Mr/Ms. Pelmit:
There is no chip on my shoulders. I simply believe in accountability for ones actions, whether in Brazil, Russia or Canada.
I will admit that I am a bit long winded at times, but a whiner and a threat to aviation safety?
Hmmm...
Perhaps a second opinion is in order. If yours is confirmed then I shall most gracefully bow out of what I had believed to be a rather pleasant academic discussion.
Sorry to have somehow offended you.
TTJJ
Excel Air and GOL Airlines
Moderators: sky's the limit, sepia, Sulako, lilfssister, North Shore, I WAS Birddog
Re: Excel Air and GOL Airlines
TTJJ
I enjoyed your posts very much. Well thought out. Articulate and clear.
At the very least you offered a different perspective to balance the media driven opinions.
I understand completely your point about the errors. Some here would like us to catagorize such errors as inadvertant, or a fact of life. I believe a two crew plane, flown by professionals, acting like professionals, should not have made those fundamental errors.
It is to easy when the hours are clicking by to forget that we are supposed to be flying the plane and paying attention, and instead, having a nice chat about all sorts of things or just watching the clouds float by underneath. All fine, but we put our profession and our personal character on the line when we choose to do so.
Keep up your postings please. I think I speak for many who enjoy them .
I enjoyed your posts very much. Well thought out. Articulate and clear.
At the very least you offered a different perspective to balance the media driven opinions.
I understand completely your point about the errors. Some here would like us to catagorize such errors as inadvertant, or a fact of life. I believe a two crew plane, flown by professionals, acting like professionals, should not have made those fundamental errors.
It is to easy when the hours are clicking by to forget that we are supposed to be flying the plane and paying attention, and instead, having a nice chat about all sorts of things or just watching the clouds float by underneath. All fine, but we put our profession and our personal character on the line when we choose to do so.
Keep up your postings please. I think I speak for many who enjoy them .
Accident speculation:
Those that post don’t know. Those that know don’t post
Those that post don’t know. Those that know don’t post
Re: Excel Air and GOL Airlines
I'll go with the Flight Safety Foundations opinion on how the prosecution types are a safety threat.
As for the previous post you say "This is not a vast uninhabited, underdeveloped area we are talking about" and "The Excel flight left the equivalent of Hamilton, over flew Ottawa then turned north". North of Ottawa is a vast uninhabited, underdeveloped area.
Then you say "There is no excuse at all for them to think that 54 minutes of silence is normal". If you listened to the CVR, which you probably have, then you know it wasn't silence. There was endless chatter in Portuguese which will get tuned out by anyone not speaking the language. How about they speak english just like in Japan as it is the language of aviation. Safety issue(in Canada as well).
Then "Before takeoff, they were cleared to destination, FL370 via UW2. That is how the clearance is given. But that is just the initial part of their route. That was exactly the first part of the route they had flight planned." If you are cleared to FL370, you maintain FL 370 unless cleared differently or have a com failure which as you state they did not have, so it was very correct to stay at FL370.
The biggest mistake they made was accidentally turning off the transponder which was one of the causes of the accident. Placing the controllers or the pilots in jail will not help though.
So yes, as a strong supporter of jailing pilots and I assume controllers for making errors that lead to accidents, you are part of a movement that is making aviation less safe. But we will never know where it was that you indirectly led to an accident. Perhaps a reply from you to the FSF article.
As for the previous post you say "This is not a vast uninhabited, underdeveloped area we are talking about" and "The Excel flight left the equivalent of Hamilton, over flew Ottawa then turned north". North of Ottawa is a vast uninhabited, underdeveloped area.
Then you say "There is no excuse at all for them to think that 54 minutes of silence is normal". If you listened to the CVR, which you probably have, then you know it wasn't silence. There was endless chatter in Portuguese which will get tuned out by anyone not speaking the language. How about they speak english just like in Japan as it is the language of aviation. Safety issue(in Canada as well).
