Ryanair pilot demoted after incident
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Ryanair pilot demoted after incident
Ryanair pilot was demoted following a serious incident on a flight carrying 128 passengers from Stansted to Cork last year, it has emerged.
Poor communications between the pilot and co-pilot led to the incident, where the Boeing 737-800 aircraft flew too low over Bishopstown, resulting in calls from "alarmed" residents.
The Air Accident Investigation Unit of the Department of Transport (AAIU) today published its investigation into the incident on June 4th last year, with 134 people on board.
The flight over Bishopstown was reported to the Cork Airport Authority by "at least 16 upset residents, whose independent and consistent complaints, submitted by phone and in writing, referred to noise and how low the aircraft was being flown", the AAIU report says.
The captain was at the controls on the day, and the co-pilot, who was less experienced on the aircraft type than the captain, later recalled hearing the warning signals twice and said they were "silenced" by the captain.
According to the report, the co-pilot, who had a better view of the ground to his right, "repeatedly" advised the captain of height loss on the turn over Bishopstown, which "alarmed" many residents.
No safety recommendations are made in the report. It notes that the "experience gradient" between the two pilots in this case was "steep" but not unusual in day-to-day operations and "may have been a contributory factor in the [captain's] attitude to the co-pilot".
The co-pilot had tried to comply with Ryanair's training manual but his "inputs had little effect". The AAIU said this did not excuse the "aberrant deviation" from the airline's standard operating procedures in its approach and landing that day, however.
In a statement, Ryanair said it "co-operated fully with this AAIU investigation and agrees with its findings".
"Following a disciplinary hearing, the pilot in question was demoted for deviating from Ryanair's standard operating procedures."
Last month, the AAIU reported that a Ryanair flight with 138 passengers and six crew on board almost crashed near Knock when it "overshot" the runway and came way below the recommended flying level due to a series of errors.
Final report:
http://www.aaiu.ie/AAIUviewitem.asp?...g=ENG&loc=1652
http://www.aaiu.ie/upload/general/8770-0.pdf
Poor communications between the pilot and co-pilot led to the incident, where the Boeing 737-800 aircraft flew too low over Bishopstown, resulting in calls from "alarmed" residents.
The Air Accident Investigation Unit of the Department of Transport (AAIU) today published its investigation into the incident on June 4th last year, with 134 people on board.
The flight over Bishopstown was reported to the Cork Airport Authority by "at least 16 upset residents, whose independent and consistent complaints, submitted by phone and in writing, referred to noise and how low the aircraft was being flown", the AAIU report says.
The captain was at the controls on the day, and the co-pilot, who was less experienced on the aircraft type than the captain, later recalled hearing the warning signals twice and said they were "silenced" by the captain.
According to the report, the co-pilot, who had a better view of the ground to his right, "repeatedly" advised the captain of height loss on the turn over Bishopstown, which "alarmed" many residents.
No safety recommendations are made in the report. It notes that the "experience gradient" between the two pilots in this case was "steep" but not unusual in day-to-day operations and "may have been a contributory factor in the [captain's] attitude to the co-pilot".
The co-pilot had tried to comply with Ryanair's training manual but his "inputs had little effect". The AAIU said this did not excuse the "aberrant deviation" from the airline's standard operating procedures in its approach and landing that day, however.
In a statement, Ryanair said it "co-operated fully with this AAIU investigation and agrees with its findings".
"Following a disciplinary hearing, the pilot in question was demoted for deviating from Ryanair's standard operating procedures."
Last month, the AAIU reported that a Ryanair flight with 138 passengers and six crew on board almost crashed near Knock when it "overshot" the runway and came way below the recommended flying level due to a series of errors.
Final report:
http://www.aaiu.ie/AAIUviewitem.asp?...g=ENG&loc=1652
http://www.aaiu.ie/upload/general/8770-0.pdf
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you get what u pay for...
"No safety recommendations are made in the report. It notes that the "experience gradient" between the two pilots in this case was "steep" but not unusual in day-to-day operations and "may have been a contributory factor in the [captain's] attitude to the co-pilot".
As good as saying...yes we accept that what we have in many aircraft is a virtual single crew operation but we consider that to be an acceptable state of affairs...
What's the matter CAA.... not enough blood spilt yet ?
"No safety recommendations are made in the report. It notes that the "experience gradient" between the two pilots in this case was "steep" but not unusual in day-to-day operations and "may have been a contributory factor in the [captain's] attitude to the co-pilot".
