Originally Posted by
DC-Mainliner
Now, to be fair, there are reasons why the N-Number is critical on a release.
None the least of which is that it's a required element as per 121.687(a)(1)...
Originally Posted by
DC-Mainliner
For one, the dispatcher partially shares the responsibility for 121 ops with the Captain.
Partially? 121.533(b) mentions "the pilot in command and the aircraft are jointly responsible", i.e. no "partially" or other qualifiers.
Originally Posted by
DC-Mainliner
The dispatcher is not in the loop when the N-number is wrong on the release! The MEL staus, BOW, weight and balance (if it's centralized) - it's all wrong on the paperwork and it causes a moment of concern as to how many other parameters were wrong on that flight.
The dispatcher shares that same concern. As far as the dispatcher "not being in the loop" as far as the error being made on the paperwork, that's largely a factor of the computer system in place at a particular airline, and they can vary wildly from one airline to another. Notwithstanding the process of how an incorrect aircraft number could end up on a dispatch release, it's still something dispatcher -does- need to be in the loop on, lest an aircraft with a restrictive MEL item get sent on a flight it shouldn't be on, and subject the dispatcher to a 121.605 violation. In my 25+ years, and primarily before our computer systems had evolved to their current state, it was quite easy to make a typo on the aircraft number. I've had some crews tell me of errors, and I've had to tell some crews of errors, including one late VP of Flight Ops (who called me at TOC to advise I'd made a typo on the aircraft number. Not -this- time--he'd taken the wrong bird). The key here is that, no matter who initiated the mistake, it was usually caught early enough via communicaton between PIC and dispatcher. The computer system at my airline has long since evolved to a state where incorrect aircraft numbers on releases are rare occurences, and we now more often see cases of some crews "assuming" that the aircraft on gate A1 is "theirs" versus the one on gate Z33 that really is... Hey, we're all human, and I probably wouldn't relish the bag drag either...