KA's Parking Brake fiasco

[kahaha]

It started with Rollback gate. A number of Dragonair A330s mysteriously rolled back after arriving on stand. One over 20 feet onto the active taxiway.

Now we have Parkingbrake gate. Upto 14 captains are under investigation for
manipulation of the brakes when arriving at stand. The naughty boys have not been setting parking brake, and shutting down, allowing the acars clock to tick tick. Logging mucho extra overtime. In fact several hours per month.

The company have gone through the flight data analysis. They have flight safety department on board to flag the culprits. Head of corporate security has emailed the boys, " please explain"

It wouldnt be so bad if we had not had the mindless dumbing down of the SOPs
being re written twice to prevent roll backs. But not to prevent overtime.

So far only one senior captain suspended. 13 others sweating.


This has been going on for years. Allegedly. Are the roll backs and the beefing up ones monthly pay related?

Apparently, one senior instructor has been implicated. A friend of the managers and perhaps Sai Kung elite , Dilema, how not to fire this guy, and dump the other 13 back to FOs? Or expel them all.

Watch this space for further updates. Its getting interesting in the lions den.

[Arfur Dent]

Bit like fiddling travel expenses in the RAF (or any of the Services). Many potentially successful careers ruined by silly greed and all for, effectively, peanuts in the big picture.
Oh Dear............:{

[Frogman1484]

I thought the clock stops once you turn off one of the engines.

[oriental flyer]

What happened to the wheel chocks that are supposed to be installed after every aircraft arrival ?
Who the hell gets off the flight deck without having the brakes set or the chocks in place .

[asianeagle]

we had to wait 15 minutes for engineers to arrive and chock us yesterday, after having set the park brake.
thats at least 3 (insert preferred drink) of overtime.:}

[Frogman1484]

On the airbus if you have hot brakes, you release the parking brake and leave the aircraft chocked. Ecam procedure.

[CXtreme]

I guess you meant to say "HOT " brakes Frogman.

[airplaneridesrfun]

Do you mean you don't get paid for working? Filling out the logbook, cleaning up the cockpit, sending the CAR, and in these cases; filing out the GSR's all sound like work to me. How about that preflight walk around and sitting at the gate waiting for push. Is that not work either?

[iceman50]

Come on CXtreme, Froggy knows everything.

Like the latest gem of the CAD have denied CX a common type rating for A330/340/350. That was never being requested and for the last year or so all the info has been CTR A330/350 and if you were going to fly the 340 it would be a CCQ going A330/340 or A340/350, all three were never in the plan!:ugh:

[asianeagle]

Do you mean you don't get paid for working? Filling out the logbook, cleaning up the cockpit, sending the CAR, and in these cases; filing out the GSR's all sound like work to me. How about that preflight walk around and sitting at the gate waiting for push. Is that not work either?

nope, NOR when you have to do GPU starts on the bay cos the APU is poked!
There's potentially another 20 minutes of free expertise.
And yet we all accepted hourly duty pay increases based on recorded block times… not actual times. :confused:

[iceman50]

asianeagle

So you don't get a basic salary then?

[asianeagle]

So you don't get a basic salary then?

a bit of thread drift but I'll reply non the less..

of course yes, but its being eroded by inflation and minimal increases.
Company seems to want to only increase HDP and I'll bet what they really want is all HDP nothing else, that way they control the cost at all times.
So while we now sit here accepting the status quo, it will become a norm and some time down the road we will be doing a lot of work for the company without the pay.

So, if you want me to give my expertise and pay me by the hour, you need to include the bits I do before and after park brake.

not a hard concept really:ok:

[asianeagle]

So you don't get a basic salary then?

a bit of thread drift but I'll reply non the less..

of course yes, but its being eroded by inflation and minimal increases.
Company seems to want to only increase HDP and I'll bet what they really want is all HDP nothing else, that way they control the cost at all times.
So while we now sit here accepting the status quo, it will become a norm and some time down the road we will be doing a lot of work for the company without the pay.

So, if you want me to give my expertise and pay me by the hour, you need to include the bits I do before and after park brake.

not a hard concept really:ok:

[Gnadenburg]

Was hoping this fiasco would produce a Captain's only taxi to prevent Cabin Crew head injuries due the "dudes" and their ragged taxiing.

And WTF is teaching the new cadets not to set the Park Brake on taxi out? Can just see Dumb and Dumber distracted by an ECAM and gently bumping an aircraft ahead. I know standardization a bit of an issue but do have a think about TEMs and the 80 hour pilot flying his first twin engine aircraft.

[ACMS]

Not setting the park brake on taxy out? Why would you want to have to hold the brakes on??? Isn't that why Airbus fitted a park brake???

[geh065]

It was Thai Air that had an A330 roll back onto the taxiway a week or two ago.

[swh]

Isn't that why Airbus fitted a park brake???

How very true. Probably the reason why the "parking" brake was not set as they are not installed on any KA aircraft.

"Head of corporate security", and "Parking brake", how very troll of the Poseur (journalist).

Where is my hat ......

[TURIN]

What happened to the wheel chocks that are supposed to be installed after every aircraft arrival ?
Who the hell gets off the flight deck without having the brakes set or the chocks in place .

A certain US airline's flight deck crew had a bad habit of doing just this (probably for the same reason).

It continued for quite sometime until a few aircraft rolled back/forward, damaged doors on jetways, and in one case ran over the foot of the bloke putting the chocks in.

The concept of not releasing the brakes until you had confirmation (either visual hand signals or a verbal over the headset) seemed completely alien within the pilot community at the time.

It is now mandatory to leave the park brake set irrespective of brake temp.

[kahaha]

The Ka Chief Pilot just recently stood up at a training captains meeting. All puffed up and bravado, he proudly announced that he had just failed a A320 crew on their PC. The reason was that the application of the parking brake was incorrect, and did not follow the SOP to the letter of the law. He said that he had failed the guys so as to send a strong message that managemenet had zero tolerance on this issue, and trainers were expected, as ever , to be compliant with this .

How ridiculous. When a PC is over, normally things are re set to normal asap and the crew leaves. Not on this occasion. The crew were asked to park on stand, and do a normal shut down. Sneeky Chief Pilot, caught the guys not having " ridgid adherence to SOPs" This is the modern feel good dragonair. No Bundy ere. What joy. A$$'oles


The flight safety department, and especially the head of corporate safety , have being enlisted by management to set up a drag net to catch overtime offenders.
The are some unfortunate blokes , that have apparently being holding the aircraft on the foot brakes when arriving at the gate, shutting down the engines, and then only setting the parking brake once the doors are open. A number may have forgotten to set the brake, and therefore apparently suffered a roll back.
As the acars clock stops ticking once a door is open, then the brake should be set. Err unless you forget, and errr roll roll back back ...

[Oasis]

That's pretty unprofessional though, and is effectively stealing.
Leaving the pb off for a few more minutes, is that really worth getting in sh1t over?

[The FUB]

Effectively stealing??

PACKS to Hi Flow, to get more cooling, is that stealing?

[Oasis]

Can you explain that a bit more?

[Oasis]

That is not unprofessional, that's immoral. A different cat altogether.

When you start changing normal ops in your airplane for personal gain, I find that unprofessional, especially if it could result in aircraft rolling backwards.
Just cringeworthy...