Pilots are their own worst enemies which has been proven many, many times previously; a fact airline operators, management are fully aware of using this knowledge to divide and exploit pilot labor to their own greedy ends. At the same time they capriciously and unscrupulously ensure their own rewards continue to increase far and above their true value.
Before this silly, unrewarding, self deprecating discussion proceeds further read & digest the following. I know it is long but an educated discussion may achieve more than taking cheap, uneducated shots at each other.
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The Demise of the Airline Pilot
by Capt. Douglas Corrigan
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On January 15, 2009 we received a reprieve from Obamamania and our focus on what was forming into one of the most inept presidential administrations when Captain Chesley Sullenberger ditched US Airways flight 1549 in the Hudson River in the media capital of the world. It was said that it came during a time when we needed our faith in the competence of our fellow man restored and it was a surprise turn for a pilot who was probably trying to end his career without bending any aluminium and hoping that his chief pilot would say: “Who was that guy?” when he saw his name on the retirement list.
Nevertheless, he was forced into fame.
Driving home from the airport that evening, I was listening to the neo-con Michael Savage praise this man on the radio; touting his awesome skill and how when the host boards an airliner (when he’s not flying private jets) he wants to be able to turn left and see someone with grey hair, blue eyes and military experience sitting up front. Did he not know that the application military technique to an Airbus 300 led the first officer of American 587 to overcontrol that plane with aggressive rudder inputs which sheared the vertical fin from the fuselage and sent the plane plummeting into a Queens neighbourhood? We were led to believe that his experience flying the antiquated F-4 Phantom thirty years ago (which incidentally has an ejection seat for such events) was more important than his years of flying the line and training on high tech airliners or even the fact that he is a glider instructor.
Later, Clay Lacy joined the show ostensibly to corroborate Savage’s babbling take on the event but he did little but use the opportunity to say that the corporate jets in his fleet might fair better. He admitted having military experience himself, but this was deceptive because he was not an Academy graduate like Sullenberger nor had he flown much in the service. With 50,000 hours of flying he is ranked second to Evelyn Johnson in terms of time spent in the air. His brief guard stint began after he started his 40 year career with United Airlines and was done to avoid the infantry. Despite being a scab, his career as an airline pilot was lucrative enough to earn him the seed money for his own charter and aerial cinematography company. While he’s done a good job of ensuring that his own employees never experience the kind of career he did, if you’ve seen a Hollywood movie made within the last four decades with aerial footage, the chances are great that Clay Lacy Aviation had a hand in it. Check the credits.
The coverage of Sullenberger’s water landing was non stop. Like the “bubbleheaded bleach-blonde,” Don Henley describes in his song “Dirty Laundry,” who “comes on at 5:00” and “can tell you about the plane crash with a gleam in her eye,” Fox News’ boisterous attorney-turned-anchor Megyn Kelly read the cockpit transcript and did her best captain’s impersonation with the words “I have control” amidst giggles she could barely contain. It was enough to send any transport pilot on a search for the nearest airsickness bag.
It has been called: The Miracle on the Hudson, but how does this miracle, where no one even got wet, rank?
On July 19, 1989, United flight 232 suffered an un-contained failure in the center engine which severed all the hydraulic lines with hurling shrapnel. It should have been over for everyone aboard at 37,000 feet when this happened because the crew lost all power to the flight controls. A priest could have given conditional absolution to all if one had been on board, yet the crew, led by Capt. Al Haynes, was too busy to be scared.While they were unable to roll, yaw or pitch the aircraft, they made judicious use of the two remaining engines to steer the plane with differential power. They used every asset available to them including the help of a jumpseating off duty pilot (Jumpseating is a professional privilege whereby pilots can fly free on carriers for personal reasons) who helped manipulate the throttles and lower the landing gear for the over-tasked crew. In spite of this, Haynes kept his composure and his sense of humor.
Jumpseater: I'll tell you what, we'll have a beer when this is all done.
Haynes: Well I don't drink, but I'll sure as hell have one.
Sioux City Approach: United Two Thirty-Two Heavy, the wind's currently three six zero at one one; (360 degrees/11kts). You're cleared to land on any runway.
