Pan Am
Hi Spaceman
I should clarify a little. First off when I mentioned that I though that SOME management have hazardous attitudes I was refering to the non pilot Chinese management along with Mr. Ding. "you fly today???" Um no Mr. Ding the visibility is 500M. hehe
I agree with you about Howard. He is great. Unfortunatly he is a foreigner and from my experience there it doesnt matter what your position is, the Chinese management will do things without consultation with ANY foreigner.
As far as your story about flying in the Canadian north goes. Yes your are right, there are a lot more dangerous operation to fly for. The difference here is that its a training environment. I truly beleive that there are countless holes in the training at PanAm. This is not the instructors fault or the students. Its difficult to really motivate students when they are given 3rd 4th and 5th chances. Has any student been washed out yet? In a company with 300+ students, theres bound to be some duds. I'm glad i'm not the instructor having management saying "oh just send him solo to Taiyuan. no problem" This actually happened by the way. with a students whos idea of action after a simulated engine failure after takeoff was to go around.
When I was doing basic instruction with my first students, we flew in visibility so bad you couldnt see the ground at 4000 feet. and this was wtih the visibility reported at 5k at ZBSJ. Do you really think they saw the point to doing a lookout before turning or maintaining a constant lookout when in the circuit? No. Because they were thinking, whats the point, i cant see anything anyway. and so they got used to staring at the G1000. But of course they were all allowed to continue. No that same class of students is partially in Batou a place that from what I understand so far has had good weather.
So yes weather was not a factor in the accident. But honestly, I've instructed in REALLY busy environments before. You know like 10 in the circuit. If a student cant see other airplanes at night when the strobes are going and can't respond when ATC asks them to do something other then the standard extend donwind or turn base now.....this is the problem. Very difficult to over come in Pan Am's case I know. But there is a reason for every incident. to call it just an accident and everyone did their job great is not being honest. It will happen again.
Hey spaceman
How long have you been at PanAm. Just wondering. I'm not trying to argue or anything. I just don't want to see people dead. It can be prevented. But if the Pan Am I know is still the way it is, I'm afraid nothing meaningful will be done.