required for a new hire.
Over time the new pilots I trained went from being highly experienced pilots, that only required minor assistance adopting to a new airline and aircraft type, to neophytes without flying experience that required basic flying instruction. I found myself conducting basic pilot training on a fully loaded airliner while flying into hostile environments of thunderstorm avoidance, typhoons, snow covered runways, poor ATC, high density airports, and high terrain.
Operational excellence began to border on the bizarre. As long as the airplane remained on the published STAR/Transition things remained relatively stable; however, a direct clearance off of the expected routing would quickly unravel the inexperienced candidate. Instead of recalculating the track miles and selecting an appropriate mode to manage the descent, most would simply push as many buttons as possible and pray. Terrain and situational awareness were completely lost. I often found myself challenged to the point where I simply could not talk fast enough…physical intervention was often necessary to stabilize an approach. It became an exhausting and mind numbing existence.
Complaining to the flight ops leadership team was met with resistance and denial. It was obvious that most flight ops managers became pusillanimous cheerleaders for their mendacious overlords. In days past we were encouraged to train pilots up to a legacy standard. That concept dwindled over time as we became challenged just teaching pilots enough to achieve the minimum standard. The concept that safety was the airline’s top priority became farcical.
Throughout today’s airline industry the sad decline of a once great airline has become a cautionary tale of how a misguided management can devastate a legacy corporation.
Last edited by raven11; 8th July 2024 at 11:55.