Originally Posted by
Locked door
It's not just AA, although they do seem to be having more instances of poor airmanship than the other US majors. Every time I fly to US airspace I see things and hear things that make my skin crawl. For whatever reason there's a very different attitude to aviation in the US, both from ATC and the flight crew perspective. Don't get me wrong, there are some very competent individuals but there doesn't seem to be any control of those that underperform. And there are a lot of them.
I've had a TCAS RA on finals, parachutists spotted passing by our flightdeck, been shouted at for querying the landing runway after the 3rd switch, seen a near vertical visual approach by a 767 in SFO, and approach continued into the centre of a huge cell in Washington resulting in a g/a and a radio call along the lines of 'um, we're having trouble maintaining altitude', a visual approach that crossed the threshold at 600ft (from our TCAS).... All from US majors. And don't even get me started on LAHSO. Gash is a word that springs to mind.
The list goes on but you get the point, flying into US airspace can be like entering a 3rd world environment but the locals don't seem to be able to see it. Quite honestly I'm amazed there aren't more fatal accidents over there.
Just me two pennies' worth.
LD
What a useless post. European aviation and its not very impressive accident record for large aircraft, is IMO an indication that being anal retentive bores does not increase safety. I am not a particular fan of things American but that doesn't stop me from acknowledging that the US sets the aviation standards for the rest of the world