AC Lining Up with a Taxiway SFO...?

[crazyaviator]

I am 110% in favour of a non- punitive investigative structure , it has LONG been known to increase aviation safety as compared to a 3rd world knee jerk reaction of finding blame and closing the books !!!!
What I am NOT in favour is having investigators going out of their way to find fault with everything and anything and not include the pilot as part of the problem! Another thing and I call bullshit on rockie, is that there have been MANY accidents in which the pilot has been found to be incompetent, a liar, an accident waiting to happen and the SYSTEM kept on pushing him or her through ( The unions have been proven to cover up these cases ) Perhaps you are a little too naïve to understand that every group has their own "old boys club" take a look at the cops and how they cover up another cops incompetence after a shooting etc !

[Cliff Jumper]

there have been MANY accidents in which the pilot has been found to be incompetent, a liar, an accident waiting to happen and the SYSTEM kept on pushing him or her through

Can you provide a few examples of this? where the report found the pilot to be a 'liar' or 'an accident waiting to happen', and the 'system' kept pushing him through?

I personally have never seen such a report. Doesn't mean it doesn't exist, just that I've never read one.

But, I'm eager to, once you provide the links.

[Rockie]

Since you know this for a fact you should have no problem proving your accusations crazyaviator. Let's hear it...

[55+]

I am 110% in favour of a non- punitive investigative structure , it has LONG been known to increase aviation safety as compared to a 3rd world knee jerk reaction of finding blame and closing the books !!!!
What I am NOT in favour is having investigators going out of their way to find fault with everything and anything and not include the pilot as part of the problem! Another thing and I call bullshit on rockie, is that there have been MANY accidents in which the pilot has been found to be incompetent, a liar, an accident waiting to happen and the SYSTEM kept on pushing him or her through ( The unions have been proven to cover up these cases ) Perhaps you are a little too naïve to understand that every group has their own "old boys club" take a look at the cops and how they cover up another cops incompetence after a shooting etc !

As one who had many dealings with TSB, I find the above quite startling, more to the point grossly misinformed with an appalling lack of knowledge let alone understanding of the processes. Seeing this kind of commentary as above is why I seldom view/post on this site.

[crazyaviator]

There are tens of thousands of cases where poor, lazy, incompetent employees in VARIOUS industries are kept on the job BECAUSE unions have gone to bat for them !! Aviation is NO different !!!

[Cliff Jumper]

Well, several words in that response were in ALL-CAPS, so I guess that proves his point.

Case closed.

[Cat Driver]

This accident seems to support crazy's thoughts I would say.

June 2010 THE CRASH OF A COLGAN Air regional twin turboprop at Buffalo, New York, in February 2009, in which 50 people died, received an unusual amount of media scrutiny, in part because of what the National Transportation Safety Board’s report revealed about the captain’s history of failed flight checks and about the seemingly bizarre lifestyle of the first officer, who lived in Seattle, commuted across the country for work, slept when and where she could and was paid a bit more than $15,000 a year for her pains. But news reports and even an hourlong Frontline documentary aired by PBS on Feb. 9 did nothing to explain how a professional pilot could have made the amateurish mistake that caused the crash.
By now we have grown accustomed to the banality of the causes of most accidents. Rather than highly technical failures of incomprehensible electronic or aerodynamic systems, many of them involve extremely basic errors of judgment or airmanship on the part of flight crews. The crashes of a Singapore Airlines 747 in 2000 and of a regional jet at Lexington, Kentucky, in 2006 were due to pilots trying to take off from the wrong runway, a blunder so fundamental and seemingly obvious that no technical means are in place to guard against it. The immediate cause of the Colgan Air 3407 crash was an error equally elementary. When the stick shaker warned of an impending stall, the captain did exactly the wrong thing: He pulled the control yoke back and kept holding it back all the way to the ground.

Fifty people would be alive today if he had been fired or demoted.

[Rockie]

This Colgan case of a pilot escaping training and checking scrutiny is an anomaly, not the norm. And certainly not the "thousands" of cases crazyaviator claims. The FO's unusual lifestyle also isn't that unusual. Junior people get based in places they have no choice over and couldn't possibly afford. Commuting in this business is completely normal for all kinds of reasons, ever see the pilot trailer slum beside 25L at LAX?

Still waiting for a shred of proof to your claims crazyaviator...

