New poll for all you perfect pilots out there.

[Rockie]

All this chest beating indignation over the poor bastard who ran off the runway at St. Barts. I'll be the first to vote in the poll and say that yes, I have done some stupid things and had my ass saved by blind dumbass luck rather than skill or good judgement on my part. Anyone who hasn't simply hasn't been flying long enough...or is lying.

[square]

Yup. Left the fuel cap off once. Just happened to see the stuff flowing off the back of the wing while I was chugging along toward the runway. .. and that's the one thing I'll never do again heh.

[snaproll20]

I think that I will never see,
A pilot quite as good as me.
But ego's not my final wish
I may easily eat a humble dish.

[Strega]

Rockie,

I have done things that are dumb, and luck has saved my ass, but those dumb things are not anywhere near the same level as what the bonehead in st barts did, or the Colgan air crew that KILLED nearly 50 people, or the boneheads that ran the dash 8 of of a 10k long runway, all of whom are supposed to be professional pilots!! Most of the silly/stupid mistakes that I have made, were when I was a private pilot. Now some years later, I try not to make mistakes, like running out of gas, running off the end of a runway, not flying an aircraft in icing conditions, etc... all things you are supposed to not do, especially when the public is paying!!

[yfly]

Next time I hire a pilot, I will only accept resumes delivered by PM on Avcanada. The weeding process will be quick and easy.

[Rockie]

Strega

I've never yet met anyone trying to make mistakes but they happen, and they happen for a lot of reasons. Simple mistakes can escalate into big ones in very short order, and some of yours could have done so too if not for good luck. With 33 years experience I am not immune to making mistakes. A little bit of inattention through fatigue, distraction, whatever...and things can go turtle on anybody no matter how good they think they are. The best defence against it I have found is knowing it can happen to me.

I've trained and checked an awful lot of very, very experienced pilots over the years. Most are very capable, a small percentage a little less so. All but a few of them are what I would call professionals. They all make mistakes. Maybe you're just not aware of some of the ones you're making?

[mcrit]

Yep.

[Nark]

I:

Haven't noticed because dumbass luck saved me.

or.

Haven't been flying enough.

[snoopy]

Here's hoping that lucky horseshoe remains firmly planted in my ass...

[KAG]

Rockie,

not flying an aircraft in icing conditions, etc... all things you are supposed to not do, especially when the public is paying!!

Then I guess you don't fly IFR in the winter

[george sugar]

Pilots that think that all of their mistakes are behind them are truly dangerous. Also, with due deference to Sully and others, no amount of preparation or experience or wisdom or belief or self-actualization is necessarily appropriate to the situation which may confront someone on their next flight.

No one, unless they have intent, embarks on a flight accepting the concept that this one will include a fatal mistake. Every pilot should, however, start every flight accepting the fact that mistakes on their behalf may have dire consequences. It is usually not one big mistake that gets your buried, but rather a series of small ones. Make fun of the poor sop in St. Bart’s or the Jazz crew in North Bay all you will, but how many can say that they check the landing performance and runway suitability on every landing? It can never happen to you until it happens to you.

Rockie has hit it squarely on target; no matter who you are, the rest of your life will not be error-free. Further, no matter how much you know, the possibility will exist that you are wrong in a particular instance. Why these concepts are still a matter of debate is a bit of mystery when it comes to imperfect beings such as us.

If we are to minimize or manage such a risk, we must comply with the rules, procedures, limitations and best practices that are available to us; such a collection of knowledge is an amalgam of the experiences of many smart people that have come before us and no one person can possibly experience or know everything. How much you are being paid or the type of airplane you fly have nothing to do with it when it comes to accepting these facts.

A professional is not someone who is merely paid for their work; a professional is someone who strives for continuous self-improvement rather than seeking excuses for why they cannot be better than they are. If you want to be a cowboy, buy a ranch and wear a big hat. If you want to be a pilot, then accept reality and always try to learn more about your craft and not commit lazy errors. Heaven knows, there are enough hazards out there without us adding to them.

[TeePeeCreeper]

If you want to be a cowboy, buy a ranch and wear a big hat. If you want to be a pilot, then accept reality and always try to learn more about your craft and not commit lazy errors.

What happends if I own a ranch, wear a rather large cowboy style hat and fly my plane from my ranchers strip??? Guess I'm hooped!!!:P

Seriously, how the hell could anyone not have made any errors in the past? The truth is that most of us were forgiven for those errors though complete blind luck, even though we'd like to think that we were skillfull and expirenced!

[Hedley]

Anyone who claims they have never make a mistake in
an aircraft has either never set foot in one, or is a liar

We all make mistakes, all the time. Almost all the time,
they are harmless - they are caught by something else
which breaks the chain of events leading up to an accident,
or we simply get lucky.

