Yes, I said "a lot of U.S. pilots". I didn't say all of them.

My friend is middle eastern (first name Osama). Perhaps that also had something to do with his willingness to pick up and move to that part of the world. I have no interest in doing that and I know that the majority of pilots I fly with share this feeling.

Pilots do not carry any kind of malpractice insurance and I don't think there's any advantage to the airline to have pilot error cited as the cause of the accident. No matter what the cause turns out to be, the airline will be held accountable by the lawyers. If it's mechanical, then their maintenance procedures and training comes under scrutiny. If it's pilot error, then their training programs and selection processes get examined. One advantage to a mechanical issue (if there is one), is that the liability might be shared by other deep-pocket entities (the company that manufactured a defective part; the company that designed a flawed system; the company that built the plane).

Perhaps the upside to citing pilot error (from Asiana's standpoint) is that the public might infer that this was just a "one off" event with some pilots who didn't have the right stuff, rather than bring suspicion on the entire airline.

btw, just landed at SFO two hours ago (now sitting in my hotel room downtown) and saw the wreckage first hand as we landed on runway 28R (the left is still closed).

Come in a little higher & or faster than usual today?

@AP:
BREAKING: NTSB: Commanding pilot of crashed Asiana jet was on first trip as flight instructor.

No, just another routine, boring approach...on speed, on glidepath.

Strangely enough, my father usually says to me as I leave on a trip: "Remember, fly low and slow." (No, I don't live at home, but I often stop by to check in on my parents as their house is on the way to the airport.)

My dad is an ex-Navy pilot (USNA, Class of '50; flew the A-3 and P-2) and he says this as a joke, as if the chance for serious problems would be reduced with a low airspeed (you don't hit as hard) and a low altitude (you don't have as far to fall).

a variant my instructor once told me: "fly low! take chances!"

10 seconds seem a little on the high side to me, but there is a spool up time and that's why we always have the power above idle during the final approach. When operating at a thrust above idle, the lag time to get additional power is neglible.

I'm really not sure. I don't know of any follow up on pilots who have been found at fault in an accident or major incident. I'm a bit curious myself. For example, I wonder what became of the Canadian pilots who had to deadstick their Airbus into the Azores after running out of fuel over the Atlantic Ocean?

In the Asiana case, if it's found that it was solely pilot error (i.e. just getting too low and slow), I don't know how either of the pilots maintain a job.

I don't remember seeing this covered before. Could you give a rough breakdown of engine power use by %?

You mention staying above idle to prevent having to spool up.

What's idle? 8-12%?

On a normal landing how much thrust to keep power immediately available?

On take off what % are you typically using?

When do you use 100% of what's available?

What % is typically being used at cruising altitude?

I think there's quite a bit of variance at altitude to save fuel or make up time? If you're behind do you fly as fast as possible to get back on schedule? Is there some magic formula from the company on allowable fuel, % power, vs time made up?

i feel like you've answered this before (in the previous 3.6 years lol) but IF these dudes are at fault and get canned, are they kryptonite after that? lucky to get work towing banners or cropdusting or flying a cargo plane full of rubber dog **** out of hong kong?

how would you feel about flying with or sending a brand new student up with a hypothetical former airline pilot who had pranged it on with a 777 and broke the tail off?

I'll do some research on my flight back to JFK tomorrow evening. I'll have some numbers posted for you this Thursday.

Any application for a flying job asks if you have ever been involved in an accident, or had your license suspended or revoked. This doesn't necessarily blow the chances to get the job, but it means it will have to be explained to the satisfaction of the employer. It's obviously better if you can honestly answer "no" to this question.

Everything else being equal, I'll choose a guy who has not had an accident with fatalities over the one who has. But can a good pilot screw up? Sure. So far, I've never had an accident or incident, but I've done my share of bonehead things in my past that luckily became part of my "experience" rather than result in an accident.

The Gimli glider guys flew again.

Do you actually know a pilot who's had an accident w/ fatalities? I'd have to think there are so few of them to begin with, and that most were probably fired immediately, that even a veteran pilot would never actually fly with one?

I occasionally see reports of planes clipping the wing of another plane coming into the gate, or something similar, where some damage was done but no one was hurt, or probably even inconvenienced, but cost the airline some $.

If you had to guess, what % of commercial pilots do you think have damaged a plane ( but not really an accident/ injuries)?

