"Redeye" shouldn't mean the pilot.
 

This couldn't/isn't happening in Australia, is it?




'Redeye' shouldn't mean the pilot

David Nason, New York correspondent | May 16, 2009

Article from: The Australian
TAKING a flight from New York City to upstate Buffalo to see Niagara Falls is commonplace for tourists visiting the US northeast, but after this week's shock revelations about the February 12 crash of Continental Connection Flight 3407, which killed 50 people, many visitors may rethink their itineraries.
Over three days the National Transportation Safety Board heard testimony that raised grave questions about the experience and ability of the pilots in charge of commuter aircraft. At the same time, the hearings peered deep into the airline culture behind the tragedy, finding extraordinarily low wages, bizarre work practices and a stunning management indifference to pilot fatigue.
But for ordinary travellers perhaps the most jarring discovery was summed up in the anguished words of Scott Mauer, who lost his daughter Lorin in the crash and attended the hearings to find out why.
"My daughter ordered a ticket from Continental Airlines," he said. "I'm sitting here listening to people from Colgan Air. Do the American people understand what's happening when they buy an airline ticket?"
Colgan Air is a regional airline hired 18 months ago by Continental to provide services on its Newark-Buffalo route.
While Colgan's relationship with Continental is not readily apparent when customers buy a ticket on the Continental website, the airlines would have you believe that by calling the flight a "Continental Connection", punters understand they'll be flying with someone else.
Even so, customers would assume safety procedures and pilot competence would be the same. How else could Continental allow another airline to represent its brand? But as Mauer found out this week, safety and management standards can "all take a step down" when airline services are contracted out, which happens much more than people realise.
The US has 640 airports and 75 per cent are served only by regional airlines, of which there are 70. Many are commuter carriers that typically fly small, turbo prop planes with capacity of 20 to 80 seats.
The pilots tend to be inexperienced, as was the case with Marvin Renslow, the pilot of Colgan's death plane.
On Tuesday the hearings were told that Renslow had failed flight checks in the aircraft five times before he passed, and that he was unfamiliar with emergency procedures to prevent the aircraft from stalling.
It also emerged that Renslow was one of 29 Colgan pilots who commuted more than 1600km to work. Paid just $US55,000 ($72,500), he couldn't afford to live in New York, so he flew in from Tampa, Florida. On the day of the crash he arrived at Colgan's Newark offices at 3.15am.
Renslow's co-pilot Rebecca Shaw, 24, was even worse off. Her salary was a paltry $US25,000 and she lived with her parents in Seattle on the other side of the country. The hearings heard she once had a second job in a cafe to help make ends meet.
Testimony by Colgan officials on Wednesday revealed the company did not pay cost-of-living adjustments so pilots could live in New York. But they did pay such adjustments to managers.
Asked if Colgan expected Shaw to live in the New York area, vice-president Mary Finnigan said: "Pilots are told what the pay scales are. Our pay scales are within the industry standard."
On the day before the crash, Shaw left Seattle on an overnight FedEx flight and arrived in Newark at 6.30am after changing planes in Memphis, Tennessee. She then sent text messages throughout the day, evidence that she wasn't sleeping.
Renslow was seen sleeping in the crew lounge, which is prohibited by the airline.
Asked how the company monitored the fitness and alertness of pilots who commuted such long distances to work, Colgan flight operations chief Harry Mitchell said: "We expect professional pilots should show up fresh and ready to fly an aircraft."

No surely not....:suspect:

Sadly though until the masses realise that you do indeed get what you pay for, airline management will continue to do it...

As long as pilots continue to undercut themselves there will always be someone else lining up to do it for less. :mad:

and myopic watchdogs asleep on the verandah

Here is the NTSB animation for what happened...very chilling viewing.

YouTube - NTSB Colgan Air Crash Animation Flight 3407

For those who haven't read the reports, icing was not a factor in this crash. The crew were also heard to be talking about non-operational matters throughout the approach (ie below sterile) and as the above news article points out, fatigue.

Very messy trail and hopefully things are put in place over there.

Fatigue? Surely not, thats not a safety issue or problem in aviation is it?

An indication he might have been tired perhaps. Can't see why - he got to work at 3 am.



Make sure you have your high viz vest asic card and take no over the counter medications.

The last Flight International magazine I saw a couple of months back there was an article that NASA is concerned about the lack of reporting of fatigue, human error, and other aviation events by pilots.
There's nothing new about this and I'm surprised they're surprised. Fact is you are required to fall on your sword if make a mess of things and so you should, but in many cases airline management arent amenable to some pilot reports and fatigue tends to be one of them.
Report you are fatigued too often and the result will be a visit to the office where you will be asked if you're in the right job.