As good as saying...yes we accept that what we have in many aircraft is a virtual single crew operation but we consider that to be an acceptable state of affairs...
What's the matter CAA.... not enough blood spilt yet ?
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As usual, smart guys keep on shooting at other pilot's back. I saw experienced copilots or supposed so, giving negative inputs to young captains and contributing to serious incidents. So experience sometimes doesn't mean everything on its own. You need to add good CRM, A/C and OPs Manual knowledge. And that can be achieved by any pilot who is willing to do his homework.
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True SoftRide... experienced crews do have accidents but in this case there is, as the report states, a clear indication that the disparity in experience levels of the crew had a negative effect on CRM... Snotties parading around with three stripes on their arms a few months after bashing circuits as a FI are not going to have much influence on experienced capt's when the sh*t is close to the fan irrespective of how well they understand the FMS.... it's why we keep log books and why sensible employers ask for a minimum of relevent experience.
IMHO trying to keep the right hand seat warm with a frozen ATPL has always been a nonsense on anything but a small or medium sized a/c. It's strange that the European exams go to ridiculous lengths to ensure a minimum standard of academic qualifications compared to the relatively simple FAA system yet the larger companies in the US almost always take new recruites from the pool of experienced regional operators and thus end up with a far more practical candidate for the right hand seat.
IMHO trying to keep the right hand seat warm with a frozen ATPL has always been a nonsense on anything but a small or medium sized a/c. It's strange that the European exams go to ridiculous lengths to ensure a minimum standard of academic qualifications compared to the relatively simple FAA system yet the larger companies in the US almost always take new recruites from the pool of experienced regional operators and thus end up with a far more practical candidate for the right hand seat.
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I'm not familiar with the minutae of Ryanair's safety practices, but I'm sure I've read at Pprune in the past that, despite T&C disputes, management issues, starving FO's, and punishing rosters, the crew discipline at leading low-cost carriers is of a very high standard.
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Ryanair pilot demoted after incident
My Oh My!!! How times have changed. During the war years and for a considerable time thereafter. Britains aviators were generally a closed knit bunch of brothers often affectionately known as the Brylcreem Boys.
However, today when one reads PPrune it can safely be assumed the the aviators operating in the UK are more often than not a bunch of venomous, poison pen pushers, slating each other at every opportunity.
Gone are the days where there was some form of comraderie amoungst each other.
You should all be ashamed of yourselves
However, today when one reads PPrune it can safely be assumed the the aviators operating in the UK are more often than not a bunch of venomous, poison pen pushers, slating each other at every opportunity.
Gone are the days where there was some form of comraderie amoungst each other.
You should all be ashamed of yourselves
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ZS340
The camerarderie bred during the war years was largely a result of "Flying Together and Dying Together" safety was a secondary issue to getting the job done.... hardly the case in todays flying environment at least outside of the military.
Good CRM has to be based on mutual respect in the cockpit... respect comes with experience and as this report suggests the very correct protestations made by the inexperienced P2 were largely ignored by the Capt while under pressure....
Ryanair would appear to have a high turnover of flightcrew... it may be worth investigating the level of experience of their pilots compared to other companies and maybe even look again at the effects of multi-sector short haul operations over extended periods. One would expect that LCC's such as RyanAir would have more reportable incidents simply because of the many sectors that are flown each day..... we now have the least experienced crews flying the more demanding schedules.
The camerarderie bred during the war years was largely a result of "Flying Together and Dying Together" safety was a secondary issue to getting the job done.... hardly the case in todays flying environment at least outside of the military.
Good CRM has to be based on mutual respect in the cockpit... respect comes with experience and as this report suggests the very correct protestations made by the inexperienced P2 were largely ignored by the Capt while under pressure....
Ryanair would appear to have a high turnover of flightcrew... it may be worth investigating the level of experience of their pilots compared to other companies and maybe even look again at the effects of multi-sector short haul operations over extended periods. One would expect that LCC's such as RyanAir would have more reportable incidents simply because of the many sectors that are flown each day..... we now have the least experienced crews flying the more demanding schedules.
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Eh ZS with your comradrie and tribalism, the individual involved held a german atpl.....he would'nt have been part of your brillcream club!!
Anyway the folk at Cork reckon they had to climb out of the valley to land such was it they were so low.
Another lesson.....they did a right hand orbit with the Capt flying so he had'nt a clue where the rwy was on the right downwind, together with Cork being 502 AMSL and the terrain at 4 miles from the THR at say sea level, a real cocktail to get sucked into.