[7ECA]

And yet people keep overlooking the glaring issue with the Colgan crash - and what may very well be a contributing factor to this Air Canada incident... Fatigue!

Read the bloody CVR transcripts for the Colgan crash, especially all the parts where the crew was discussing their lives.

[rookiepilot]

And yet people keep overlooking the glaring issue with the Colgan crash - and what may very well be a contributing factor to this Air Canada incident... Fatigue!

Read the bloody CVR transcripts for the Colgan crash, especially all the parts where the crew was discussing their lives.

Really? How many checkrides did that Colgan captain fail?

If fatigue is the problem for someone, I suggest they stand down and refuse the flight.

[confusedalot]

I'm sure you guys could drum up 24 more pages...

Looks like the population is responding big time.

I am sooo confused, poor poor little me.

[Cat Driver]

If fatigue is the problem for someone, I suggest they stand down and refuse the flight.

That is just to logical a suggestion, you wouldn't want pilots refusing to take flights even though they are not physically fit would you?

They might lose their job working for that great company.

[Rockie]

Yeah, sounds simple doesn't it, why would anybody fly fatigued? I can think of plenty of reasons starting with we are sometimes lousy judges on whether or not we are fatigued. Judgement after all is one of the first things to go. Next is you felt fine at the beginning of the flight and didn't know you would get fatigued four hours later. Should we land at Vegas because we're starting to feel tired?

Fatigue recognition and management is a learned skill some of us are better at than others. Statements like "stand down if you're fatigued" are easy to spout, not so easy to do in practice.

[rookiepilot]

Yeah, sounds simple doesn't it, why would anybody fly fatigued? I can think of plenty of reasons starting with we are sometimes lousy judges on whether or not we are fatigued. Judgement after all is one of the first things to go. Next is you felt fine at the beginning of the flight and didn't know you would get fatigued four hours later. Should we land at Vegas because we're starting to feel tired?

Fatigue recognition and management is a learned skill some of us are better at than others. Statements like "stand down if you're fatigued" are easy to spout, not so easy to do in practice.

Unbelievable.......

You're a professional. ie. You are supposed to know this stuff, and ground yourself if physically incompetent. Not make excuses that communicate such a causal attitude towards risk.

Speechless.

[Cat Driver]

Pilot fatigue is more common than one may think.

Here is another example of pilots not understanding the basics of flight combined with fatigue.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ealed.html

[crazyaviator]

There is an old saying that goes something like this : "Those that are not capable, competent AME s become management " but what if there are no positions for the AME in management or the incompetent pilot after a third failed test and co-pilots telling the chief pilot that he is incompetent? Without hard evidence like a big crash, what union is going to throw their card carrying, union dues paying "brother" under the bus ???

[Old fella]

Yeah, sounds simple doesn't it, why would anybody fly fatigued? I can think of plenty of reasons starting with we are sometimes lousy judges on whether or not we are fatigued. Judgement after all is one of the first things to go. Next is you felt fine at the beginning of the flight and didn't know you would get fatigued four hours later. Should we land at Vegas because we're starting to feel tired?

Fatigue recognition and management is a learned skill some of us are better at than others. Statements like "stand down if you're fatigued" are easy to spout, not so easy to do in practice.

Unbelievable.......

You're a professional. ie. You are supposed to know this stuff, and ground yourself if physically incompetent. Not make excuses that communicate such a causal attitude towards risk.

Speechless.

In my view there is an element of truth in Rockie's commentary. From my own experience covering Air Ambulance years back getting a call 2.00am in the morning to do a quick turn around short duration first trip was a lot more fatiguing than the end of a 14 hr duty day starting at 8.00am doing executive transportation. The 2.00 am trip was the start of my duty day and I couldn't plead fatigue if another trip came up a later in the duty time frame, simple as that. When covering Air Ambulance duties I took day time naps when covering night time operations. Aircraft utilized BE 100 and 200 with plenty of snow/wind/RDF especially at YYT with the winds. It was demanding flying.

Share your flying background with us Rookie, tell us what types, experiences aka Air Ambulance or on demand charter/executive, airline perhaps.What were your fatigue experiences in the course of your duties

[crazyaviator]

The . Sisto affair: Defending dangerous pilots

In October, 1947, American Airlines Captain Charles Sisto hitched a ride on an AAL DC-4 cockpit jumpseat, from Dallas to Los Angeles. For reasons beyond the comprehension of rational minds, he thought it would be a great joke to engage the controls gust lock, without telling the pilots. [1]


American Airlines DC-4


C-54 military version of the DC-4

Captain Jack Beck, who was flying that DC-4, began to gradually roll in more and more trim for the elevators, which seemed to be resisting the normal pilot inputs on the control wheel, required to maintain the assigned altitude.