I do not know about the pilots protocol
but in QCC, we all know if you just so much as mention the word :eek:"fatigue" :eek:to your team manager about yourself or your work colleague, you will be put on a watch list and so will your work colleague and when the opportunity arise, courtesy of team manager's spies on board : your work colleagues also will see that they dob you in on a whole range of things and then of course, the clause 11 will be handed out to you like lollies.:ok:

friend of mine got a medical certificate for fatigue, yanked in for 40 questions
then 1 month later clause 11 for totally unrelated matters to fatigue, to dismiss any suspicion.

The only good to come of this terrible accident may be the public scrutiny into the issues of pilot fatigue and the appalling wages and conditions of regional airline pilots. Nothing will probably change at any rate, it never has and due to the economics of ticket prices in the US and how they are determined it never will.
(There are a few threads on this topic from 1-2yrs ago)

These are basically internships NOT jobs.:mad: but have all the responsibilities of a job. You are basically working for free.:mad::ugh:
I refused to apply as I refused to accept having to do all the intense study and training and then work very long hours with all that responsibility for a job that paid basically slightly more than the min wage, approx $10-15per "actual' duty hour for the first 1-5yrs til you made Capt and even then it was not much better until you were very senior and had many yrs with the company.

Under FAR 121 pilots can work and usually do, up to a 16hr duty period, which is criminal in itself.:ugh:
Actual sleep time after getting to/from airport to hotel/home, eating, showering etc is usually less than 4-6hr. So there is a big part of the fatigue issue and what causes it. It is all legal though, bloody fantastic eh???
Pay scales topping at approx 80K per yr after 12-15yrs with the company.
Sub 20K USD per annum was /is common for most junior FO. :mad:

So for all of that you basically are financially losing money every yr.
At least it is possible to get some decent to excellent jobs in charter/corporate IF you are pre qualified/rated and experienced on the specific aircraft type the position is for.:ugh: Those jobs often paid better than the regionals , IF you could get the work.
Regionals flying anything from B1900's to 90 seat RJs are all to FAR121 standards same as larger carriers..
Most pilots are there to get experience and then move onto larger mainline carriers. Doing so if you did not have regional part 121 experience was rare unless you had good military or charter/corporate turbine time and preferably jet time.

They are limits, not roster guides!

"Oh but, it is legal".............So is driving in fog at the speed limit..... Doesn't mean it is sensible!

2 sectors back of the clock will always be Russian roulette.....

bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Buy a Qantas ticket and end up on a JetStar flight? Already happening.....

Sure, it happens all over the world. Jetstar is a bad example, it's a Qantas company. A better domestic example would be buying a Qantas ticket and ending up on a Cobham aeroplane. But so what? It's not like Qantas try to hide this from you.

I hope we don't have FOs on $25000 commuting 1600km to work though, that's just crazy.

A further irony in this case is that Colgan Airways is owned (or at least was; not sure of the current status), by Chuck Colgan, a US Senator.

Surely a legislator would never put commercial advantage ahead of public safety? Surely?

Industry standard.... meaning industry minimum wage:suspect:

Eventually it'll happen. Give it time and we'll be on par with the US.

limiting crew water/forbidding naps on sectors below x hours/min rest/back of the clock/no food on board/bus to airport/pay for asic/split duty/calls outside reserve period/manuals on cd rom/row 300 on duty travel/ /no food at outport/nil rest at outport/no otc medication/aviation in australia!ect ect ect yada yada yada!:zzz:

Remember the 717 at Darwin recently? Much was made at the time here that it wasn't a Qantas aircraft despite the paint job. And it would have taken a knowledgeable punter a bit of digging on the QF web site to find who owned and operated the aircraft. Not immediately obvious.

Depends who you are. If you're a passenger all you need to do is dig around the front of your tickets and you'll see who's operating the flight. If you're not a passenger, it doesn't really matter does it? If you're booking a flight, you only need to click on the flight number and it will tell you who's operating the flight, it's not hidden away anywhere.

A common theme
 

http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/3...nce-again.html

From the report-

Gold.

Heads Down, I have been told by a few people "in the know" in QF tech crew,that there is a huge difference between fatigue and being tired or insufficient rest for a duty.

If you advise your manager that you are "fatigued" then this is taken as a serious problem, you need to see your DAME (doctor) it is a more enduring nature, ie constantly tired.

Whereas if you report that you have insufficient rest because of noisy hotel room, insufficient slip time etc. Then this is a one of problem, and management shouldn't be able to touch you.

You need to be very careful about the terminology you use. Probably more so in cabin crew management.

Yodawg, strangely enough JQ is yet to end up on a golf course, QF on the other hand has that fine distinction,perhaps that should be remembered for those that just have to bag JQ simply for no other reason than it exists, their safety practices seem sufficient at the present time and cannot be compared with some regional in the USA, and no I retired before JQ came on line, but certainly worked for QF.

teresa - let me think.... QF been around for 85+ years.... (since the dawn of aviation), JQ how long? 5-6 years? 85+ years with only few scars and dents (touch wood) for QF is a bloody good record in any ones books.

hmmm - the reverse comes to mind about those that love to bag QF.