Originally Posted by
JW411
macdo:
"await a push back team".
You obviously haven't bothered to read the thread. As someone has already pointed out, their is no tug at Skiathos so waiting for a push back team would probably take several days (or weeks).
I can well remember being posted on to the Short Belfast, which was the first aircraft I had flown which was capable of reversing. One of the first exercises that we did was to fly over to Fairford and spend some time doing three point turns into and out of the many ex-SAC dispersals on the south side of the airfield.
This usually consisted of dropping the tail gate, positioning the loadmaster at the back to give us a clue as to where we were going. The other alternative was to put him out through the crew door with a long lead and a talking hat.
So let us assume that the 757 captain had also come from such a reversing background. He knew that there were no obstacles behind for he had just landed on the runway.
Perhaps he is training a new Captain or F/O. They miss the turn off by a few feet and since the "real" runway is only 30 metres wide and he well knows that there is no tug at Skiathos, he ensures that all feet are off the brakes, selects idle reverse and does a three point turn.
What is so miraculous about that?
This is yet another example of every unpromising hysteric on pprune whose only experience of reversing an aeroplane consists of pushing a PA-28 back into a hangar leaping into action when they have no idea about what they are talking about.
Please God, can we please get pprune back for us professional pilots?
Fair play, I only read most of the thread and missed the fact that no tug exists at JSI. Also I have not done the narrow runway training, so have not been there. Hands are up. But the rest of the post does reflect modern life in an airline, not, with respect what we used to do in the 1970's on a Belfast, 707, Bac1-11, VC-10 or whatever. The commercial environment is different to then. I would also say that it was an extremely observant skipper sitting in the left seat that could guarantee that here were no obstructions on the opposite side of the runway that he was reversing into!
If you don't have an immaculate reason for doing something that is not in the FCOM/AFM etc. you are asking for trouble. I have seen it in practice where people have gone outside of the bible for good reasons and get hung out to dry. There is a term called Just Culture, the ability to admit a muck up without the fear of punitive measures, which aviation took a lead in some time ago but it has largely been lost.