PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - United Airlines warning letter to Pilots about safety
Old 27th Feb 2015, 08:30
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OldLurker
 
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: England
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Good for UA. What they're doing looks sensible and all airlines should follow, provided that what they do is not simply to publicise mistakes or actions that are "not in compliance" followed by downgrading or "re-training" the pilots involved, but to analyse why the incidents occurred and show how procedures or mind-sets can be changed so that others can avoid similar mistakes. Most of us, except of course the "sky-gods" (and their counterparts, the "ground-gods"?) will admit that we make mistakes sometimes and want to understand how we can avert them.

The UA memo mentions "the recent CFIT accident in Birmingham [in which] the approach and landing appeared normal to the pilots until right before impact." I suppose they mean the UPS crash in 2013? (at Birmingham, Alabama, not Birmingham, England.) In that case the NTSB said that the crew continued an unstabilized approach ... failed to monitor the altitude ... failed to properly configure the FMC ... FO's failure to make required call-outs ... captain's decision to change the approach strategy without communicating his change to the first officer ... and [yes, yes] flight crew fatigue.* Did that approach really appear normal to the pilots?

* Caveat: This is from the NTSB's press release, I haven't read its actual report.
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