You've got to be kidding!

[Hambone]

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ntsb-delta- ... orce-base/

[MackAttack]

It actually happens more often than you think with the airlines ... Especially at night or in low IFR. Guys are vectored in by ATC, report having runway in sight and then notice that they are off the GPS course slightly but they ignore it because the see the lights straight ahead ... What they don't notice is an extra flash of white on the beacon!

Usually the pilots realize their issue and abort/miss before they actually land.

[FastEddieB]

Approaching Opa Locka at night from the west, it was not uncommon to see pilots line up with the lights on the Palmetto Expressway, which were much brighter than the runway lights on 9L.

Any pilot who thinks it could never happen to them is setting themselves up for a fall. It's happened to better pilots than they!

[Wm.Ince]

[Hambone]

Any pilot who thinks it could never happen to them is setting themselves up for a fall. It's happened to better pilots than they!

But there are two ATP-certified pilots up there! There's no excuse for such incompetence, especially on a major carrier.

And what were the controllers doing? Heads should roll.

[FastEddieB]

Any pilot who thinks it could never happen to them is setting themselves up for a fall. It's happened to better pilots than they!

There's no excuse for such incompetence...

We'll put you down as the kind of pilot that could never make a mistake like this.

Too bad the airlines can't only hire pilots like you!

[Hambone]

One pilot's mistake, maybe. But two? Buffoonery. And it's not just the pilots.

Where's approach control? Or Rapid City Regional tower monitoring an aircraft that's been cleared to land there? Or Ellsworth tower, as an unidentified aircraft lands unchallenged at a nuclear-capable base?

It's Keystone Kops and, in my opinion, sheer incompetence that indicates how desperate the airlines are to fill cockpits.

The flying public deserves better.

[drseti]

The flying public deserves better.

The flying public deserves only what it's willing to pay for, in either ticket costs or taxes -- no more, no less. That said, the public deserves better than what it's getting from Congress these days -- and that criticism applies to both sides of the aisle.

[FastEddieB]

I would just like to address two words used, without it seeming like I'm attacking a person.

"Incompetence" and "buffoonery" are the words.

This is a pretty broad statement, but I have observed that those with the least amount of experience are the quickest to cast aspersions when other pilots come to grief*. Those with the most tend to want to see the bigger picture of how things like this can happen to professional pilots who are clearly not incompetent buffoons.

A friend recently posted this to Facebook:



Anyway, best to consider where a given pilot might fall on that spectrum. If anything, "wrong airport" landings by professional flight crews might best be looked at as creeping "complacency" - not idiocy nor buffoonery nor incompetency.

If I'm wrong about the experience level of those casting aspersions, then so be it. Just a general observation, as I prefaced these statements



*I recall a past member of this site calling the Asiana flight crew "idiots" for their SF mishap. At that point he had less than 100 hours, and I'm not sure he even had his license. It was ludicrous to see him pontificate on a professional flight crew's shortcomings when he knew virtually nothing about visual approaches in jets, CRM or the traps that can befall even the best pilots.

[Half Fast]

Neat graphic, Eddie, but the complacency arrow doesn't go down far enough, since it stops at competence. Complacency leads to performance equivalent to unconscious incompetence.

I'd also add that the complacency arrow can start at any of the competence levels. In nearly all activities, there's a dangerous level where the competent neophyte assesses his skills as greater than they are and becomes complacent to risks. I've seen it in scuba diving, auto racing, and motorcycles, so I'd be very surprised if it didn't occur in aviation as well.

[Wm.Ince]

*I recall a past member of this site calling the Asiana flight crew "idiots" for their SF mishap. At that point he had less than 100 hours, and I'm not sure he even had his license. It was ludicrous to see him pontificate on a professional flight crew's shortcomings when he knew virtually nothing about visual approaches in jets, CRM or the traps that can befall even the best pilots.

I recall that knucklehead also. What a piece of work.
In my short 68 years, I never before came across someone who knew so little about aviation . . . but claimed to know so much. In aviation, I'd say that's a dangerous disposition.

[MrMorden]

I can totally see how this happens, especially at night. You are on course, following ATC directions, you expect to see a runway, and there it is! It's a little left/right of where you thought it should be, but oh well. You're cleared to land and just...land. You are not on the freq for the other airport, so even if they are asking WTF you are doing, you can't hear them, so you are fat, dumb, and happy!

On my first really long cross country, going to Lockwood Aviation at KSEF (about 420nm from me), I was following my GPS, lined up with the airport. To the left was a restricted Air Force airspace, so I made sure to stay out of it. When I god close enough I started looking for the airport. There it was, just a little left of where I expected. So I started to make for it when I saw on the GPS that I was getting close to the restricted space...I double checked everything and realized I was pointed at the Air Force base, and Sebring was another 5 miles ahead.