Trimming, to relieve excessive pressure by the pilot on the controls, was accomplished by moving a small tab on the trailing edge of the elevators, which are panels hinged to the aft side of the horizontal stabilizer. When the trim tabs were moved upward, that in turn put downward pressure on the elevators. Downward pressure on the elevators would lift the tail of the airplane, and that in turn would lower the nose of the plane, causing it to descend.

However, with the gust lock on, the elevators did not respond to that input from the trim tabs. The trim tabs moved upward, as the trim control was changed by Captain Beck. That would have normally caused the elevators to move down, but because the controls were locked, they did not. As Captain Beck continued to roll in more and more elevator trim (moving that tab upward), it caused the plane to respond in the opposite manner, to which the pilot was commanding. As long as that gust lock was on, the trim tab being moved upwards would tend to make the plane climb. But with the gust lock off, the same action would tend to make the plane descend.

Additional trimming of that tab, while the gust lock was on, had the effect of winding a spring up tight, ready to suddenly release its pent up energy, whenever the gust lock might be moved back to the unlocked position.


Elevator up--plane nose up Elevator down--plane nose down


Trim tab moves up, elevator moves down


And, that is precisely what happened when Captain Sisto finally decided his prank had gone far enough: He moved the gust lock lever back to the unlocked position, without telling the pilots what he had done.

That DC-4 responded immediately by plunging towards the New Mexico desert floor.

Because neither Captain Beck or Captain Sisto had their seat belts on, they were slammed into the cockpit ceiling with the force of that sudden and unexpected maneuver. Their heads collided with three of the four engine propeller feather buttons. The result was that the plane was spared a full-power dive, which would have undoubtedly led to the loss of the plane and all souls on board.

Had they not lost 75 % of the engine power, as the plane entered the dive towards the desert floor, that plane would probably have come apart before hitting the ground.

Fortunately, Captain Logan (flying the First Officer position) did have his seat belt fastened securely in place. As the plane reached the inverted portion of the unplanned outside loop, only about 400 feet above the desert floor, he rolled it upright with the ailerons and managed to regain control until they could slow below the redline speed and limp to an emergency landing, which saved all 54 lives on board.

"The aircraft was placed under lock and key in a hanger at El Paso until a complete and thorough examination could be made by the Board's investigators. The day following the accident the crew made preliminary statements which indicated that there might have been some difficulty with the automatic pilot, which all three pilots stated had been engaged just prior to the maneuver previously described. For this reason tests were made of the automatic pilot which included its operation in this aircraft in actual flight. No evidence was found of any structural failure or mechanical malfunctioning of the automatic pilot or any other component of the aircraft.

Supplemental statements made by the three pilots on October 15, 1947, indicated that the automatic pilot was not engaged at any time during the flight but that Captain Sisto, sitting on the jump seat, engaged the gust lock while the aircraft was in level flight. Captains Beck and Logan further stated they were not aware of his action at the time. The aircraft started to climb and when rolling the elevator trim tab control nose-down did not return the plane to level flight, Captain Beck turned to Captain Sisto and asked, "Is the automatic pilot on?" Upon receiving a negative reply, he thought of the possibility of the gust lock having become engaged in flight and reached for the trim tab control to neutralize it. Before this could be accomplished, however, Sisto released the gust lock lever, and it being spring loaded permitted the gust lock to return to the unlocked position. The elevator was then free to be moved by the trim tab which had been placed in an extreme upward or airplane nose-down position. The sudden and violent movement of the elevator surfaces to a down position, upon release of the gust lock, caused the aircraft to pitch down violently as previously described."

The passengers and stewardesses (yes, that was the correct nomenclature, in those days......), who did not have their seat belts fastened, were also thrown up against the ceiling. Fortunately, their injuries were only minor.

Of course that ended the pilot career of Captain . Sisto----but only because American Airlines management and the CAB rejected the ludicrous defense of Sisto, by Dave Behncke, the President and founder of the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA).

Dave Behncke defended Sisto to the bitter end, by arguing that

"This incident could have been averted had the DC-4 been equipped with a properly designed gust lock system."