That's the only example I can think of. Are there other pilot error incidents that happen to cause damage without anyone getting hurt?

Is there some expensive mistake you've all seen happen like " Bob forgot to turn the flugal valve to the up position again and of course it burnt the magneto in the coil ejector, there goes another 50 grand."


If a plane clips the wing of another plane coming into the gate is that like a 100k mistake or?

They definitely should not have been penalized. Their plane had been incorrectly fueled due to a miscalculation in the fueling process caused by a metric vs. English system mistake (they were supposed to receive X kilograms of fuel; instead they got X pounds, i.e. less than half the fuel they thought they had). It really wasn't the pilots' fault at all and they did a great job landing the 767 on a remote airstrip that was now being used as a dragstrip.

The guys who landed in the Azores probably continued to fly also (and I have no problem with that); the Captain demonstrated superb airmanship getting that plane safely down. They probably had to go back to the schoolhouse for some remedial training on the fuel system, since they actually exacerbated a fuel problem they had, contributing to the eventual fuel starvation.

Hey, firstly apologies if this has been asked before. Too many pages to actually read through. Secondly i understand that it varies from country to country and different companies would have different policies. But in general, how does one go about becoming a commercial pilot?

It strikes me as pretty rude to come into this thread and be like:

"I'm too lazy to read everything so even though you've put a ton of time and effort into this thread, and you've almost certainly answered this question before, could you please put a little more effort in just for me so that I don't have to do any work myself!"

i really didn't mean to be rude or anything and i do apologise if i come across that way. if the thread was 20+ pages i would admit that it might come off as lazy but the thread is over 300+ pages and i have no idea how to go about looking for the answer/question

If you're interested in becoming a commercial pilot it would behoove you to read the entire thing.

NTSB stated they are investigating, among many items, the Auto-throttle on Asiana 214. Since ILS was inop on 28L and it was a VFR landing, why would the Auto-throttle be used?

W0X, I've always been curious about an incident that occurred on a flight I was on in 2004. During takeoff from BOS to LAX there was a bang and a burning smell in the cabin. People said they saw flames come from an engine. Turns out we had a bird strike / ingestion. The pilot told us very little about what was going on during the whole consideration period. One flight attendant was visibly upset and claimed she could tell something was wrong because of the sound/vibration (I was unfortunate enough to be in the last row of the plane so could hear her conversation with the other attendants). To placate her, I think, the pilot actually came into the cabin to look at and listen to the engine.

I found a database of this stuff, here's the incident: http://bird-strike.findthedata.org/l/30231/B-757-200

That report describes engine damage, which is news to me obv. As the listing says, they ultimately decided to continue to LAX, and we arrived safely.

Judging from the report, do you think we were in any/much danger? When the powers that be made the decision to continue (Or was it just the pilot? He made it sound like the decision was made on the ground.), how much do you think they factored the cost of returning to LAX?

Also, I clearly remember the situation being on the right side of the plane. When an engine is referred to as left or right does that mean as if facing the plane, or if you're facing in the same direction as the plane?

Up there ^^^^^^^ you will see a phase titled search. Using that feature you can actually find posts that mention things such as "become a commercial pilot" or something along those lines.

What's your favourite hotel in all the locations you've been to and why? What about restaurant?

Sorry about piling on the questions but I just read this article:

http://www.naturalnews.com/041120_ai...ot_skills.html

Any thoughts on this? at first I thought it was satire but do you think "Pilot X" has any basis in fact here?

Cliffs from the end of the article"

Here are the numbers I noted on my return flight from San Franscisco. I forgot about doing this until the last hour of the flight, so it's a little limited:

What's idle? 8-12%?

In flight, idle power will vary by altitude. I noted 44% rpm at 32,000' and 32% rpm at 10,000 with the throttles at idle.

On a normal landing how much thrust to keep power immediately available?

This will vary depending on the aircraft weight and the weather conditions. During my approach tonight, I observed 52-57% rpm during the approach with 25° flaps and gear down.

On take off what % are you typically using?

I forgot to note this number tonight. We took off with reduced power, but I'm sure it was still over 90% rpm.

When do you use 100% of what's available?

Full power takeoff. Go around. Windshear recovery.

What % is typically being used at cruising altitude?

At 37,000', we were at 78% rpm.

There is no magic formula and it's hard to make up a lot of time, but we do push up the power if we're behind. On a transcon flight, it's pretty hard to make up even 15-20 minutes.