In Re Memoriam thirteen fifty-four
Having finished the morning portion of APCH acronym & abbreviation soup (mostly), I would like to proffer a question. The finely-honed details being discussed here (if my zero-hours legal mind is working at all) coalesce around the critical inquiry "How could this have happened?" The incredulousness seems rooted in the sense that this flight crew - while not open to criticisms such as those being leveled at the Asiana crew (and they too, and the people who were killed in that accident, should rest in peace) - flew way too low. Somewhere in the approach sector they deviated from a minimally safe altitude and the Swiss cheese holes lined up such that they didn't realize it and had no substantial reason to wonder. Quite different than the non-FTFA op on the Asiana flight deck, right?
The clue-seeking and thinking out loud here, the data scrutiny, the contextualizaion of approach sector design - to an administrative law and regulatory mindset, all speak to some subtle flaw in the approach corridor design. Subtle, and no less fatal.
So, here's my question. The UPS freightdogs perished in a moment both tragic and revelatory. Tragic because they were working stiffs who were just doing their gigs, to provide for their families, or to chase wine and women, or whatever their lives were about. In our system we honor the workaday ones, we don't fly couches or practice the law of cutting the lawn, we work. And revelatory because the approach corridor design process is revealed here to need mending. (In my discipline of the law this sometimes is known as "mend your hold".)
What does your fraternity of PIC and civil aeronautics do to honor their memory? Will a scholarship fund be established for their children or nieces or nephews or the kids at the local church temple mosque or yoga studio if they have none of their own? or at the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts or 4-H or Explorers or the entity which the US ought to form combining all four of these groups? I began my career as a labor attorney and I don't even know if they were organized into a labor union! What can be done that will honor their memory, and at the same time help the taxpayers of this country realize that aviation safety doesn't just happen. It does not just happen by itself.
I'd gladly volunteer my legal services, saving to suitors the proverbial dollar (Sound as a Dollar), to set up a trust or scholarship. Or to press for legislative reform of how FAA updates approach corridors. I'm WillowRun Six-Three, good day.