There you have it in a nutshell, what the original purpose of ALPA----the purpose which the founder of ALPA, Dave Behncke, saw as more important than all other considerations in the airline industry. More important than the safety of the trusting passengers who purchased their tickets with the full confidence and trust that the pilots would operate their plane with the highest of standards. Trusting passengers who believed their pilots had the kind of sound and rational judgment, which could fairly be expected of anyone who even aspired to be an airline pilot.

It was clear, from this and other bizarre behaviors of Dave Behncke, that ALPA was founded by a mental case who was incapable of discerning what was rationally and morally required of any person who would be hired to pilot airliners full of trusting passengers. Behncke only cared about power----the power to deny airline managements the right and ability to get rid of dangerous pilots.

Behncke set a horrible example with that case. Effectively, he told his ALPA member pilots that their jobs were more important than safety itself. He set the standard, that no matter how unprofessional or incompetent their conduct, they deserved the right to continue in their jobs. The safety of the flying public took a back seat to Behncke's agenda of preserving the jobs of dues-paying members of ALPA.

Behncke had been fired from Northwest Airlines, before being hired at United where he formed ALPA. He also was turned down by the Army, three different times, for the commission he so desperately sought. One could easily suspect that his dismissal from NWA and his failure to achieve the military career he wanted so badly, had an awful lot to do with the irrational driving force in his life.

Proving that all airline pilots deserved to hang on to their jobs, no matter how incompetent they might be, seemed to be the golden chalice for Behncke. Of course, that only applied to white pilots, since the racist Dave Behncke did not permit blacks to become ALPA members. I don't know if ALPA bylaws at that time also prohibited women, but it sure wouldn't surprise me if that was also the case.

Usually, those whose "thinking" arises from the swamp of bigotry and prejudice, also have a very strong bias against allowing women to compete with men----especially for the jobs which men deem the most desirable.

I pick on Dave Behncke, not only because he was founder of ALPA and its first deranged president for many years, but also because he set the tone of hatred and bigotry which is seen so often in the thinking of militant union members today.

To justify in one's own mind, the policies of hate, threats of violence and actual violence, which is a dominant tool of American unionism, one must rule out reason, fair play and the right of each individual to think thru the issues and comment on them and to make his own decision as he sees fit, without being attacked verbally or physically, for exercising that First Amendment right to free thinking, speaking and association.

In other words, to be a good union member today, one must justify in his own mind the hatred of groups which might undercut one's quest for monopoly control of the commodity of labor. That is why most union members favor the Davis-Bacon law, which was conceived in a racist time, for racist reasons, and which continues to harm minority groups in this country today.

If a union member is so devoid of rationality that he thinks it is right to hate all "scabs" (persons willing to give honest work to an employer, as well as ones who believe they have the right to negotiate individually with any prospective employers), simply because they amount to economic competition, then it is no stretch at all to equally hate those of a different race or gender, who also might be a competitive threat, in the minds of such bigots.

The idea that union members are entitled to their jobs, even when they refuse to work in them; the idea that union members should never be fired, no matter how incompetent they might be; the idea that it is proper to preach hatred against and use violence against any and all competing groups----those are the ideas which spring from minds filled with bigotry and fear, from minds which do not recognize that all have the equal right not to be attacked and assaulted, even if they are not a member of a particular tribe.

In short, I see no real difference between the fundamental mindset of a Dave Behncke, a Jeff Danziger, a Ted Rall, an Orval Faubus, or a George Wallace. They all start from a faulty premise that only those in their tribe have any right to rights. The entire concept of equal rights for all individuals, is entirely alien to their bigoted way of thinking.

They are opposed to the kinds of freedom and liberty which our Founding Fathers had in mind, as they wrote the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.

==================

[crazyaviator]

Which union group can you think of that behaves the same way as in the article above? Hint,,, they have guns and wear badges,,,,,,

[crazyaviator]

Since you know this for a fact you should have no problem proving your accusations crazyaviator. Let's hear it...

Do I need to find a dozen more?

[FICU]

The 2.00 am trip was the start of my duty day and I couldn't plead fatigue if another trip came up a later in the duty time frame, simple as that. When covering Air Ambulance duties I took day time naps when covering night time operations. Aircraft utilized BE 100 and 200 with plenty of snow/wind/RDF especially at YYT with the winds. It was demanding flying.

