It would be interesting to hear the CVR conversations between pilots when that happened. Id guess the FAA and airline decisions will depend to a large extent on whether they followed the proper procedures and were being professional so to say?

Misleading in what way? I don't have any preconceived notions about that individual, so it would be hard for me to comment. What I remember hearing about him is that he was highly respected at KLM and was literally the face of KLM, appearing on many of their ads. This accident occurred in the pre-CRM days and this may have been a factor in his decision to go overriding the concerns of his crew.

I like Nance's commentary in this YouTube video. He is very good at explaining the arcane jargon and practices of commercial aviation.

One thing in the video that I can't get over is the confusion on which taxiway that PanAm was supposed to take to exit the runway. The controller tells them to take the third taxiway and they have lots of communication back and forth trying to nail down exactly which taxiway he means. I find it incredible that neither the controller nor the pilots ever reference the taxiway by its designation (e.g. "Charlie Four") which is the standard method and removes all ambiguity.

Another thing that surprised me is that KLM didn't even get their route clearance until already in position for takeoff. I don't think I've ever heard of this. This is part of the confusion because the route clearance seemed to be interpreted by the KLM Captain as a takeoff clearance.

The recreation of the takeoff, showing the KLM tail skidding as the Captain tries to rotate for takeoff well below Vr, is really well done. I wonder how they did it.

So did they get rid of the drug sniffing dogs at the Denver Airport?

How often do you see an air marshal on your flights?

Good article, and I can tell you that confirmation bias is very real and present in aviation. We see and hear what our minds "expect" to see and hear. Thus, pilots who "always" get a clearance to 7000' when departing Dulles, don't really catch that the controller only cleared them to 6000' this time. They might even read it back correctly and then set 7000 in the altitude window on the MCP. (I'm making up this example, but you get the idea.)

I've had several occasions over the years where I've seen the wrong airport, or wrong runway, and initially mid-identified it. But we have lots of information available to confirm that what we're looking at is the right airport or runway and so far it's saved me.

I remember one time where my father kept me from making a big mistake. It's maybe the only time he ever flew with me in a light airplane and we were returning to Dulles airport (back in the 80's, when Dulles was very welcoming to light aircraft; it's a much busier airport today). I was about six miles northeast of the airport and the approach controller asked if I had the airport in sight. I told him that I did and he cleared me for the visual approach to runway 1R. As I started my turn towards the runway and got lined up, my father said "Don't you want to land over there?", pointing over to the parallel runway. I had lined up on runway 1L! Since Dulles has radar, the controller would have probably noticed before I got much farther, but my dad saved me that embarrassment as I just sidestepped over to the right.

The thing is, I had just seen a runway and it clicked in my head that this was the piece of pavement I wanted to land on. At this point, I was focused on the mechanics of landing and completely slid right over the part where I confirmed that this was, indeed, the right runway.

Another example of this comes to mind. Early in my airline career, flying the J-32, I was making an instrument approach to runway 15R at BWI. I had never been there before and the Captain was a low time Captain, who seemed just a little concerned about being paired with a low time FO (this was before they had rules preventing just such a pairing). At about 500' agl, we saw runway lights in the mist and rain and she called them out. I looked up and also saw the approach lights. They were well off to my left and I started to make the course change to get lined up on the runway. But it just didn't feel right. I thought I was really nailing the ILS approach and the lights shouldn't have been off to the left like that. The I realized that we were seeing the approach lights to 15L. I went right back on the instruments and told the Captain what I was doing. She then saw the lights for 15R and we proceeded to land. It would have been very easy to just land on 15L, staying visual and not cross-checking the instruments. We both learned about flying from that.

I agree with you completely, jj. This business is unforgiving of human error and that's probably the way it has to be, considering how serious the consequences can be. But pilots are human and mistakes are made. Even good pilots can make mistakes.

So far, I haven't landed gear up and I haven't landed at the wrong airport, but I'm hesitant to throw stones at those who have. One of the biggest things we have in place to prevent these kind of mistakes is the crew concept. As I've said itt before, one of my favorite sayings in this business is "It's not a mistake until we both make it." We do cross-check either other and it's not at all uncommon for one of us to catch a small mistake made by the other guy.

I think you're right and I'm just as curious as anyone about what made this mistake possible.

Unaware that they had any.

They're sneaky and they move with great stealth, so I hardly ever see them.