Then "Before takeoff, they were cleared to destination, FL370 via UW2. That is how the clearance is given. But that is just the initial part of their route. That was exactly the first part of the route they had flight planned." If you are cleared to FL370, you maintain FL 370 unless cleared differently or have a com failure which as you state they did not have, so it was very correct to stay at FL370.
The biggest mistake they made was accidentally turning off the transponder which was one of the causes of the accident. Placing the controllers or the pilots in jail will not help though.
So yes, as a strong supporter of jailing pilots and I assume controllers for making errors that lead to accidents, you are part of a movement that is making aviation less safe. But we will never know where it was that you indirectly led to an accident. Perhaps a reply from you to the FSF article.
Re: Excel Air and GOL Airlines
Looking back on your post dated June 25 2007 which is well before the final report with all the information was published you stated that "That is hardly a Kangaroo Court." A paragraph later you stated "They are guilty as hell for the following reasons". Similar statements came from upper government officials which leads one to believe that they were guilty until proven innocent.
You stated "They never once tried to contact another aircraft on 121.5 or 130.55 (the published air to air frequency at the time) or even the published center frequencies". Yet the accident report shows they did try to contact center 19 times toward the end of the flight.
You said that "They collided 20 miles inside the next FIR (Amazonica) while they were trying to talk to Brasilia Center (in the last FIR) behind them." making it sound like they were always trying the wrong center and therefore guilty, yet a full eight minutes before the collision they were trying to call Brasilia and they would have still been in Brasilia airspace. And even if they were just inside another centers airspace, it doesn't mean that you are necessarily out of radio range of the one behind you.
Then you come up with this crap of "I suspect that they didn’t have any nav chart open as the Comm. Box (with VHF and HF frequencies) for that sector is printed on the Jepp Chart right smack dab beside the airway that they were on". Well guess what? 135.9 is the frequency shown on that airway in the map that you posted later on and the final report shows that they did try 135.9. No response again.
According to Joe Sharkey, the New York Times reporter on the aircraft "From Day One, military authorities in Brazil have been trying to blame the two American pilots on the Legacy for the crash, even going so far as to suggest that they deliberately turned off equipment that allows air traffic control to keep track of planes so they could do "trick maneuvers" in in the skies." As if anyone is going to stay in a place like Brazil when an accident happens. Here is what this country is like.
http://asiapacific.amnesty.org/report20 ... ummary-eng
You stated "They never once tried to contact another aircraft on 121.5 or 130.55 (the published air to air frequency at the time) or even the published center frequencies". Yet the accident report shows they did try to contact center 19 times toward the end of the flight.
You said that "They collided 20 miles inside the next FIR (Amazonica) while they were trying to talk to Brasilia Center (in the last FIR) behind them." making it sound like they were always trying the wrong center and therefore guilty, yet a full eight minutes before the collision they were trying to call Brasilia and they would have still been in Brasilia airspace. And even if they were just inside another centers airspace, it doesn't mean that you are necessarily out of radio range of the one behind you.
Then you come up with this crap of "I suspect that they didn’t have any nav chart open as the Comm. Box (with VHF and HF frequencies) for that sector is printed on the Jepp Chart right smack dab beside the airway that they were on". Well guess what? 135.9 is the frequency shown on that airway in the map that you posted later on and the final report shows that they did try 135.9. No response again.
According to Joe Sharkey, the New York Times reporter on the aircraft "From Day One, military authorities in Brazil have been trying to blame the two American pilots on the Legacy for the crash, even going so far as to suggest that they deliberately turned off equipment that allows air traffic control to keep track of planes so they could do "trick maneuvers" in in the skies." As if anyone is going to stay in a place like Brazil when an accident happens. Here is what this country is like.
http://asiapacific.amnesty.org/report20 ... ummary-eng
Re: Excel Air and GOL Airlines
Seeing as TTJJ doesn't believe that his attitude is a significant threat to aviation safety, I will prove it.