Those were fun times... up all day on call with an afternoon nap maybe and get into bed at 10... phone rings at midnight followed by a 14 hour duty day of medevac flying with no autopilot... in the arctic no less. Two weeks of 24 hour on call...

Transport Canada approved!

[crazyaviator]

From: Jim

I feel that politics should be left out. It clouds the issues, and causes un-needed "turbulence".

I am sure that when either of you were pilots (I am assuming that "Editor" is or was a pilot) that you did not stand at the front of the aircraft, and promote your politics upon the passengers as they were loading. I would hope that your concerns were the safe navigation of the aircraft you were in charge of. As I hope that your main concerns now are helping people overcome their fears, and anxiety of flying. I have to say Tom that during this morning's session that politics did not come up once. I thank you for that.

Now please BOTH of you (Tom & Editor) please answer my original question. "What would happen if you found yourselves together in charge of a passenger aircraft as PIC, and First Officer?" Would you be able to effectively and safely navigate the aircraft? Would most other professional pilots out there be able to in similar situations? If not perhaps our fear of flying is "well grounded"!

Answer by EditorASC:

I flew with UAL for 33 years. I can tell you that the political agenda of a union like ALPA can and has threatened airline safety. Both as a first officer, and as a captain, I did my best to prevent political agendas from disturbing the safe operation in my cockpits, but it was sometimes very difficult, when the other party was determined to make life miserable for all those who dared to disagree with ALPA's extortionist agenda.

There were some real horror stories following the strikes at Continental, United and Eastern. Two Continental pilots went to prison after being caught with bombs in their car, along with a list of addresses for "scab" pilots. There was actually sabotage damage of an airliner at Eastern. I was told that pilot was fired from Eastern and ALPA failed to get his job back, since the evidence was so strong, but they were able to get another union airline to hire him.

Numerous pilots were poisoned as they operated passenger flights, at United. Damage was done to personal property like houses and cars. Flight bags and uniforms were stolen, critical company mail that related to the safe operation of flights, was stolen before it got to "scab" pilots. Wives of "scab" pilots were routinely called by the ALPA Tokyo Rose, and informed of numerous affairs that only scab pilots indulged in.............. Telephone death threats, even to the children of scab pilots, was rather common.

In 1986, I came very close to crashing on takeoff, because a super militant union co-pilot set our flaps incorrectly on the 727. Both he and the second officer made that distraction error, as a result of being too intent on making life miserable for me in the cockpit----because I was known for not agreeing with the union political line, that all were supposed to support.

Fortunately, I had devised my own backup checklist, precisely because of other incidents of militant union activity, so I caught the error just as I was advancing the throttles for takeoff.

Other pilots flew planes which had critical warning systems disabled, without their knowledge. One was discovered after a DC-8 took off and would not pressurize. That required the dumping of fuel and a return to landing. It seems the belly avionics door had been left open, and the light bulbs in the cockpit "door open" warning light had been turned around in their sockets, so that there would be no warning to the pilots before takeoff.

There were a lot of pilots at United that should have been fired, because of such deplorable conduct, but none ever were. After all, that is what unions do the best: They protect the worst and most incompetent of their members. Every time management tried to put a stop to ongoing harassment of crewmembers, ALPA pilots responded with various slow-down programs that made planes chronically late, wasted enormous quantities of fuel, and ran out the legal duty time of pilots, before the end of the month (forcing the cancellation of many flights).

Union political activity was a big factor in the 1972 BEA Trident crash during takeoff from Heathrow. The pilots made one of the most egregious and unbelievable errors in the history of airline accidents: They retracted their leading edge slats at a speed of 63 kts. below the minimum safe speed for that configuration. And, once the plane started to move into the stall regime, they exacerbated it by disconnecting the emergency stick pusher system that was designed to rectify that kind of error.

There were no survivors.

There was a heated discussion in dispatch before departure, over union politics. Many of the younger pilots hated the captain, because he didn't support the militant younger ones who wanted to strike the airline. There was graffiti in the cockpit, specifically naming that captain, as a target of union hatred. That is the same kind of situation that prevailed at United Airlines in the mid-80s.

That BEA Trident did not have a CVR, so it will never be known if there was actually heated political conversation in the cockpit. But, those of us who have been thru the crucible of union hate, directed at those who dare to disagree with extortionist politics, know all the familiar distraction factors were present in that crash. That, most likely explains why they made that worst type of distraction error, that any pilots could ever commit.