Pilot humor: http://www.theonion.com/articles/pil...4934/?ref=auto

w0x,

whose bright idea was it to give a tail number ending in SP to every cessna 172SP in the universe? even at my moderately sized local airport, it seems like there's at least one "[number] sierra papa" in the pattern at any given moment.

This was obviously a marketing ploy by Cessna and it's not uncommon. Many airlines get a block of similar N numbers for their original fleets. When I was at ACA (a United Express carrier), all of our J-32s had N numbers ending in UE. When we got the CRJ fleet, they all had numbers ending in BR (for Blue Ridge, which was our call sign).

Individuals can pay for "vanity" N numbers if they want and this isn't limited to new planes. You can re-register a plane any time for a fee. When I first began flying, I'd sometimes see Arthur Godfrey's Twin Beech at Leesburg airport (aka Godfrey Field, because it was on land he owned at one time). The tail number was N1M, but I don't know the significance of that number.

The other special N number I've seen from time to time is on the FAA admistrator's plane which has the tail number N1.

w0x,

thanks for the info. i'm going to look out for this when i fly commercially.

I didn't even know that until just this past year. I'm used to tail numbers being the original serial number. I heard a "NxxxTV" callsign on CTAF recently and my copilot said "TV... Must be the news chopper." I thought he was joking. I'm noticing a lot of those now though. Redskins 1 is N904DS (Dan Snyder). Donald Trump has a well known helicopter with the tail number N76DT.

I pretty much haven't been on twoplustwo since the whole online poker came crashing down, and then I see this thread is still going!! That should kill a few hours of my time!!! Thanks for answering all these questions woxof.

Welcome back!

Do many Delta pilots use the GoGo inflight wi-fi in the cockpit? I was on a flight awhile back and thought I overheard a flight attendant saying they do not get access while pilots can access their scheduling etc. for free?

That's absolutely not true (or at least I have yet to see it) and the last thing a pilot would do is logon on to see their schedule. This would leave a record that the pilot was actually on the internet while on duty and the conventional paranoia is that the company actually has software looking for this.

I haven't even used the internet much on my commutes, while sitting in the back of the plane (even though this would be completely fine). The big reason is that my commute is short and the time above 10,000' (where the Wifi is available) is only about 25-30 minutes...definitely not worth the money.

I don't have any free userid/password given to me, although I've gotten a free one on two occasions from a flight attendant. I don't know if there's always a backdoor free userid or if these are just random promotions (the userid is only good for a month or so), but I've never heard pilots discuss them. It's always the FAs who are in the know on this.

The one thing I have used the onboard internet for is to check flight status using my iPhone app "Fly Delta." You can use this app without having a userid on the inflight Wifi. I was recently commuting to Atlanta and we were late pushing back. I overheard the two passengers sitting next to me, both worrying about making their connections (one to SFO, the other to MSP). I used my app to check our arrival gate and the departure gates for their flights. I then pulled out the Sky magazine and showed them the layout of Atlanta and where they needed to go to make their flights. Nice to have the internet available.

Thanks for the reply; it didn't seem rights that pilots would be up front browsing away.

I agree with you that the free access to Delta.com and the Delta app is extremely handy inflight. I'll have to remember that the next time I'm sitting next to someone who is worried about a connection. The days of Flight Attendants reading out outdated gate information to the cabin are long gone!

This kinda surprised me that you expect punitive actions to be taken against them. I've had quite a bit of medication safety training and all of that training is constantly praising the safety culture of aviation and the benefits of a Just Culture (Not punishing people for making mistakes so they will report when something went wrong which will lead to changes in the system to improve safety. This acknowledges that there are usually defeciencies in the system, instead of the person, which allowed the mistake to occur, the swiss cheese model etc.)

There is room in Just Culture theory for punishing individuals who consciously disregard known safety mechanisms, but everything I've read about this doesn't imply that.

Can you talk a little about incident and error reporting in the airline industry?

Your point is well taken, and we do have reporting systems in place for system and human errors that occur. These reports offer a certain level of immunity for the pilot and are in place for just the reason you state. NASA has ASRS (Aviation Safety Reporting System) and many companies have their own in-house version of this. I talked about these reports in Post #2348.

(Here's the link for NASA ASRS; here's the Wikipedia page.)