Please read this article at the bottom. We are now in a situation where there have been flight control problems on two large Airbus models in the last three months. One was a QANTAS A330 that got a lot of attention in the media and could easily have resulted in fatalities. At the same time, an A-320 training flight mysteriously crashed in France in late November. Damage to the recorders means that only Honeywell might be able to retrieve the data, but they still have not been sent to Honeywell because of a criminal probe in France.
For those harping for jail time, here is the result of your criminal investigations. If there is a further accident that could have been prevented by a timely investigation, perhaps those responsible for the investigation delays should go to jail.
http://sbk.online.wsj.com/article/SB123 ... 33529.html
More examples of TTJJs efforts to put a crew in jail based on lies and misleading statements...
"No where on the planet does ATC clear nor expect an aircraft to fly for hours the wrong way on a two-way airway. Remember, they had about a 4 hour flight."
Did they fly for four hours or anywhere near four hours at this wrong-way altitude that they had a clearance to be at? No. Less than 1 hour at their cleared to wrong-way altitude.
I notice that he has now removed his earlier statement saying how if only they had consulted their Jeppesen charts, they could have contacted ATC as the frequencies are on the chart. Now we have this straight from the final report
"Thus, of the five frequencies for sector 7 listed in the pilots’ Jeppesen chart , only 135.9 MHz was operational, since the fifth frequency, 134.7 MHz, was not correct as it was not prescribed in the Brazilian chart."
Perhaps this is the frequency that they actually did get hold of ATC but could not contact again to get the new frequency to try. They did try sixteen time I believe to contact ATC several minutes before the collision.
I seem to remember that modified post from earlier on the thread saying how good communication with ATC in that area of Brazil is implying that they should have had no problem contacting ATC, yet the report says the controller judged the reason for a lack of contact with N600XL was
"...lack of communication with the aircraft was on account of the frequency problems in the region, since the pilots sometimes did not call control when entering the area."
Of course the investigation went out of its way to put as much blame on the pilots as possible for being at FL370.The NTSB rightly says in its very large appendix criticizing the many failures of the Brazilian report that the crews flew the aircraft as cleared. No wonder they didn't go back to Brazil. As if they could ever get a fair trial. My previous comments about the country are bang on.
Please read this article at the bottom. We are now in a situation where there have been flight control problems on two large Airbus models in the last three months. One was a QANTAS A330 that got a lot of attention in the media and could easily have resulted in fatalities. At the same time, an A-320 training flight mysteriously crashed in France in late November. Damage to the recorders means that only Honeywell might be able to retrieve the data, but they still have not been sent to Honeywell because of a criminal probe in France.
For those harping for jail time, here is the result of your criminal investigations. If there is a further accident that could have been prevented by a timely investigation, perhaps those responsible for the investigation delays should go to jail.
http://sbk.online.wsj.com/article/SB123 ... 33529.html
More examples of TTJJs efforts to put a crew in jail based on lies and misleading statements...
"No where on the planet does ATC clear nor expect an aircraft to fly for hours the wrong way on a two-way airway. Remember, they had about a 4 hour flight."
Did they fly for four hours or anywhere near four hours at this wrong-way altitude that they had a clearance to be at? No. Less than 1 hour at their cleared to wrong-way altitude.
I notice that he has now removed his earlier statement saying how if only they had consulted their Jeppesen charts, they could have contacted ATC as the frequencies are on the chart. Now we have this straight from the final report
"Thus, of the five frequencies for sector 7 listed in the pilots’ Jeppesen chart , only 135.9 MHz was operational, since the fifth frequency, 134.7 MHz, was not correct as it was not prescribed in the Brazilian chart."
Perhaps this is the frequency that they actually did get hold of ATC but could not contact again to get the new frequency to try. They did try sixteen time I believe to contact ATC several minutes before the collision.
I seem to remember that modified post from earlier on the thread saying how good communication with ATC in that area of Brazil is implying that they should have had no problem contacting ATC, yet the report says the controller judged the reason for a lack of contact with N600XL was
"...lack of communication with the aircraft was on account of the frequency problems in the region, since the pilots sometimes did not call control when entering the area."