I could go on and on with stories like this. Suffice it to say those kinds of tactics are regularly used by unions like ALPA, to enforce its agenda of fear and hate. It is very clear that ALPA places a much higher value on its "solidarity" agenda, than it does on safety, despite all the millions it has spent on TV ads, telling us how "professional" they are.

When Capt. Tom talks about loyalty and ethics, it is in reference to this kind of dangerous and despicable conduct. It is the ethical code of the Mafia mentality, the code of loyalty to the tribe, a code that seeks only to enforce adherence within the ranks, caring nothing about the rights of those outside the tribe.

"My loyalty is my honor," is the code that militant unionists glorify. That also was the moral code of the Nazi S.S.

[crazyaviator]

Still waiting for a shred of proof to your claims crazyaviator...

How many examples of union militancy and defence of incompetent pilots bordering on criminality do I need before you Rockie will firmly kiss my pretty buttocks ?

[crazyaviator]

Looks like the American Navy are getting in on the action of incompetent pilots being let through the system,,, this time for affirmative action reasons!!!!! Rockie, my butt cheeks are ready,,,,,,,,

Costly Affirmative Action
Remember Navy Lt. Kara Hultgreen who was killed attempting to land her $38 million F-14A Tomcat fighter on the USS Abraham Lincoln? The Navy's official public report was the crash "was precipitated by a malfunction of the left engine." Questions about pilot error were greeted with charges of sexism. ABC's Peter Jennings said there had been a "vicious campaign against allowing women to serve in combat."

According to John Corry's summary in the American Spectator (June 1995) and a report of the Center for Military Readiness (CMR), the government and media version of Lt. Hultgreen's accident is part of the continuing saga of government deceit and media complicity. But here's what really happened.

On approach to the USS Abraham Lincoln, Lt. Hultgreen made five major errors and ignored repeated wave-off signals by ship's landing officer. One of those errors caused the F-14A's left engine to stall, sending the plane out of control, because Lt. Hultgreen mistakenly jammed on the rudder. In the twenty years of F-14A's service, no pilot had ever stalled an engine this way. In an effort to back up their lie that the crash was due to engine failure, the Navy selected nine male pilots to "fly" through Lt. Hultgreen's pre-crash conditions in a ground simulator.

Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jeremy M. Boorda reported "the situation was re-created in an F-14 flight simulator. Eight of nine pilots in the simulator were unable to fly the plane out of the replicated regime." What Admiral Boorda failed to say was that the male pilots had been ordered not to execute the F-14A manual's so-called Bold Face Instructions, the critical things a pilot must do to fly through an emergency similar to Lt. Hultgreen's.

Documents obtained by Elaine Donnelly, director of CMR, shows that Lt. Hultgreen not only had subpar performance on several phases of her training but had four "downs" (major errors), just one or two of which are sufficient to justify the dismissal of a trainee. The White House and Congress' political pressure to get more women in combat is the direct cause of Lt. Hultgreen's death. But the story doesn't end there. A second female F-14A pilot, identified by Elaine Donnelly only as Pilot B, has been allowed to continue training despite marginal scores and seven "downs", the last of which was not recorded so she could pass the final stages of training.

These double standards are destructive in several important ways. They risk the lives not only of young women like Lt. Hultgreen and Pilot B but the lives of fellow military men and women. They dumb-down aviation standards. After all what do we do when a male F-14A trainee, washed out because he had four "downs" and subpar performance, accuses the Navy of sex discrimination? In the name of sex equality, do we lower standards for males? Finally, special concessions for female pilots undermine military morale and respect.

The Hultgreen incident demands several responses. The first is courts-martial of the Navy officers who deliberately submitted false and misleading reports about the incident. Second, Senators Strom Thurmond, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and Sam Nunn, its ranking member, must call hearings. If the Navy establishes double standards for female aviation trainees, families of those exposed to unnecessary death should be informed and the nation should debate wisdom of the Navy's affirmative action policy. Then there's the pure military mission question: how much military efficiency are we prepared to sacrifice to promote the leftist quota vision?

[crazyaviator]

What was Sunwings union response to the drunken foreign pilot fiasco? We do not want any infringement on our pilots personal lives! SO, A pilots personal life is more important than 200 lives he has authority over? A pilot is , by law, to be not under any impairment, especially drugs or alcohol, so any random test for impairment would be as logical as random tests of Pilots luggage!