Hey guys
Don't post on here very often, but just wanted to pass on a word of support to the poor guys at the centre of this sitting at home and maybe reading some of the 'all seeing, all knowing' postings on here.
Firstly having flown for BMI in the past for 5 years I can say that they are as committed to a safe operation as any I have known, and have always taken the view that every incident has many solutions, and very few are all right or all wrong. Secondly, they don't give Commands away, and the man in the left hand seat was as competent and receptive to suggestions as any I have ever flown with, with BMI or my present employer.
I have flown aircraft with a supposedly properly calibrated and serviceable WXR that wasn't painting anything other than pastures green when I was looking straight at a text-book cell 20 miles on the nose. I have also flown with experienced skippers that elected to fly us straight through a red return in a 60 knot wind saying that the windspeed was causing a large doppler return, and that it was just precipitation. And guess what? They were quite right, not even a bump. I would never have believe it myself...
As for the diverting, well without wishing to get too embroiled, but personally if I didn't have any adverse engine readings, there were no pressurisation restrictions on a cracked screen, and the aeroplane was flying normally then I too would continue to the home base, an airfield I was familiar with, rather than strand it 700 miles from home. You've got to land it somewhere, just as much risk landing anywhere. And I'm sorry, but at least 50% of experienced crews would agree I'm sure. But as ever, it's always the detractors who shout loudest.
All I'm trying to say here is, there is always a small element of luck involved in this profession, our job is to minimise or negate it's effects on the safe outcome of the flight. But sometimes even the most competent get caught out. And of course we also occassionally witness the most incompetent getting through by the skin of their teeth. What we do all hope is that if we happen to be the poor ba****ds that get caught out or run out of preferrable options then our colleagues offer a little more professional courtesy and support, and not uninformed, presumptuous opinion.