Of course the investigation went out of its way to put as much blame on the pilots as possible for being at FL370.The NTSB rightly says in its very large appendix criticizing the many failures of the Brazilian report that the crews flew the aircraft as cleared. No wonder they didn't go back to Brazil. As if they could ever get a fair trial. My previous comments about the country are bang on.
Last edited by pelmet on Sat Feb 07, 2009 6:12 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Re: Excel Air and GOL Airlines
Investigators Stymied for Clues in November Air New Zealand Jetliner Crash
Investigators looking into the late November crash of an Air New Zealand jetliner on a maintenance flight off the southwestern coast of France have been hindered by both a separate French criminal probe and failures to retrieve data from the plane's so-called black boxes, according to people familiar with the details.
The Airbus A320 plummeted into the Mediterranean approaching Perpignan in good weather without any emergency radio call from the cockpit crew, killing all seven aboard. Almost a month later, unusually few clues have emerged about possible causes. At this point, no usable information has been gleaned from analyzing either the cockpit-voice recorder or flight-date recorder, these people said.
The lack of progress is troublesome -- and has particularly frustrated aviation safety experts on both sides of the Atlantic -- because the twin-engine A320 is a workhorse of airlines across the globe.
Safety experts and airlines also are closely monitoring the investigation to find out whether the crash involved some problem with the plane's flight-control computer. In the past three months, two larger Airbus models suffered incidents in which flight-control systems malfunctioned, but they didn't result in crashes.
One event, which generated a fair amount of media attention, involved a Qantas Airbus A330 that lost altitude after going into a dive while cruising from Singapore to Perth in early October. More than 40 aboard were injured. Investigators have determined that a problem with part of the plane's computerized flight controls was responsible. European regulators issued a safety directive last week about procedures pilots should use in such circumstances
French and U.S. investigators haven't commented on the causes of the New Zealand Airbus crash. Manufacturer Airbus and its safety team also has stayed away from discussing possible factors or theories of why the plane went down. Airbus declined to comment. Air New Zealand says it is cooperating with investigators but declined to elaborate.
The Air New Zealand plane was on lease to charter carrier XL Airways Germany, and was flown by two XL Airways pilots on a maintenance flight. The plane had undergone maintenance at EAS Industries, a company in Perpignan that overhauls and repairs Airbus and Boeing jetliners. The plane was repainted in Air New Zealand livery and was slated to be returned to the carrier following the flight. In addition to the pilots, Air New Zealand employees and a New Zealand government inspector were onboard.
After initial efforts failed to retrieve data from the plane's recorders, French air-crash investigators decided to send them off to Honeywell international Inc., which made the devices. But an ongoing criminal probe of the crash delayed that transfer by a number of weeks, according to people familiar with the details. At this point, Honeywell experts don't expect to receive the recorders until the first week in January. A Honeywell spokeswoman said the company hasn't received the recorders and referred calls to investigators.
Like the difficulties with downloading data from the recorders, investigators appear stymied in answering broader questions about the latest crash . Earlier this month, Flight International Magazine quoted the French air-accidents bureau saying that "at this stage of the investigation, nothing can explain why the aircraft went off course and crashed into the sea."
Investigators looking into the late November crash of an Air New Zealand jetliner on a maintenance flight off the southwestern coast of France have been hindered by both a separate French criminal probe and failures to retrieve data from the plane's so-called black boxes, according to people familiar with the details.
The Airbus A320 plummeted into the Mediterranean approaching Perpignan in good weather without any emergency radio call from the cockpit crew, killing all seven aboard. Almost a month later, unusually few clues have emerged about possible causes. At this point, no usable information has been gleaned from analyzing either the cockpit-voice recorder or flight-date recorder, these people said.
The lack of progress is troublesome -- and has particularly frustrated aviation safety experts on both sides of the Atlantic -- because the twin-engine A320 is a workhorse of airlines across the globe.
Safety experts and airlines also are closely monitoring the investigation to find out whether the crash involved some problem with the plane's flight-control computer. In the past three months, two larger Airbus models suffered incidents in which flight-control systems malfunctioned, but they didn't result in crashes.
