George’s Point of View

Can’t phone while driving, can’t text while driving, can’t drink while driving. What next? For pilots, don’t surf while flying. No federal rules specifically ban pilots’ use of laptops or other personal electronic devices above 10,000 feet, but Delta does have just such a policy.

I know the Internet can be engrossing. I’ve logged on for one minute and looked up 2 or 3 hours later, but I wasn’t driving—or flying a plane—when I did it.

Delta has suspended Richard Cole and Timothy Cheney, the pilots who overshot their destination by 150 miles.

Would it have been better if they’d been sleeping?

You may be surprised that in some places, it is allowed for pilots to sleep while flying. Pilot Antonio De Biasi provided me this little tidbit of information:

International carriers including former Varig, Air France, British Airways and Qantas allow pilots to nap, but sleeping while flying is prohibited at U.S. airlines by the FAA. Just last month, the Air Transport Association again pressed the FAA to allow controlled cockpit napping, citing NASA research that found a mid-flight snooze significantly reduces the risks of overall pilot fatigue.

The NASA study begun in 1989 and allowed one group of pilots flying across the Pacific to take a 25-minute nap while their co-pilots flew the planes, while a control group was required to remain awake for the entire flight. Those without the naps nodded off five times as much – including while on the approach to the airport – as those who got some sleep.

What is scary to me is the finding that pilots without naps nodded off five times as frequently as those who slept. If this was a blind study, those same ratios may be true for all pilots flying across the Pacific. Pilots nodding off may not be that unusual. That’s disturbing enough for me to want to bring an air horn on my next flight, just to honk it at regular intervals or whenever the captain is not a chatty sort.

Sleeping and surfing on the job: neither are illegal, at least, not yet, anyway.

And I am sure that I’m not the only passenger who wants the only law I want my pilots breaking to be the law of gravity.

George’s Point of View

I hope that all of St George’s licensees have been retested.

Anthony St. George was convicted and sentenced to prison on 15 counts of conspiracy and submitting false statements on Federal AviationAdministration (FAA) certifications. At the time, St. George was a designated mechanical examiner for St. George Aviation whose job was to administer FAA tests air-frame and powerplant tests to mechanics after mechanics took the prescribed class.Not only did St. George provide test answers, he skipped segments of the tests and issued certifications when the office was closed.

See the Official Whistleblower Press Release

By now everyone has heard of Jet Blue Captain Clayton Osbon. It appears he has already been tried and convicted in the media. When I look at the facts—or at least what we know of the facts—of his situation, and his history, I can not help but wonder what else is going on.

Since his breakdown in the cockpit, he has been held at The Pavilion at Northwest Texas Hospital in Amarillo. A psychiatric hospital is a good place for him to be.

This is a man who has spent many years in the cockpit, with nothing but an exemplary record. This is a man who is well known by neighbors and friends as a man of good character. This is a man whose friends say on camera, “that was not Clayton” as they refer to his unhinged behavior. He was behaving out of character. His wife said “It is our belief, as Clayton’s family, that while he was clearly distressed, he was not intentionally violent toward anyone…There are several different sides to every story. Just keep that in mind.”

Today he was taken from Northwest Texas Hospital to court by the FBI. In a seven minute hearing, he was advised of his rights, and the government filed a motion for pre-trial detention. The judge agreed to hold Osbon in the Randall County Jail in Amarillo without bond.

His situation reminds me of several other incidents I’ve seen lately, where aviation personnel have had meltdowns during flights. Take a second and look at this: An American Airlines flight from Dallas–when this flight attendant on Flight 2232 had a meltdown. Eerily similar, isn’t it? Is it a coincidence?
Both of these incidents happened in Texas.

All I am saying is this. A man does not change overnight. Don’t get me wrong–I don’t think he should be in a cockpit. But whether he had a breakdown, is depressed, was sleepwalking, developing some kind of exhaustion psychosis, affected by a drug or combination of drugs or other factors, Jet Blue Captain Clayton Osbon has spent decades as a man of good character and reputation. He would not just throw it away. He should be in a medical facility with doctors, not in a jail behind bars.

George’s Point of View

Thanks to Alexis Stevens of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, we know that this week Delta :

• landed on the taxi way instead of the runway at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
• flew 150 miles past their destination.
• had a landing gear emergency.
• posted a $161 million third quarter loss.

However, I would like to point out that Delta’s tough week didn’t involve Delta losing a life. However, this week also:

• Divi Divi lost a pilot in the Caribbean
• Victoria Air DC3 lost a whole flight crew in a fiery crash into a warehouse.
• Westjet had a member of the flight crew injured in turbulence
• Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee released their preliminary report on the Merpati DHC6 plane that flew into a mountain, killing 14
• a part of a Lufthansa’s galley landed on someone unfortunate enough to be in falling distance

And there were the usual bird strikes, unruly passengers, engine failures, cracked windshields, medical emergencies, flat tires, hydraulic failures, random burning smells, electrical fires, engine shut downs and a myriad of other emergencies that somehow managed to be non-catastrophic.

So all in all, a week as usual. Well, maybe a slightly unusual week, what with Northwest overshooting its destination, and Air Asia delivering a baby….

Or maybe in the immortal words of Walter Kornbluth (Eugene Levy, Splash) “Oy, what a week I’m having.”