I would file an ASRS if I busted an altitude, or missed a crossing restriction. But landing at the wrong airport puts you in another category. While I can sympathize with the pilots, there's no report that's going to give you immunity for landing at the wrong airport. There will be an investigation (the pilots in question are currently on a paid leave pending the outcome) and we'll see what comes of that. While there can be contributing factors involved here (fatigue, similar runway configurations), it's going to be hard to chalk this one up to deficiencies in the system, especially in modern aircraft equipped with EFIS and GPS, providing accurate graphic displays of the plane's geographic position.

I was wondering if there is any talk, excitement, or even hope among pilots that the Satellite Flight Guidance Systems which are used by Alaska Air to land virtually 365 days a year in rugged Alaskan Airports during very adverse weather conditions and even in heavy fog - can be transferred completely to Major Mainland US airports in the near future.

To me, the combination of safety, and the savings involved in both steep reductions in flight delays due to weather and efficiencies gained by loosening the separation requirements due to the technology would be revolutionary in air travel.

Maybe I am just dreaming cause the airspace in Alaska is obviously much easier to traverse than New York City, but my thought is that Satellite Flight Guidance has the possibility of improving our current system 1000%

I've never heard of this system and I've never heard any other pilots talking about it. How is it different from GPS approaches in the lower 48?

I remember several years ago that the next big thing in aviation was going to be MLS (Microwave Landing System) approaches, which would offer curved approach paths specifically tailored to terrain and/or airspace restrictions. But once GPS became available it took over as the next big thing and I haven't heard MLS mentioned in over a decade.

A bit more info on the southwest incident but not much http://www.ntsb.gov/news/2014/140117.html.

W0X0F, expanding on the posts above, how do you see the future developments in ATC or navigation, is something going to change in the near future? I've seen references to stuff that the FAA is developing in terms of the "next generation" of ATC, but whats your take on what will reasonably happen in the next 10 or 20 years or so? Also, i think one problem is the amount of radio traffic around busy airports?

Perhaps related to that, I recently read an NTSB report (http://www.ntsb.gov/doclib/reports/2007/AAR0703.pdf) on a 2004 helicopter crash in Hawaii which mentioned something called ADS-B or automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast. Can you tell us what the hell is that? Is that in use and what does it mean? It says the following in that report:

"In 1998, the FAA developed an initiative for implementing the National Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) Program to support the next-generation air transportation system. The program, which includes ground-based stations, satellites, and aircraft avionics, among other technologies, is designed to provide pilots with radarlike information in the cockpit and to enable air traffic controllers to monitor low-flying aircraft in those areas with limited or no radar coverage. For Hawaii air tour pilots, who are faced with challenging local weather conditions, high-density air tour traffic, and island geography that makes large areas of low-altitude airspace invisible to FAA radar systems, an ADS-B system could provide enhanced in-flight navigation, air traffic, terrain, and weather information, and, through data-link, provide the same information to ground-equipped personnel, such as operator dispatchers, air traffic controllers, or other FAA personnel."

I think I was talking about Required Navigation Performance (RNP) and Head-Up Guidance System (HGS) technology (http://www.komonews.com/weather/blog...228810731.html) allows planes to make decsion to land at 30 feet in fog, among others.

Which may be what The NextGen Experience is about-
expand use of satellite guidance to airports around the country. The F.A.A. promotes this as a revolution in commercial flying, a transition from the analog world of radar to the digital age of satellites. It will probably take decades and cost tens of billions of dollars.

Ultimately, it would make flying safer and more efficient by giving pilots and air traffic controllers a real-time view of traffic, as well as enhanced communications. But the project has moved slowly, in part because airlines have been reluctant to invest in the new technology until the F.A.A. musters the resources to update its own equipment.

Satellite navigation is now used at a few airports, including Kennedy International in New York. It is also used in Washington, where planes headed for Reagan National Airport can glide down gracefully along the curves of the Potomac River and comply with the federal capital’s airspace restrictions.



I got to thinking about asking you after I read this article earlier last year.

Alaska Airlines, Flying Above an Industry’s Troubles

Alaska Airlines put up a substantial sum, $40 million, to adopt the satellite technology and train pilots to use it. That paid off quickly: the airline estimates it saves $18 million a year by reducing flight cancellations and delays.

Note: Alaska Airlines, in fact, had the industry’s best on-time performance for the third consecutive year in 2012, with 87 percent of flights landing on time, according to FlightStats.