Crash-Cork Airport

[BOAC]

Shell Companies in Nigeria (SCiN) have a superb safety record

- assisted by the odd out-of-court (non-aviation) settlement, of course.
Secret papers 'show how Shell targeted Nigeria oil protests' - Americas, World - The Independent

Maybe a lesson for airlines in how to handle unrest amongst passengers? Is that your point?

[Spitoon]

Shell Companies in Nigeria (SCiN) have a superb safety record. Despite working in an extremely demanding environment , they have had just one air accident in 25 years and that was a production defect on a helicopter component, and no injuries at all.

I really don't know why I'm bothering to respond to a post by SM - I guess I'll have to put it down the glass of wine. But...

Anyone who knows anything about safety knows that it's not about the number of accidents you have.....

[justanotherflyer]

Thats the model the oil industry uses.

A model that fell apart in the Gulf of Mexico.

[kappa]

And the model BP used at the Texas City refinery.. and the list goes on and on.....

[Big Pistons Forever]

As predicted by myself and others the day after the accident, this accident was caused by the decision of the commander to bust minimums. It is just one of more example of how lethal this practice is. Yes this was your below average crap small t-prop operator, flying an old beater with an abused and inexperienced crew but the aircraft was working normally when it was flown into the ground.

To all you young guys/gals flying on your first real air transport job .....This can happen to you !!!!

No matter what the company pressure is on you, you must resist the temptation to bend on the 4 perennial killers
-bust minimums
-fly over gross
-not carry enough fuel
-fly an aircraft with a non MEL-able snag.

When I started my commercial flying career, I got a piece of vary good advice.

When in doubt the order of importance influencing your decision should be

Ass-----License----Job.

[757_Driver]

When in doubt the order of importance influencing your decision should be

Ass-----License----Job.

Couldn't agree more.

And this is why (despite all the people defending the employment actions of ryanair etc) there shouldn't be people on a flight deck with unsustainable training debt loads, working for peanuts who are absolutely reliant on that employer, and the effects of even a short time out of work would be devastating.

Put people like that on a flight deck and you've already lined up a couple of hole in the cheese. You've taken out the last human safety net that could resist commercial pressure from an unscrupulous management.

Its high time that regulators realised that there is a significant flight safety link with peoples employment status, debts etc.

[Right Way Up]

Its high time that regulators realised that there is a significant flight safety link with peoples employment status, debts etc.

The problem is that the majority of regulators are in bed with the companies in the first place. You just have to look at the EASA FTL proposals to see how bad it has become!

[Mr Angry from Purley]

Right Way Up
Any idea what the differences were between the Spanish FTL scheme and now sub part Q?. Is SPQ now more restrictive?....
I suspect under Spanish FTL you could do a 14hr day?..
Maybe as a F/O the newly promoted Captain had flown into such weather as a F/O and was pressurised to try the same as a Captain. Don't know never will unfortunately..

[757_Driver]

Maybe as a F/O the newly promoted Captain had flown into such weather as a F/O and was pressurised to try the same as a Captain. Don't know never will unfortunately..

Hopefully we will - a decent accident investigation will dig that up.
this crossair crash - Crossair Flight 3597 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - (which was also CFIT caused by going below minimums) was featured on discovery channel in air crash investigation recently and they dug up the captains history right back to initial flight training school - and it wasn't pretty.
The point being that, that sort of stuff is exactly what they look to dig up.

[Daermon ATC]

Here is a spanish article relating to this. Apparently the spanish safety agency AESA has got very negative feedback from Brussels due to this as there seems to be a lack of inspections (this company had not been inspected since at least 2005) coupled with a certain lack of transparency.

The article then goes on about many inspections carried out by personnel not legaly cualified to perform them (employees of Senasa, a state-owned company, but not technically employees of the state).

Has anybody got the original link to the comuniquee where AESA is so severely rebuked?

[player104]

Pilot hanged himself ‘because he felt guilty over Cork crash' - Northern Ireland, Local & National - Belfasttelegraph.co.uk

[overun]

Do you have to post that ?

He wasn`t even connected to the company at the time.

