VS 3 turnback
 

Any idea why the VS 3 turned back to LHR yesterday?

The Pilots had just finished a discussion rating the top three Cabin Crew so the FO asked about a bit of line training chat as it was his 4th sector? There was a silence, the Capt said he wasn't a line trainer and back to LHR they went.

There is a rumour floating around that it was a rostering error. I won’t repeat the rumour as I’ve heard it third hand and it might be wrong.

ATB

LD

Slightly more than a rostering error heading out over the Atlantic before you realise the FOs on his 4th sector ad the Capt isn't a trainer.

I would normally have a chat in crew room with any pilot I had not met before to gauge their character and experience. Do they not talk to each other at VA or are they too worried about people being "I am what I am", no questions asked.

Not the first time this has happened. I would’ve carried on and then demand extra pay!
I expect the return leg would be delayed a day though.

Next time you see an EK captain with a small star added to his four-bar epaulets and his coat sleeves ask him if he knows how that star became a necessary feature. Entertaining story.

Pls entertain us then...! What happened?

Maybe decades ago, some guy working airport security, or a military passenger, who had the right combination of stripes was taken for a crew member and once the captain discovered he did not have an FO, he decided to go on with it and an airplane mechanic with a rank that happened to have the right stripes became the FO of a long haul flight ?

Pure guess here

:D:D:D:D:D Fantastic!!!!!

Thank you.

Call Ops. Explain the situation and tell them either a field-promotion to Line Trainer (extra pay I presume) or you are returning. Oh to be a fly on the wall as the cat is let loose.

Surely there is not that much of a difference safety wise between returning or carrying on at that stage. Probably returning involves a higher workload if anything. Why not get authorisation, continue and sort it out at destination?

Agreed with regard to the outbound sector but I guess the problem is if there isn't a spare :ooh: trainer at destination how do you repatriate the trainee?

If this really occurred it's obviously a major Oooops but I can sort of see how it happened, especially if the trainee was half way competent during the departure phase.

As I recall things once upon a time, not at VA but at a Big Airline with no 'crew room', Long Haul ops, minimum time report ..... you rocked up on time, found the AN Other on your roster and got on with the job - there wasn't much time for 20 social questions until airborne beyond "where did you come in from?" and "do you need landing"?

I guess over the years we all made the assumption (yes I know....) that if scheduling had put you together as a crew all was legit...I think questions only got asked if somebody had been called out at short notice, most especially if OMLs etc might be in play.

Helpfully the crew list at my airline has an N next to a crew member who is in training or new to the line.

Just curious.
What would a Training Capt. have done, except instruct, that a Capt could not do?

Be allowed to permit an unqualified pilot to occupy a crew seat on a commercial flight.

How random…

That raises concerns with more NAAs than necessary, right? I think your home one is bad enough.

Something similar happened a few years ago in BA Connect. FO half way through line training and Capt wasn't a trainer. They made the phone call after arriving at destination and the Captain asked for a field promotion to get home but it was declined.

Don't tell me; they had to get a train home from LFLX and then a ferry.

We had a chat about being presented with this on my last flight, and things are so chaotic at the moment that it seems well within the bounds of possibility. It did look a rare event with very little consequence (for safety), so in the bottom corner of a risk analysis. Pretty much guaranteed to get the regulator hot under the collar, though!

I do recall, from memory only and I do not have the references to hand, that it is an EASA (and consequently UK) requirement that the Captain checks the FO's license before flight. Maybe that regulation was designed to catch exactly this type of oversight.

MM

I just re-read the "duties of the commander" section in our operating manual (EASA approved commercial operator). It does not mention anything like that and I have never heard about it either nor have I ever seen flight crews cross-checking each other's licenses.
Anyway, the supervision status of a crewmember can not be found in the license. The only way I could possibly find out about my colleagues status is to call the operations manager or the training manager.

I think carrying on to destination would have opened up a whole load of worms / legal questions - It is after all a minimum no of two qualified pilots required. A previous airline that was absorbed by Big Airlines rostered me to fly two sectors on A B737 once - when I phoned crewing and explained I was Airbus qualified and never even sat in the cockpit of a 737, they still didnt see it as much of a problem

Walking out to at well known British built three engine jet and the young Second Officer suggested he was going to do manual ILS’s on the next two sectors. I suggested it was “normal” to ask the “senior” co-pilot as to which sectors he wished to operate P2, he seemed a bit confused and then it dawned on me….Are you under training? Yes was the response.

