Holy ****. That's seemed unbelievable until the post-landing footage. I don't mean because the reenactment was animated, but because the scenario seemed too far-fetched to be real.

I kinda laughed at one part. No, don't let the captain go not because he is an esteemed colleague who I want to save unless it's a last resort. Don't let him go because his body might further damage the plane.

At the 4:30 mark, the caption says that the FO decides on Gatwick. But then he lands at Southampton.

I remember hearing about this incident before. It's the stuff of nightmares and amazing that the Captain survived. Imagine hanging out of the cockpit that way, unable to help in any way.

I guess they thought he was dead when they were contemplating letting him go. I hope.

That is an amazing scenario. I can't believe the Captain made it and was flying again just five months later.

So did the "Christmas miracle" happen and are you now flying again?

If not, sure to happen early in the new year.

Sadly, no.

I've been calling the FAA in Oklahoma City every week (I set a reminder on my phone for this task) and I get the same answer every time: "Your case is still waiting for review." They've had my paperwork since October 12th. Fortunately, the disability payments continue to arrive.

Bathroom denial preceded couple's outburst during MSP flight

The flight captain twice said over the intercom that the people in back needed to return to their seats. His orders ignored, the captain warned,  "If you don’t sit down, we’re going to turn the flight around" .

Question - Other than in the car with children, have you ever threatened to "turn this plane around"?

No, I've never said that. And the times I've landed at an airport other than my intended destination, it was due to a weather, mechanical or medical issue. I'd love to know "the rest of the story" because I would never take this action because of someone ignoring the seatbelt sign to use the lav. I mean, if you gotta go you gotta go, right?

My guess is that flight attendants did their job of telling the woman that she needed to stay seated and then the passenger became abusive and it escalated. Although I have the authority to divert a flight (or RTB), I know that I'll have to be able to justify that decision, so it certainly isn't a decision made lightly.

This just might be my favorite thread on 2+2. I get very excited every time it gets bumped.

Ive aways been very intrigued by aviation in general and just recently was gifted an introductory lessen where I got to fly a small Cessna 4 seater for 30 minutes. Such an amazing experience. I've always wondered what it would be like to sit up with the pilots during a flight and see what they get to see, the controls etc.

Best of luck to you in 2017 on getting back in the pilots seat and back up in the air soon.

Had not seen this incident discussed. Somewhat sobering given my recent flight from LAX to TPE.

Sounds like it was almost a controller induced CFIT, but I would think that the aircraft had GPWS, which would warn the pilots of the rising terrain.

I've been in and out of LAX about 100 times and never taken off or landed in that direction. I assume traffic was going in that direction due to weather? (I've heard of the incident but didn't read the story since latimes won't let me read without disabling my ad blocker, which I'm not going to do).

I have a follow-up on this. I noticed on the LAX-TPE flight we did not fly the most direct route, i.e., a great circle arc, we possibly could. We first flew north along the coast to San Francisco. Then we took a heading that was a great circle arc to Japan, not Taiwan. Once we reached Japan, we then turned and headed straight for Taiwan. Why not fly directly to Taiwan?

What time of day do you usually come through? I've taken off in that direction a few times. I've landed in that direction more often though, almost always at night. Generally it's due to wind during the day.

At night I heard it might be a noise abatement measure regardless of wind. That doesn't make sense to me, because it seems a plane taking off is noisier than one landing. So if you want to reduce noise it seems like you'd keep the planes taking off over the ocean.

I have a bit of a next level flying anxiety question. I know this sounds a bit silly to an aviation professional, but let's say that one has a very flexible schedule and large amounts of airmiles that allow you to change flights for ~free (costs something like 20 euros with our national carrier). I also generally hate flying/am always anxious, but find myself able to man up and stand 99% of aviation weather without being a complete wreck. But those couple of times the weather has been REALLY terrible though... well, it was nightmare-inducing terrible. (3 out of ~400 flights come to mind, one was during a tropical cyclone in Asia, one during Hurricane Sandy, and the third one just randomly had 3 hours straight of insane turbulence and ended up diverting.)