However. Every pilot should strive mightily to make his
next flight a perfect one, to the level of OCD, for a multitude
of reasons.

[N2]

Yep I too am guilty of making a bone headed move in a airplane...I bought one.

[xsbank]

What is very strange in modern aircraft is that the pilots are trained to monitor computers. We're not very good at that. We get bored, we get distracted, we get amorous, we get.... whatever.

What makes way more sense is for the computers to monitor the pilots - they are very good at that. They get none of the above, they just keep chugging along (unless its a PC or Honeywell ).

[Old Dog Flying]

I've made my share of mistakes, learned from them and moved on. Most of them were in my early days with less than 100 hrs total time and still a teenager. Now I have a narrow yellow stripe up my back that gets wider as things go to hell and I tend to fly with a lot more caution than before. But then again I want to celebrate my 74th birthday later this month.

Learn from the mistakes of others, you won't live long enough to make them all yourself!

Fly safe!

[Strega]

Rockie,

not flying an aircraft in icing conditions, etc... all things you are supposed to not do, especially when the public is paying!!

Then I guess you don't fly IFR in the winter

KAG what I meant was not "flying" the aircraft in icing, or in other words, spinning a dash 8 into the ground because you picked up some ice, and were'nt "flying" it... I think you know what I mean.

[ahramin]

The simple fact is some pilots go around relying on luck, and sooner or later it runs out. If you continue every approach to a landing, you will be lucky most of the time and stop before the end. At some point though, you will end up off the runway.

Other pilots make every effort not to need luck. They may still need it, but not nearly as often, and certainly not in a situation as easy and obvious as this to prevent.

Flying is not a craps shoot.

[flying4dollars]

Rockie,

I think you may be misunderstanding some of the responses on the previous thread. Nobody admits to being perfect and not making mistakes. We all do, experienced or not, and we make it often. Fair enough?

What some are saying (including myself), is that mistakes like touching down 2/3's down an extremely short runway with obviously poor braking action and no reverse is one that fits into its own category. The decision the pilot made to continue landing was one that should never have been made. Going off the runway is a danger we will all face, but when you land THAT far down a short strip, well, I don't know what good outcome can come of it. I'll admit to my own mistakes, however, barring some sort of emergency requiring me to hit the runway on the 1st attempt at all cost, this is one mistake I'd like to think I'll never make.

[Doc]

I could write a bloody book on the subject! If it's dumb, I've done it. I've gotten myself out of a few tight spots myself, but more than a couple have required no small amount of luck! Being immortal sure helps as well.

[iflyforpie]

I showed my wife the video of the landing this evening. She knows pretty much nothing about aircraft and she thought I was just showing her another crazy SXM landing. About the point the plane got abeam the taxiway mid-field she says, "that guy should be on the runway by now."

I've done some stupid things, but I haven't done anything that a layperson figured out 15 seconds before how to prevent.

[Invertago]

My bag of luck is running pretty low... but my bag of experience is filling up. Now that I have more experience, I get a lot more mileage out of the luck that I do still need.

[Sidebar]

Someone once told me: Common sense results from experience, and experience results from lack of common sense.

[Rockie]

Rockie,

I think you may be misunderstanding some of the responses on the previous thread.

"Wow what an idiot, did nobody ever teach this guy when to overshoot?"

"Anyone that runs off the end of a paved runway in an Aztec is a MORON!! and CANT FLY!!!"

"make getting a pilots license much more difficult, in order to keep morons like this away,"

There is armchair quarterbacking, and then there is this. The first question anybody should be asking themselves when they see a video like this is "have I ever landed longer than I should have?". If you've been flying for any length of time then the answer is most likely yes. It doesn't take a genius to see what happened in the video, and any "layperson" can see that it's going to turn out badly (wife doesn't count, my wife doesn't fly but she knows a lot more about aircraft and flying by virtue of 30 years hanging around with me). However there is literally nothing known about the pilot or any extenuating circumstances at the time of the incident, so judgemental comments like those above are not only baseless, but they indicate that the person saying them hasn't asked themselves the question. I would be wary of anybody who doesn't think this kind of thing can happen to them because if it can happen to a very experienced Air France A340 crew it can happen to anybody.

[flying4dollars]

I would be wary of anybody who doesn't think this kind of thing can happen to them because if it can happen to a very experienced Air France A340 crew it can happen to anybody.

True, but in the case of the Aztec, weather was clearly not an issue. You're right, there were very judgmental calls made in the previous forum, but that doesn't mean people consider themselves perfect. We will all make mistakes, but ones like this are usually weeded out by pilots who don't use good PDM. Landing 2/3's down YYZ's runway in an Aztec still leaves 3000+ feet of runway. In st. barths, it leaves what..800?

Some mistakes will be made by professional pilots, some shouldn't..and I think this is one that shouldn't have been made.