All,
I flew at this airline for 2 months as a new FO on the CRJ in 2003. I was not impressed by several things [pay/upgrade time] and found another job to occupy my NWA furlough time. It is a sad event, but this little airline grew (is growing) too quickly and there are some deficiencies. A lack of high altitude (coffin corner) type training is but one example of a very poor ground school program. I questioned some of the "check airmen's" understanding of aerodynamics, but when push came to shove, agreed to their mis-understandings to get the check-ride over with. One of the ground school instructors at Pinnacle was ramper with "ZERO" flight training who once argued with me about the CRJ landing gear "trucks." Can't say that pilot error had anything to do with this accident, but from my personal experience, I wouldn't be surprised if there were shortcomings in this accident attributed to Pinnacle's training program.