ANYWAY so let's say that for the aforementioned reasons I can change my flights for pretty much no cost/harm, and I'd like to have a way to find out in advance if there is something truly, ridiculously terrible ahead on our route. I've been looking at sites like turbulenceforecast.com and random weather satellites but I have a hard time differentiating the level of how bad it would be from these images. For example looking at this map:



Let's say the red line is our flight path. I assume that the cloud-shaped thing means bad weather, and FL480 means flight level 48k feet (?) etc. The rest I don't understand. I'd have no problem flying into "standard" bad weather that almost always seems to be present around the equator and especially Indonesia, but my question is how could I differentiate "another day at the office" from a genuine worst weather of the year by looking at these pictures? What do the things I circled (the black triangles and the XXXs) mean?

And yes I obviously know that you can never fully predict anything in advance, but given how captains often warn us in advance about bad weather enroute etc they must have some way of knowing when it's bad and when it's not. So if there are any resources for us mere mortals to figure out in advance when it's (likely) going to be 100/100 terrible, it'd be awesome. Oh and, I don't need a lecture about how pilots always fly around the worst weather anyway and how it's all perfectly safe etc, this is just purely a convenience issue. Like the time we flew (seemingly) into the cyclone, I would gladly have paid 20 euros and spent another couple of days in my destination to avoid that. I just assumed that it wouldn't be that bad, but in hindsight if there would've been a weather map to look at indicating the severity of that in advance I would've snap changed flights.

Not asking about any specific flight route fwiw, this is just something I've been thinking about lately. Thanks and I hope your recovery is still going well & you'll be up in the air soon!

Sounds like you aren't a USA#1 friend, but https://www.aviationweather.gov is a good resource for those in the states. Particularly the pireps (pilot reports of en route conditions) and turbulence forecasts. If you are going through an area with lots of moderate/severe turbulence reports, it's pretty certain to be a bit bumpy.

Wouldn't personally base my decision to fly on that (leave that to the pros in the front seats) but data is data. Not sure if something like that exists in the rest of the world, but possibly search Google for pireps in your area.

So this sign was hanging on the controls of a Delta Shuttle CRJ9 yesterday morning. Pilot sat down and threw it to the side. I asked the FA what that meant and she said she has no idea what goes on in the flight deck. Was I in danger or is that standard maintenance stuff?

That pilot is 100% in the wrong (unless he had already talked to a mechanic and knew they were done with their work, which is entirely possible). When that placard is hanging on the throttles, it means that maintenance "owns" the plane for the time being. The pilots shouldn't touch any switch in the cockpit until cleared to do so my maintenance. I might put my flight bag in the cockpit (outboard of my seat), but that's about it. My first order of business would be to find a mechanic and see what's going on with the plane.

When I was a flight engineer on the 727, I once entered the cockpit and started doing my preflight checks (without sitting down), which included cycling the hydraulic pumps to check for proper operation. It wasn't until flipping the switches for the pumps that I glanced to my left and saw the maintenance placard. My heart leapt into my throat and I immediately turned the pumps off.

I left the cockpit and saw that the galley door was open (not unusual, since that's how commissary gains access for putting food and beverages on board). I poked my head out of the galley door and looked aft towards the main landing gear, where I saw about three mechanics working in the wheel well with the main gear door hanging open. They were all looking at me and we all knew what I had done (they had heard the whine of the pumps right near them when I flipped the switches).

Let me tell just how serious that was. When they need to work on the landing gear, they often drop the main gear door to provide better access. That large, very heavy, door is hydraulically actuated and my stupid action of turning on the pumps could have, under the right circumstances, caused that large door to slam shut under 3000 psi of hydraulic pressure. It could have killed or injured all three of those men. They knew it and I knew it. And that's why there's a placard in the cockpit. (The reason I got away with this is that they had engaged a hydraulic bypass lever near the gear door which removed all pressure, or possibility of pressure, from that door.) I went out in person and begged forgiveness.

Sorry not to answer sooner, but I really don't know the reason. I have no experience with trans-Pacific flights, but if it's anything like trans-Atlantic, we have defined "tracks" for use in making the crossing so that portion of the flight might not coincide with the great circle to your destination.

