When all else fails, blame the .........

[Norwegianwood]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011 ... eport.html

[Rockie]

Blame the accountants who think training is nothing more than an expense to be reduced as much as possible, and flight operations management who too easily acquiesce.

[Brewguy]

Hmm, we don't seem to be flying, and the stall warning is going off .... I wonder what the problem could be?

[Mig29]

I say blame the pilot TRAINING.

[Maurice]

Blame the accountants who think training is nothing more than an expense to be reduced as much as possible, and flight operations management who too easily acquiesce.

That's total BS. I'm an accountant who has worked specifically on company wide cost saving initiatives. Nothing that would touch anything safety related was ever considered, not even discussed for a moment and I can tell you pilot training was never once mentioned. I worked with the flight ops group for a few years and didn't once hear anything about pilot training from a cost reduction standpoint.

I can tell you there are a lot of items that piss me off from a cost and entitlement standpoint, but trust me, all accountants that you like to throw under the bus without obviously knowing any facts realize that the costs of being unsafe far outweigh the costs of being safe.

[Rockie]

I guess you weren't going to the right meetings Maurice. There is constant pressure to reduce the amount of training. There is constant pressure to reduce the cost of the training that is provided. If you like I could PM you the name of the man whose mandate is making the training as cheap as humanly possible and you can ask him yourself.

Btw, I use the term "accountants" as a generic term for corporate management. Nothing against you personally or accountants in general. I also place most of the blame on flight operations management who should be telling you "no". Your job is to cut costs and I get that. Their job is to tell you when cutting somewhere is not acceptable, and I can tell you with certainty that while you are very good at your job they have not been good at theirs.

[vic777]

the costs of being unsafe far outweigh the costs of being safe.

The vast sums of money spent on unnecessary aircraft spraying would illustrate your point nicely.

[SilentMajority]

Getting back to the original thread....the current BEA report is not a positive one for the piloting community.

While it is still early days in the investigation, one thing appears to be certain and that is these pilots placed this a/c in harms way.

Satellite WX overlay shows this a/c blindly entering a 56,000 ft CB complete with suspected icing and severe turbulence. The FDR then apparently shows a rate of climb exceeding 13,000 ft/min....with the stick in the full nose up position....with the stall warning going off......for 54 seconds....etc etc.

How often have we witnessed "feet up, tuned out not to mention time zoned out while wishing the long night away". And what was the radar actually reading? Was the gain, range and mode properly adjusted to the most effective setting to find "the far cell behind the near one".

What training did these pilots receive on the effective use of the A330's weather radar? How about manual flight at high altitude with unreliable airpeed.

I don't know about you, but when I get on a long overseas night flight, I want to believe that the crew at the controls can handle more than straight and level on autopilot.

I think what happened that night on AF447 should be a wake-up call for all of us.