[SloppyJoe]

It is such a shame that this guy hanged himself. Guilt can be caused for many reasons and I expect he flew with this Captain a lot before his upgrade and fateful flight to Cork. Now this may be controversial and I am not suggesting this guy did operate poorly but I know I would feel guilty if I had been a CN operating below mins making it seem ok to an FO who then became a CN and crashed operating below mins.

If only this guy had talked about what happened in this company, it would help the investigation and probably himself also.

Such a shame.

[overun]

l know, what a shame.

ln the real world innocent people died. Now that is obtuse.

[Sunnyjohn]

Do You Have to Post that?

I see your point. Overun, and i feel the same as you about such a tragedy. However, I do believe that this event might help towards an understanding of the Cork Accident. It seems highly significant to me that this ex-crew member, Oliver Lee, had commented to parents and friends that:
"He believed it would never have happened if he was at the controls, as he was familiar with foggy conditions in Cork."
The report goes on to say that he knew the Spanish pilot well and also commented that the pilot did not take over despite three go-arounds. It seems to me that Oliver Lee was implying, by stating that he would either have diverted or successfully flown into Cork, that neither of the two crew were able to cope with the conditions at Cork due to lack of experience.

Apologies for an SLF breaking into this thoughtful and for the most part carefully-considered thread. I am an ex-aircraft engineer and studied human factors in catastrophic failures as part of my degree.

[rabcnesbitt]

BBC Radio 4 Face The Facts

BBC - BBC Radio 4 Programmes - Face the Facts, 04/05/2011 12:30 today Wednesday 4th May

[27/09]

He believed it would never have happened if he was at the controls, as he was familiar with foggy conditions in Cork

Did he really say this?

Fog is fog, at Cork or anywhere else, either you have the right conditions to land or you don't, to say because he was familiar with the fog at Cork and therefore the outcome would have been different if he had been flying implies to me me that he thought he could have landed safely when the other crew couldn't. This to my mind doesn't make any sense.

[Admiral346]

This to my mind doesn't make any sense.

It does to me.
It is a textbook CRM syndrome. "I can do it, while noone else can", "I have superior flying skills" and so on is a clear showing of overconfidence in oneself. If thoughts like this cross your mind (if they haven't yet, they sure will some day), take a step back, better two, and face the reality that you are nobody special, just a pilot, a human with all the psychological and physiological deficiancies inherent to us all.
That this tragic pilot commented on himself to having been able to fly this approach shows over-selfconfidence and also prooves the practice of busting minima "I know how to do it safely!".
It cannot be done safely, by noone, by no check test shuttle pilot, because minima themselves contain the definition of safety. It is safe to descend to minima, it is therefore unsafe to continue below without seeing the RWY or ALS.
I am saddened that he took his life, but I am also certain that depression had it's claws on him and took him, just as thousands are taken by this terrible illness that is still tabooed, especially in our profession. It can be treated, it doesn't have to take away family and friends, as it has for me.

[chrisN]

Did he necessarily mean that he could have flown it when others couldn’t, or did he mean that he knew that a diversion might be necessary and would have used that option?

Whichever, a sad addition to the already tragic event.

[Herc708]

There is a sub-issue in here - was it appropriate for this unfortunate individual, who took his own life, to be flying for either the Spanish airline or potentially Jet2

It seems to me that the person may have been under severe financial pressure because he can't have been making any money from the Spanish airline and would be paying up front for a Jet2 rating to be followed by some sort of part-time contract on rubbish money

I am no medical expert, but I cannot imagine someone going from a reasonable person to suicidal in such a short space of time since the unfortuate incident in Cork. In addition, to have made it through the Jet2 recruitment process is a bit surprising given the many hoops that have to be jumped to get to the point where you have to cough up for your rating

It also proves that pilots (who did the Jet2 interviews) are not qualified or entitled to ask inappropriate questions about personality etc. These are best left to a psychiatrist. When I applied for a cleaning job at Aer Lingus, in addition to being screened by 2 cleaners and an HR bod, I spent some time with the company psychiatrist who ventured into my personality. It was some time ago - but needless to say I am not cleaning Aer Lingus aircraft