sevenstrokeroll;
...and just to remind people, it was a management pilot that crashed an american md80 at little rock. get my drift?
Both fatigue and cockpit authority gradient were cited as contributing factors in the report.
the industry is falling apart
Yep. Expediency seems to have some currency in the cockpit. Before retiring I had noticed a significant slackness in SOPs from the usual crispness I was used to.
High taxi speeds, (above 30kts), along with the obvious risks, result in high bead temperatures, especially at high weights, which, over time, can lead to tire failure. Damage from extremely high bead temperatures, like ply delamination, is not easily diagnosed by visual inspection. Goodyear published a paper years ago showing a direct relationship between taxi-speed and bead (not internal tire) temperature. The graphs are revealing.
We've all seen "time-building" taxiing before. Unless one is in the cockpit, we don't know the real reason so unless it's a safety issue, (incursion, etc), the benefit of the doubt is the only acceptable response. The action on the part of the checkpilot reveals some very serious disconnects and underlying power-struggles at American which have clearly found expression in the cockpit, on the taxiways and, one wonders, on the runway as well? Regardless - pretty poor show in not sorting it out in other, equally effective but more discrete ways.