Agree. Of course there are legitimate cases but I bet at least 50% are folks abusing the system and unfortunately it's very hard for the airline to control. Keep in mind that service animals are not limited to dogs. You can have cats, pot bellied pigs and many others. If you have not seen them I bet some of your F/A's have.

Here is a fresh doc, up to date as of today January 6th:
PDF - 2p2 thread - 1558(!) pages

And as an added bonus, here is the equivalent PDF summary of the ongoing thread with W0X0F that's also underway on flyertalk.com (although this thread seems to have died back in July, so I haven't updated it since then):
PDF - FlyerTalk thread - 278 pages

A new plane crash video is doing the rounds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thnddErC66A

It was filmed by a HD dashboardcam in a stationary racecar, which explains the remarkably high quality of the video.

Most people blame the pilot for performing an extremely risky maneuver. Do you agree W0X0F, or is it difficult to judge from such a short video?

It is claimed that the captain + passenger died, but that the co-pilot came out of the crash with minor injuries. Hard to believe when you see the total destruction of the plane.

Hard to make any sense out of what that video shows. I take it that this is a drag strip, not a runway. Was the pilot attempting some kind of low pass? If so, for what purpose? Seeing the way they hit, I'm surprised there were survivors.

I bet you get a lot of service dogs in and out of LA. Such a scam.

Yeah, it is. A pilot just told me of a large service dog on his flight that took a nice healthy dump in the jet way as they deplaned. The owner barely acknowledged that it occurred and just left it as a souvenir.

The other scam I see routinely (seems to occur most often on flights to Florida for some reason) is the use of wheelchairs for boarding by people perfectly capable of walking on. This is followed by a miracle recovery en route, as they walk off the plane. The reason is simple: the wheelchair gets them on the plane first, but would require that they be the last ones off the plane. Apparently the looming inconvenience of waiting has tremendous restorative powers.

LOL, I've taken gate claim wheel chairs up and seen people just grab them from me and roll it up the jetway. Now I understand.

Serious question OP: Have you ever seen a black, lady pilot? The other day I saw one for xjet and it was definitely the first time.

Also, it occurs to me that I may have worked some of your domestics. If you're ever in ATL and see a handsome young ramper reading Rilke or Melville on his tug, ask him about the brown trout. It honestly could only be me.

i dont fly all that often. Im wondering if there are any tricks or tips on how to find the cheapest flights to vegas ect...ive only flown 3 times and the last time i had to pay for my own flight ect...the first 2 times i flew were family vacations ect...so my 1st time paying for my own flight i went with the nut low price i could find and it was spirit airlines. worst decision EVER! oot please help me find a better alternative where its still on the cheaper side of things.

You're asking the wrong guy. You might be better off starting your own thread on this. Or check out flyertalk.com; they might have information you could use.

And, btw, what does "ect" mean?

Someone is having a bad day...
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/oops-air...wrong-airport/

That's got to be a sick feeling when you realize that you've landed at the wrong airport. I wonder when it hit them...maybe when their taxi diagram didn't match the layout of the taxiways they were on.

There's just no way to explain something like this. It's a crew screw up, plain and simple.

At some point during the approach wouldn't ATC see that there is a problem?

You would think so, wouldn't you? But in some cases, the approach is conducted in an area without radar coverage (they call it a "non-radar environment"). Many airports don't have an Approach Control facility and Branson probably doesn't. In these cases, the Center controller will clear the plane for the approach and then switch the plane over to the Tower (Local) controller. Many control towers have no radar and they simply clear the plane to land while trying to acquire it visually.

In some cases (e.g. State College, PA), the airport doesn't even have a control tower, or it's not a 24 hour control tower, and the pilots are expected to either cancel their IFR service while airborne or close out the flight plan via radio or phone after landing. (Failure to do so can initiate Search and Rescue operations.)

And also piss off anyone waiting to come in behind, especially when the ceilings are at like 5,000ft and you can hear them making CTAF calls for short final.

This article has a little more info. It looks like it could have gone very bad.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/grantmar...ens-off-cliff/

Yeah, good point.

What d10 is talking about here is that, in a non-radar environment, the controller can't clear any other plane for the approach until the preceding traffic has either cancelled IFR or reported safely on the ground. So you may find yourself circling in a holding pattern waiting for the guy in front of you to make that call. Pretty irritating if he delays unnecessarily.

Wow! Less than 4000' of runway! That's getting a little tight. I'll be interested to see what action is taken against the pilots. You can bet that we'll see emphasis on this kind of error in future training.

SWA PR page on the issue:
http://www.swamedia.com/releases/fli...hwest-airlines

It seems like they should have gone-around as soon as they realized the runway was much shorter than planned. How late could they have left the go-around and still done it safely on a 3700ft runway? Once they apply hard brakes does that mean no attempt at going around?

They could have (and should have) gone around at any point prior to actually touching down. Once they were on the ground, the only acceptable reason to attempt a go-around (which, at this point, would be a "touch-and-go") would be if the Captain felt that staying on the ground would lead to an accident. I have a feeling that these guys didn't know they were at the wrong airport until they were on the ground and saw the end of the runway coming at them.

With 13 and 15 years flying experience between the two pilots is it likely they will keep their jobs?

And if they were to be let go by Southwest, could they get a job at another major airline?

I guess they just missed by a few months, Southwest is halting all service to Branson in June 2014, and these guys couldn't have made the mistake in that case...

They've got two things at risk: their jobs and their licenses. The FAA might take certificate action (a suspension or a revocation). This would likely result in the company terminating their employment, since they wouldn't be able to actually do the job. The company could also fire them regardless of any action by the FAA. I really have no idea what will happen and it wouldn't surprise me either way. At the very least they'll be getting some remedial training, which amounts to a wrist slap. And, of course, they'd be on double-secret probation for a long, long time.

This incident would be an interesting interview topic. Any application will ask if you've ever been involved in an incident or accident and also if you've ever had any certificate suspended or revoked. Once you check those boxes, it's going to be a natural follow up question, assuming you even make it to an interview. But...if you do get a chance to talk about it and you handle it well, you might still get hired.

I know the Tenerife disaster has been discussed many times ITT. However, I just watched the NOVA version and find the up-loader's comments interesting to say the least. Do you agree the portrayal of the KLM Captain to be misleading?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujLK0JwYzos

BTW...which of the many "Aviation Consultants" on TV do you think have the most knowledge? I like John Nance and John Cox.

http://blog.globalair.com/post/Why-Y...on-Pilots.aspx

Thoughts?

I always feel bad for pilots in the "landing at the wrong airport" stories. It's something that I feel could happen with almost any pilot in the exact 'right' situation. They may not actually be bad pilots but the airlines/FAA probably need to treat them as such since there is an increased chance that they're bad pilots. So while lots of these guys probably deserve to lose their license I'm sure at least a few of them just got really unlucky.