The Captain (not a trainer) got involved and we marched back to Queens Building. He suggested to the crew controller there was a problem with his S/O perhaps not being qualified.

The controller stated if the second officer was under training there would be a training file in his cabinet… hey presto… there it was…



Shortly followed by… “Would F/O Bloggs (airport standby) please ring crew control”.. the rest of the day was uneventful.

The beeb have picked it up ....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-61332456

I do recall (from memory only) that the UK is not an EASA member state. There is a working arrangement, due to a process called Brexit. :E

In any case he would already have the type rating on his license before commencing line training. What he appears to have been missing was a final line check. It says somewhere that the FO joined in 2017 so even with Covid was quite probably an experienced Airbus pllot converting to the A350.

It is a serious administrative error like flying with an out of date medical and will rightly attract some attention from the authorities.

The amount of initial operating experience required also varies widely between companies and of course countries. The USA I have heard tell makes IOE pretty quick. Some companies I know of in Europe can take many months to get people through their line training. Of course not everyone passes or achieves the required proficiency in the standard time.

Perhaps our rostering software is somehow unique in this, but crew still in the training phase will have a (T) added behind their names in the crew list. And line trainers acting as instructor on that specific leg will have a capital i (I) added to indicate they are instructing. It is of course only as foolproof as the newest fool in crew control, or flight crew paying attention to those details, but still.

Very easy to see if flight deck crew is new, or to take some extra time into account if they are performing training in the cabin etc.

What exactly will he have looked for in this instance?

Soon in the e-learning platform near you ...
... Operations Staff Refresher Course CAT.GEN.MPA.180

'Journey log' shall contain "duty assignment of crew member(s)" [AMC1 ORO.MLR.100 (a) (4)]

The Captain realized that FO is an actual "Virgin".

I have a question regarding exactly this topic. Once I succeeded my skill test and then my base training, my license was issued the very next day. (maybe even just after the skill test, I forgot)
So, what would prevent me from operating as a first officer on that day ? When I finished my line training and succeeded the line check, nothing on my license changed.
This means that the airline could roster somebody halfway through line training on a normal line flight, chances are everything would go well, and even if there was a CAA check, the licence would be valid. They would not be able to see problem, would they ?

I guess that the flight might not be insured if the F/O had not passed their final line check, (or the training paperwork had not been updated to say they had), or if a training F/O was flying with a standard Cap rather than a TRI or TRE?

I can quite see how a mix-up could happen. The F/O, during their line training, would naturally assume the Cap was a TRE, so wouldn't ask*, or offer any information, unless it came out in normal conversation. And a non-TRE Cap would not ever think their F/O was a trainee. I have never known anyone check licences apart from a TRE doing a line check, or in the Sim.


*Wouldn't go down very well if they did ask to see the TRE's licence !!

The company in question would be in breach of their OM-D which is a CAA audited approved and controlling document

You do not need to be TRI or TRE in order to perform the duty of a line training captain. So, just like with a first officer under supervision, nothing will be entered in your license. This whole flying under supervision thing is company specific and not easily visible outside the company (and as in this case: not even inside the company). In the previous company I flew for I got "promoted" to line training captain by a phone call the night before a flight when they could not find another qualified captain for a newly hired FO.

Only one fully qualified pilot?
 

If the FO is new and not fully qualified, is it the case that there should be a third pilot on the flight deck? If the captain is incapacitated, it makes no odds whether he/she is a qualified trainer - or am I missing something here?

What is your definition of "fully qualified"? In EASA-land (perhaps different elsewhere) an FO needs to be type rated and checked-out on the aircraft before he is allowed to fly inside a commercial operation. The type rating course as well as the checkrides include one or more "crewmember incapacitation" details where the pilot must demonstrate that he can operate and land the airplane on his own. And then there are many aircraft types with not enough room in the cockpit for a third pilot. Not in this case of course.

The challenging Q is: Would anybody (an XAA during a routine platform paper check ?) have found, when they had kept their mouth shut and/or not found out themselves ?

Of course, in case of a dang, this would have been an item in the report.