I caught my mistake in plenty of time and corrected it, but it brought home to me just how easy it is to be one of those "idiots" who "has no excuse for that kind of mistake."

[Wm.Ince]

*I recall a past member of this site calling the Asiana flight crew "idiots" for their SF mishap. At that point he had less than 100 hours, and I'm not sure he even had his license. It was ludicrous to see him pontificate on a professional flight crew's shortcomings when he knew virtually nothing about visual approaches in jets, CRM or the traps that can befall even the best pilots.

"In my short 68 years, I've never before come across someone who knew so little about aviation . . . but claimed to know so much."

Sounds familiar.

I thought you would think so.

[zaitcev]

*I recall a past member of this site calling the Asiana flight crew "idiots" for their SF mishap. At that point he had less than 100 hours, and I'm not sure he even had his license. It was ludicrous to see him pontificate on a professional flight crew's shortcomings when he knew virtually nothing about visual approaches in jets, CRM or the traps that can befall even the best pilots.

They are still idiots though. Everyone else makes these approaches without fail, so how hard can it be, for an ATP? The most idiotic part of the Asiana 214 debacle was that two years later another Asiana crew replicated the whole thing in Hirosima (IIRC, nobody died in that one, although the aircraft was a total loss). That tells you everything you need to know about the training program and the safety culture at Asiana.

[Nomore767]

*I recall a past member of this site calling the Asiana flight crew "idiots" for their SF mishap. At that point he had less than 100 hours, and I'm not sure he even had his license. It was ludicrous to see him pontificate on a professional flight crew's shortcomings when he knew virtually nothing about visual approaches in jets, CRM or the traps that can befall even the best pilots.

They are still idiots though. Everyone else makes these approaches without fail, so how hard can it be, for an ATP? The most idiotic part of the Asiana 214 debacle was that two years later another Asiana crew replicated the whole thing in Hirosima (IIRC, nobody died in that one, although the aircraft was a total loss). That tells you everything you need to know about the training program and the safety culture at Asiana.

If I remember correctly the SFO accident was a 'training' flight, as in...as other airlines do, at the completion of the training program on a new airplane the trainee will fly with a check airman. To me the worst part of the SFO accident was that no-one, including the training captain, took charge and flew the airplane. Perhaps it was a cultural thing in the cockpit. Typically accidents are the sum of multiple thing that combined together produce an adverse outcome.

At the end of most rating rides on a new airliner, typically all conducted in a full motion simulator, the check pilot/designee will switch off auto-throttle, auto-pilots, auto-brakes, flight directors etc and tell the student...'just land on that runway'. The trainee having completed 10 days of intensive sim sessions doing CAT 1, 2 and 3a/b approaches to low IFR which require all the automation and cannot be hand flown, are now required to mentally configure the airplane not knowing the distance to threshold, desired glide path, based on visual cues that they're still in the process of acquiring. In actuality, it's pretty demanding, certainly more so than you'd think. in a simulator where the visuals are good but..

Typically, at an airport like SFO, ATC will have you speed up, slow down then carry a higher speed closer in, for traffic separation. Such that you can't deploy flaps as you want due to higher speed limits. ATC often has you descend onto the glideslope from above as well as swap runways and now land on the left as opposed to the right. The crew is required to brief the changes and ensure the crew is in the loop, all while trying to slow down a highly efficient wing and jockeying speed brakes, throttles etc all so as to please the check pilot and keep it smooth for the passengers. The check airman still wants 'a stabilized approach'!
A training pilot is tasked with making it a teachable moment as well as being responsible for the safety of the airplane and its passengers. This is not to excuse what happened with Asiana.

Its easy to second guess those flying in the airline environment, but take a moment to 'fly in their shoes'.

Another forum (where the 'problem poster', who used to post here) has the resident idiot extolling his vast wisdom on all things aeronautical , yet is a pretty low time VFR only pilot. He has written of how he almost ran out of fuel ( I don't think he fully realized what he was saying), how the chute will always save him, and the latest...how he is safe to fly at higher altitudes in his new turbo powered airplane...because he's factory trained and is personally 'acclimated' to living in a higher elevation part of the country. If you disagree with him, and he's always right, then you're an old has been. To him metal is inferior to composite, his plane is best, because he..well, he just knows better than anyone else. He's read "Flying for Dummies".

"Idiots" is a strong term. However, then I read about GA pilots who crash an expensive airplane because they simply ran out of fuel in day VFR. Pilot lands with the gear up. Saw a guy recently who hand propped an airplane which then promptly ran into two other airplanes and all three were totaled.

Exactly...'how hard can it be?".