We all can f@ck it up but to do it twice is not on. If it was me I would have climbed to circuit alt of 2500' got radar vectors from Banon did the ILS and groveled to the F/O about overcookingthe first approach.
Ahh ....cant beat arm chair flying!!
Anyway the folk at Cork reckon they had to climb out of the valley to land such was it they were so low.
Another lesson.....they did a right hand orbit with the Capt flying so he had'nt a clue where the rwy was on the right downwind, together with Cork being 502 AMSL and the terrain at 4 miles from the THR at say sea level, a real cocktail to get sucked into.
We all can f@ck it up but to do it twice is not on. If it was me I would have climbed to circuit alt of 2500' got radar vectors from Banon did the ILS and groveled to the F/O about overcookingthe first approach.
Ahh ....cant beat arm chair flying!!
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First we have Flybe now Ryanair with near-CFIT incidents. So Ryanair 'demoted' the Captain who carried out this cowboy approach - twice!! What would he need to do to get sacked I wonder?
How can the authority accept such a person as a pilot in that airline? How can the management accept it? Or maybe he was 'management'?? Pathetic!
Doesnt matter how cheap it is, dont go there if you have any sense.
How can the authority accept such a person as a pilot in that airline? How can the management accept it? Or maybe he was 'management'?? Pathetic!
Doesnt matter how cheap it is, dont go there if you have any sense.
"..... and groveled to the F/O about overcookingthe first approach."
And why would you need to grovel? Being upfront about having got it wrong is NO reason to grovel. Admit your mistake, calmly and professionally and go-around. That way the chap in the other seat LEARNS something. If you grovel about it the FO thinks that admission is something to be avoided. And thats when incidents like these happen.
And why would you need to grovel? Being upfront about having got it wrong is NO reason to grovel. Admit your mistake, calmly and professionally and go-around. That way the chap in the other seat LEARNS something. If you grovel about it the FO thinks that admission is something to be avoided. And thats when incidents like these happen.
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My apologies Capt Bernoulli....grovelled is humbling...your right should and meant to have used the word apologised and got on with it.....lets get back to the orig point as against splitting hairs......basically 2 f@ck ups are inexcuseable.
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So here we go again. Yet again, we've sailed ever so close to the wind and once again, by extraordinary luck, there wasn't a smoking hole. However, the regulator has "no safety recommendations" to make. Which begs the question, exactly how much broken metal has to there to be before a proper and thorough audit of ryanair is done?
The simplistic answer, which is of course rIAAanair and assorted fellow travellers such as Leo would have us believe is the correct one, is that the pilots once again screwed up and that the company is squeky clean.
Were the IAA and ryanair not effectively the same organisation, someone might be asking the question as to why it is ryanair pilots that are regularly narrowly avoiding smearing aircraft across terra firma. Yes, ryanair is a big airline, with a lot of flights so statistically, things will happen. HOWEVER, there are many many other big airlines in Europe, of both the traditional and low-pay variety, who also have large numbers of daily flights but manage to avoid the regular monotonous procession of near-accidents.
This following is almost certainly the main cause. It is the ryanair rush and pressure mentality. Every minute extra on the ground counts because the turn-around is so tight and people are scared of being away late. The pressure, both implicit (rumours of threats, knowledge of supposed expectations etc) and explicit (don't board while refueling: get demoted; totally inadequate check-in times etc etc), is on you to never be late, never compromise the schedule.
The IAA claims to be unaware of this situation, which proves they are either monumentally incompetant or in league with ryanair. I suspect both.
The simplistic answer, which is of course rIAAanair and assorted fellow travellers such as Leo would have us believe is the correct one, is that the pilots once again screwed up and that the company is squeky clean.
Were the IAA and ryanair not effectively the same organisation, someone might be asking the question as to why it is ryanair pilots that are regularly narrowly avoiding smearing aircraft across terra firma. Yes, ryanair is a big airline, with a lot of flights so statistically, things will happen. HOWEVER, there are many many other big airlines in Europe, of both the traditional and low-pay variety, who also have large numbers of daily flights but manage to avoid the regular monotonous procession of near-accidents.
This following is almost certainly the main cause. It is the ryanair rush and pressure mentality. Every minute extra on the ground counts because the turn-around is so tight and people are scared of being away late. The pressure, both implicit (rumours of threats, knowledge of supposed expectations etc) and explicit (don't board while refueling: get demoted; totally inadequate check-in times etc etc), is on you to never be late, never compromise the schedule.
The IAA claims to be unaware of this situation, which proves they are either monumentally incompetant or in league with ryanair. I suspect both.
