George’s Point of View

Let me present you with a theoretical construct. Let me present you with a horse, and his rider. Let me introduce the horse, who at the beginning of this construct, is already dead. The horse in our fabrication, sadly, has already been ridden to death. And having fallen, the horse is reviled. His good reputation is being fouled, and he is no longer able to defend himself.

And here is the question I mean to ask you:

When you ride a horse to death, whose fault is it? Is it the fault of the horse, who has no choice but to do what he does? Is it the fault of the rider who drives the horse on? Any reasonable person would blame the rider, and rightly so. It is the rider who wields the crop, that drives the horse on when it would rest. The horse is just being a horse. Perhaps we might wonder why: why is the rider such a taskmaster? Is there some great cause involved? Is there some life or lives at stake? Is there a just cause that forces the rider to set such grueling standards?

But I am getting ahead of myself. Putting the cart before the horse, if you’ll pardon the pun.

Let me explain something unique about our horse. Our horse is not an ordinary horse; he is in a unique situation. He had a certain degree of choice. He had other options. He could, perhaps, have chosen to be a cow, or a rabbit. But his essential nature, his learning, his history, his hopes and dreams–they were the learning, history, hopes and dreams of a horse–a whole life lived to one pursuit of being a horse. This horse is a horse, I should say WAS a horse, because he wanted to be. So when he was asked to perform as a horse, he did. Even though the demands that were put on him were exhausting. Even though the scheduling was unreasonable. He was a horse working longer hours, with less rest than he needed, and he paid the price.

So let us turn back to the rider. Why did the rider push so hard? Why is it the horse’s fault for falling to exhaustion, and not the rider’s fault, for driving him to it?

In fact, look at the rider now—he’s back on another horse, riding this one just as hard. In fact, riding many horses, all driven to the same point of exhaustion. And there will be more horses falling, failing. It is inevitable.

So, why is this rider pushing so hard?

It always comes down to money. For the rider, having fewer horses is more cost effective. For the rider, horses are cheap. If one drops, who cares? There are many more where he came from. Why should the rider cater to the demands of the horse–so what if the horse would like shorter hours, better pay? If he wants to be a horse, he has to work like a horse, period.

In fact, the rider could sponsor many more pilots, I mean, horses, divide the work load so that the ratio of work to worker was a reasonable load. But that option is not in the picture.

I am guessing that you have figured out that I am not speaking about horses at all. I am speaking of fallen pilots. In fact, one pilot in particular, Zlatko Glusica, the Air India pilot who was in the cockpit of the Air India Express flight that crashed and killed 158 passengers. Reputations—his and that of his copilot—are being tarred, feathered and dragged through the mud. But the pilots were not alone in that fatal cockpit. There was a third seat, occupied by fatigue, and that third seat was put there by Air India policy.

George’s Point of View

I fly a certain carrier.

I fly a lot of miles on this carrier.

This carrier impresses me as a company. They got through a bankruptcy as a team, and that says something to me.

Now let me tell you what I don’t like.

A half-*** approach to maintenance.

You fill in the blanks.

What if the maintenance of this carrier’s fleet were as bad as the aesthetic condition of the interior and exterior of the planes? Within a couple of months even new and re-configured planes lose that “new plane” smell. I can live without the “new.” What I can’t live without is working parts. I don’t care how shiny the bells and whistles are, I just want the important parts (engine, hydraulics, on board computer systems, etc.) to function. When I board one of these planes, every single time, I send a little prayer skyward that the maintenance has been done, perfectly.

There’s no margin for error. I know I’ve said this before but it bears repeating. It’s not like a car–when you get a lemon, and you have to keep pulling over to the side of the road and calling road service. It’s not like a ship, where at least the passengers can get into a lifeboat and have a fighting chance at survival. There’s no soft shoulder or lifeboat for a plane. There’s only straight down, and certain termination. Every pilot, every crew member, every passenger puts their very lives into the hands of those mechanics. And if they’re American mechanics, I can be relatively confident that they’re well-paid, well-fed, and well-educated. Do I have that assurance if the mechanic is in some other country? No, I cannot.

How can any passenger feel confident when the mechanics can’t read the plane’s manual? When I board a plane, I have every intention of getting where I am bound. With an American maintenance team, I am assured that if there were the slightest inkling that the maintenance were not up to par, I still can be confident that the parameters of maintenance are overseen by the FAA and the NTSB, and prescribed by American standards of excellence; and any default of or deviation from that standard of excellence is proscribed by and accountable thru the massive engine of our legal system. Can I say that when maintenance is farmed out to some obscure third world entity? Of course not.

I had one emergency landing one hour out of Sao Paulo and was forced to stay the night, and wait 24 hours for the dubious right to depart on what turned out to be the same plane. Instead of taking off as expected, we rolled to a complete stop out on the runway. The captain came on the PA system stating that he was just not comfortable with the smell in the cockpit, and we were going back to the terminal.

The pilot knew better to trust his own senses over dubious maintenance practices. So for that flight, it was back to the terminal for more waiting.

I do have some cause to worry about maintenance. If there is belt tightening that must be done, by all means do it. But not if it means sacrificing safety standards in favor of a third world discount.

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