Haynes: [laughter] Roger. [laughter] You want to be particular and make it a runway, huh? (Haynes was alluding to the extreme difficulty in controlling the aircraft and their slim chances of making it to the airport at all).
While the landing had to be termed a crash, nearly two-thirds of the occupants survived the fireball. The NTSB concluded after studying the event, that training for such a scenario would involve too many factors to be practical and was unable to reproduce such an outcome in simulators.
In August of 2006, a Hawker business jet collided with a glider at 16,000 feet. It takes a long time searching the internet to get the facts of this story but reports say that the Japanese glider pilot turned off his altitude encoding transponder (to save the battery) thereby making it invisible to the jet’s Traffic Collision Avoidance System. The glider pilot bailed out prior to impact and the jet suffered damage to the wings and tail with a concomitant loss of directional control as air rushed into the front of the plane with tremendous velocity and noise. One engine was gone and the plane was forced to make a wheels up landing at an abandoned airfield. Nevertheless, the passengers claimed it wasn’t particularly rough.
The sailplane’s carbon fibre spar cut through the nose of the jet and entered the cockpit pinning the controls in the captain’s lap. Any further and she would have been bisected at the abdomen. The sheriff reported that the cockpit looked like a hand grenade went off inside. All survived. It was truly a miracle.
Where was the adulation for this skilled aviatrix and her first officer? From Amelia Earhart to Kara Hultgreen, political pressure has pushed female pilots beyond where their abilities would warrant while the Patty Wagstaffs and Hanna Reitsches are only known to aviation buffs. In the case of Reitsch, the fact that she was a devoted Nazi assures forever that she will never be recognized as one of history’s best pilots.
Applause for landings is appreciated in this beleaguered profession but it sometimes underscores the frustrating fact that few appreciate all that goes into making the rest of one’s flight so forgettable.
Indubitably, all pilots perform more difficult feats than what amounted to a VMC ditching without the swells of the open sea and with all the visual cues of a large runway complete with crash & fire rescue. Phil Comstock and his Wilson Group have been surveying unionized pilots for decades and he often has to remind them how special they are as a labor group. By way of comparison, consider a surgeon about to perform a very serious operation. Does he have a federal license? Must he go for a medical exam himself every six months? Is he drug tested and how much of his background is a matter of public record? Does the retention of his right to practice medicine depend upon him going into the operating room and performing “simulated surgery” during which an explosion occurs, the patient wakes up from anesthesia and the room goes dark with a generator failure. All the while he is told he must perform as though everything is normal.
Pilots are submitted to this type of scrutiny twice a year; it’s just called training and checking. For many it brings on more anxiety than most emergencies they’ll every experience. So much so that regional pilots, who often lack union protection to guard against the capriciousness of some examiners, wryly refer to it as “career day.” And nearly all of these simulated emergencies are conducted under Instrument Meteorological Conditions as opposed to Visual Meteorological Conditions. The distinction is lost on most non aviators who can only correlate flying to driving a car in a two dimensional environment. Without instrument training and proficiency the absolute best pilot is helplessly in a vertigo situation seconds after losing sight of the horizon. The inner ear balance mechanism will not prevent a death spiral from ensuing. As a private pilot, William F. Buckley Jr. inadvertently found himself in an overcast layer and said many times: “I have never experienced such a thing, and the sensation was terrifying, robbing you, in an instant, of all of the normal coordinates of normal life, including any sense of what is up and what is down.” If he hadn’t had a seasoned pilot with him, the conservative movement may have been stillborn. The instrument rated John F. Kennedy, Jr was not so fortunate as he followed the pattern of many doctors and lawyers affluent enough to become pilots and own planes but with little time to practice and remain proficient. With his wife and sister-in-law on board, he pressed on to Hyannis as the horizon disappeared into the haze and darkness over Long Island Sound.
Perhaps what frightened Sullenberger the most was the notion that the decisions he would make in seconds would be analyzed for months. The findings made by the FAA give some insight into how he would’ve been treated if there had been a less than happy ending. As the Wall Street Jounal reported:
1) In hindsight, the crew incorrectly pitched the nose of the aircraft down to gain the airspeed necessary to relight the engines thereby losing precious altitude and limiting their options.