To my simple mind (and I hasten to add my qualifications as a mere Cherokee driver) this guy got himself into a situation that even I would have managed to avoid on a clear VFR day.
He appears to have strted with a too high approach, decided to try and save it by doing an orbit, made the mistake of making a RH orbit, from which he had trouble seeing where he was in respect of terrain avoidance and where his runway he was visually approaching was. He descended by 1,650 feet during his orbit (from 1,700 AAL to 50' AAL) became illegally low at less than 500' above a settlement and then had to climb hard towards rising ground (I guess that is why the residents complained about the noise) to establish a reasonable height to make a stable approach to land off.
I would have thought (based on what I have read) that there was a strong case for suspending his license, a prosecution for reckless endangerment and a breach of rule 5, as a minimum requiring serious re-training and a psych eval into why he thought he could discard so many of his SOPs and ignore all his CRM training. It is difficult to say as much unemotionally.
I also note (as was the case in the Knock incident) that the occurrence date and reporting date were almost a couple of weeks apart. Unfortunately (again) any CVR would have been long since overwritten when the investigators arrived.
It all strikes me as rather unsatisfactory.
He appears to have strted with a too high approach, decided to try and save it by doing an orbit, made the mistake of making a RH orbit, from which he had trouble seeing where he was in respect of terrain avoidance and where his runway he was visually approaching was. He descended by 1,650 feet during his orbit (from 1,700 AAL to 50' AAL) became illegally low at less than 500' above a settlement and then had to climb hard towards rising ground (I guess that is why the residents complained about the noise) to establish a reasonable height to make a stable approach to land off.
I would have thought (based on what I have read) that there was a strong case for suspending his license, a prosecution for reckless endangerment and a breach of rule 5, as a minimum requiring serious re-training and a psych eval into why he thought he could discard so many of his SOPs and ignore all his CRM training. It is difficult to say as much unemotionally.
I also note (as was the case in the Knock incident) that the occurrence date and reporting date were almost a couple of weeks apart. Unfortunately (again) any CVR would have been long since overwritten when the investigators arrived.
It all strikes me as rather unsatisfactory.
Last edited by Dave Gittins; 31st Jan 2007 at 12:57. Reason: My carp spelling
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I also note (as was the case in the Knock incident) that the occurrence date and reporting date were almost a couple of weeks apart.
Makes one wonder what else hasn't been reported. Does anyone else find it truly disturbing that the "safety culture" perpetuated by ryanair seems to operate on the premise that even the most serious incidents are not reported until they can be covered up no longer? Even more shocking (but, based on the record so far, not exactly unbelievable) the IAA find this behaviour acceptable.
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Ryanair pilot demoted after incident
Folks I am not condoning poor operational procedures for one moment. I am also not comparing the operational standards of the various carriers. The Big names in the industry have had their fare share of c .....ups in the past. Hopefully we all learnt from those mistakes.
What gets my hair up is the cynical, bitchiness that one reads continually on this PPrune. C'mon you're suppossed to be commanders (OR POTENTIAL COMMANDERS) of commercial aircraft, not cheerleaders in a school netball team.
Now Grow up!
What gets my hair up is the cynical, bitchiness that one reads continually on this PPrune. C'mon you're suppossed to be commanders (OR POTENTIAL COMMANDERS) of commercial aircraft, not cheerleaders in a school netball team.
Now Grow up!
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As someone with over 10000 hrs in command of transport jet aircraft I still manage to @#%& up the occasional approach. The key is to use your experience to recognize your mistakes early and not push a bad position.
I agree that we should not be so quick to criticise and try to be more supportive of our fellow aviators, however with media reporting the way it is and the internet reporting every rumor, we all end up paying the price for each others mistakes. As a community we are viewed as one by the travelling public. A mistake by one of us, tarnishes the reputation of all of us.
I agree that we should not be so quick to criticise and try to be more supportive of our fellow aviators, however with media reporting the way it is and the internet reporting every rumor, we all end up paying the price for each others mistakes. As a community we are viewed as one by the travelling public. A mistake by one of us, tarnishes the reputation of all of us.
As sombody whose experience is limited to SEPs and as you can see my age and realise I am hardly likely to end up commanding anything approaching a jet transport ... my point is that am in a group that probably makes more lousy appraches than most - and thus is probably more forgiving of genuine mistakes and misjudgements - but it seems to me that what happened at Cork would get a member of my flying club a chat with the CFI without biscuits. And possibly even have him phoning Flying Lawyer to defend himself against Rule 5 and the CAA.