One event, which generated a fair amount of media attention, involved a Qantas Airbus A330 that lost altitude after going into a dive while cruising from Singapore to Perth in early October. More than 40 aboard were injured. Investigators have determined that a problem with part of the plane's computerized flight controls was responsible. European regulators issued a safety directive last week about procedures pilots should use in such circumstances
French and U.S. investigators haven't commented on the causes of the New Zealand Airbus crash. Manufacturer Airbus and its safety team also has stayed away from discussing possible factors or theories of why the plane went down. Airbus declined to comment. Air New Zealand says it is cooperating with investigators but declined to elaborate.
The Air New Zealand plane was on lease to charter carrier XL Airways Germany, and was flown by two XL Airways pilots on a maintenance flight. The plane had undergone maintenance at EAS Industries, a company in Perpignan that overhauls and repairs Airbus and Boeing jetliners. The plane was repainted in Air New Zealand livery and was slated to be returned to the carrier following the flight. In addition to the pilots, Air New Zealand employees and a New Zealand government inspector were onboard.
After initial efforts failed to retrieve data from the plane's recorders, French air-crash investigators decided to send them off to Honeywell international Inc., which made the devices. But an ongoing criminal probe of the crash delayed that transfer by a number of weeks, according to people familiar with the details. At this point, Honeywell experts don't expect to receive the recorders until the first week in January. A Honeywell spokeswoman said the company hasn't received the recorders and referred calls to investigators.
Like the difficulties with downloading data from the recorders, investigators appear stymied in answering broader questions about the latest crash . Earlier this month, Flight International Magazine quoted the French air-accidents bureau saying that "at this stage of the investigation, nothing can explain why the aircraft went off course and crashed into the sea."
Re: Excel Air and GOL Airlines
[quote="TTJJ"]
I will admit that I am a bit long winded at times, but a whiner and a threat to aviation safety?
Hmmm...
Perhaps a second opinion is in order. If yours is confirmed then I shall most gracefully bow out of what I had believed to be a rather pleasant academic discussion.
TTJJ[/quote]
Here is your second opinion about you being a threat to aviation safety.
Study finds criminal prosecution following accidents damages flight safety
By David Learmount
19/03/09
Flight International
A new doctoral study of the criminal prosecution of pilots or air traffic controllers following aircraft accidents and incidents has concluded that they have a definite detrimental effect on flight safety, but fail to have the intended effect of deterring individuals from making mistakes.
In fact, the study found, controllers are particularly aware that successful prosecution could follow an unintentional error, and the resulting stress may even make mistakes more likely.
The study was carried out by two Cypriots, Dr Sofia Michaelides-Mateou, a professor of law at the University of Nicosia, and a Cyprus Airways Airbus A320 captain Dr Andreas Mateou, and presented at the Flight Safety Foundation's European Aviation Safety Seminar in Nicosia on 18 March.
Meanwhile, a criminal prosecution of individuals associated with the now-defunct Cypriot carrier Helios Airways as a result of the August 2005 fatal crash of one of its Boeing 737s is about to begin in the Cyprus courts in the next two weeks.
The Cyprus court case is coincidental to the study, because the study's purpose was to determine, generically, the positive or negative effects on flight safety of proceeding with criminal prosecutions against those involved in aviation accidents.
All on board the Helios aircraft died, so the pilots cannot be prosecuted, but other Helios employees and contractors, including engineers, have been charged to appear before the Cyprus courts, and may yet be called to appear also before courts in Greece, where the crash occurred at the end of a flight from Larnaca, Cyprus.
As well as examining former aviation accident criminal prosecutions and their judicial outcomes, the doctoral study carried out a survey of pilots and controllers to find out their perception of whether the threat of prosecution in the event of an accident had a positive effect on aviation safety, and they were almost unanimous in their opinion that it was detrimental.