Other than that, weather considerations also come into play, both avoidance of convective activity (more common crossing the Pacific than the Atlantic) and to take advantage of the most favorable winds aloft. Lastly, there could be political airspace boundaries that are being observed.

WOXOF

Found this thread a couple months ago and have read the first 5000 posts. I just wanted to tell you that you are one of the nicest guys in the world. On the level of Jesus, the Dali Lama and Bob Ross. You have repeatedly told people that their question isn't dumb. Also the time and effort you have put into this this thread are amazing. Just let me say Thank You for some of the best reading on the internet. It has actually made me contemplate trying a first time fly along at my local airport.

Once again from the PAX in the back Thanks.

This was eventually investigated by local media. Apparently they are doing "touch and go" practice, so over the main part of the city they are just turning, hence they aren't oriented towards the runway.



I've seen them further in that on this map too.

I'm amazed there isn't a more significant Lock-Out/Tag-Out. I would think that would violate OSHA requirements.

OP,

First off, excellent thread. I've been following and reading for years. Any insight you can provide into the job of an ATC? My girlfriend has in the initial stages of going to the training school in OKC (she's received a tentative offer) and I'm wondering specifically, if many ATC's that you know experience stress, burnout, and if the profession in your mind, is the job worth the average salary of 90k, w/ top earners reaching 160k+ after becoming fully certified (which my initial research says can take 5-7 years after first starting school).

I've discussed with her the stress and logistics of a long distance relationship and the possibility of me relocating as well. She has also been unable to find a lot of useful information regarding the true failure rate of trainees, and also if she will have any choice at all regarding airport placement if she did in fact pass training and placed in the tower.

She is very intelligent, well read, and by far mentally stable. She's clocked 125 in a very credible IQ test administered by a renowned psychiatrist in her late teens (or so she's told me 125) and is the type of person who immerses herself in anything she becomes interested in - so I think she can do certainly this.

This is a huge play regarding my life. We're at a crossroads relationship wise and I'm thinking about asking her to marry me. But if this position is going to consume her life and bring much work related stress/burnout which OBV will have a trickle down effect on me.. it's going to affect my life in a major way and instead of peeling one card/floating the flip (moving w/ her to OKC for of ATC school), I could just fold pre and take the loss of my just my opening bet. I could also take a line like moving all in and asking her to marry me upon her firm offer to enter ATC school after she passes the fed clearances and gets her date to report to OKC. A third line would be to sit out of the game completely, OR do the long distance relationship thing and re-evaluate my chances after she passes the initial five week introduction phase of ATV school.

This is major decision for me. Any and all input is greatly appreciated by fellow 2+2'ers who have experience as ATC's or even anyone who has worked with or known any ATC's, or who have experienced w/ the FAA training process. I come to 2+2 for insight into pretty much everything else in life and this thread immediately came to mind when I was thinking about gaining some insight regarding this process and a critical decision I have to make.

To the OP and anyone else with insight regarding my line, my warmest regard to you =] Thanks ladies and Gents.

Pass on the poker analogies, and don't get married until you are 30. That's about all the life tips I have to offer.

Cool that she's looking into an ATC career. Focus on what you want to do in life, support her in pursuing her goals, and go with the flow. Breaking things off because of her potential career choice seems silly. Give things a try, constantly re-evaluate how things are, and stay open to new things. Good luck.

WOXOF, should they take Harrison Ford's license from him? Will they?

Canadian ATC here - first off, IQ doesn't correlate to success in ATC. Aptitude plays a huge part in whether you'll be successful, and I've seen countless people who "have never failed at anything in their lives" (sounds like your gf) be a total trainwreck when they go through the process.

It's a long and arduous training stint and she'll (presumably) be studying long hours in stressful situations. Tower less so than radar, but stressful nonetheless.

As for long-term stress levels, the best (read: the ATCers you strive to be) don't feel stress on the job and never take it home with them. They'll occasionally feel "busy" or "exhausted" after work, but for the most part the job is similar to pilots - 99% of the time everything is mundane but that 1% is what you're there for.

As someone who's worked tower and radar both military and civilian, they are two different beasts with different skillsets. Success rate to qualification here - after passing the initial generic course - hovers around 35%. Slightly higher for tower.