There was a very small minority, says Michaelides-Mateou, that believed the threat of prosecution was an incentive not to make an error. One of the effects of the threat - or the actuality - of prosecution, the study found, is that although pilots and controllers instinctively want to provide information that will reduce the risk of an error or mishap in future, they withhold it because their own testimony may incriminate them - and their lawyers certainly advise them to take up their right to silence.
Mateou points out that, increasingly in cases all over the world, data from the technical investigation, and from the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder, is being used in its raw form as evidence in trials without the need to test its validity in law. This contravenes Annex 13 to the Chicago Convention, but it is happening, he points out. The result of this "intermingling" of raw data with legal evidence leads to pilots and controllers being advised to maintain their right to silence even in front of the technical accident investigators, explains Michaelides-Mateou.
The FSF, Eurocontrol and the European Regions Airline Association, which are joint partners in staging the safety seminar at which the doctoral study was presented, have publicly expressed concern for many years on the detrimental effect that the threat of the criminal prosecution of unintentional human error has on the voluntary reporting of incidents.
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/20 ... light.html
I will admit that I am a bit long winded at times, but a whiner and a threat to aviation safety?
Hmmm...
Perhaps a second opinion is in order. If yours is confirmed then I shall most gracefully bow out of what I had believed to be a rather pleasant academic discussion.
TTJJ[/quote]
Here is your second opinion about you being a threat to aviation safety.
Study finds criminal prosecution following accidents damages flight safety
By David Learmount
19/03/09
Flight International
A new doctoral study of the criminal prosecution of pilots or air traffic controllers following aircraft accidents and incidents has concluded that they have a definite detrimental effect on flight safety, but fail to have the intended effect of deterring individuals from making mistakes.
In fact, the study found, controllers are particularly aware that successful prosecution could follow an unintentional error, and the resulting stress may even make mistakes more likely.
The study was carried out by two Cypriots, Dr Sofia Michaelides-Mateou, a professor of law at the University of Nicosia, and a Cyprus Airways Airbus A320 captain Dr Andreas Mateou, and presented at the Flight Safety Foundation's European Aviation Safety Seminar in Nicosia on 18 March.
Meanwhile, a criminal prosecution of individuals associated with the now-defunct Cypriot carrier Helios Airways as a result of the August 2005 fatal crash of one of its Boeing 737s is about to begin in the Cyprus courts in the next two weeks.
The Cyprus court case is coincidental to the study, because the study's purpose was to determine, generically, the positive or negative effects on flight safety of proceeding with criminal prosecutions against those involved in aviation accidents.
All on board the Helios aircraft died, so the pilots cannot be prosecuted, but other Helios employees and contractors, including engineers, have been charged to appear before the Cyprus courts, and may yet be called to appear also before courts in Greece, where the crash occurred at the end of a flight from Larnaca, Cyprus.
As well as examining former aviation accident criminal prosecutions and their judicial outcomes, the doctoral study carried out a survey of pilots and controllers to find out their perception of whether the threat of prosecution in the event of an accident had a positive effect on aviation safety, and they were almost unanimous in their opinion that it was detrimental.
There was a very small minority, says Michaelides-Mateou, that believed the threat of prosecution was an incentive not to make an error. One of the effects of the threat - or the actuality - of prosecution, the study found, is that although pilots and controllers instinctively want to provide information that will reduce the risk of an error or mishap in future, they withhold it because their own testimony may incriminate them - and their lawyers certainly advise them to take up their right to silence.
Mateou points out that, increasingly in cases all over the world, data from the technical investigation, and from the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder, is being used in its raw form as evidence in trials without the need to test its validity in law. This contravenes Annex 13 to the Chicago Convention, but it is happening, he points out. The result of this "intermingling" of raw data with legal evidence leads to pilots and controllers being advised to maintain their right to silence even in front of the technical accident investigators, explains Michaelides-Mateou.
The FSF, Eurocontrol and the European Regions Airline Association, which are joint partners in staging the safety seminar at which the doctoral study was presented, have publicly expressed concern for many years on the detrimental effect that the threat of the criminal prosecution of unintentional human error has on the voluntary reporting of incidents.
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/20 ... light.html
