Germanwings Airbus Crashed in France

[Von Tonner]

Originally Posted by v-i-c-

The Lufthansa said on Thursday they have the best pilots of the world and the best pilot training. Are they all talking nonsense?

For any country to claim they have "the best in the world" is sheer nonsense. This is NOT a beauty contest or sports team winning the world cup for heavens sake.

[v-i-c-]

Originally Posted by Von Tonner

For any country to claim they have "the best in the world" is sheer nonsense. This is NOT a beauty contest or sports team winning the world cup for heavens sake.

But you saw the ""?

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by v-i-c-

But you saw the ""?

I did, which is why I didn't raise you a 'British Airways'

[Von Tonner]

Originally Posted by v-i-c-

But you saw the ""?

Apologies V-I-C no, overlooked it - I was just so taken back by the claim of Lufthansa

[eddie]

Man, the rumor mill has gone into over drive about the copilot, hasn't it!!! Stories all over the place on what was wrong with him to do such a thing. Too bad it is being done just to make headlines.

[Von Tonner]

Originally Posted by eddie

Man, the rumor mill has gone into over drive about the copilot, hasn't it!!! Stories all over the place on what was wrong with him to do such a thing. Too bad it is being done just to make headlines.

Totally agree Eddie - but that is the media for you. I have read headlines he was "gay"... he was "jilted"...his ex girlfriend claiming he wanted his name remembered for ever, he knew the area well etc, etc.

He was a troubled individual obviously and what he did... is not shocking...its barbaric. I have the utmost respect for Lufthansa - no one can deny it is one of the top 10 airlines in the world by many standards - it saddens me though that it is prepared to compromise its proud record for expediency. This guy should never ever have been allowed alone in the cockpit of an airbus. Yes, in fairness to Lufthansa, he hid from them some of his problems, but they were certainly aware there were issues regarding him given his time out from training. Balloons should have gone up then.

[danasan]

Regarding the copilot's 630 hours...

Lufthansa-Chef Carsten Spohr told the audience during the press - conference on Thursday something like (my translation):

That guy was first hired as a flight attendant (cabin) and then, Sept. 2013, as a copilot on the A 320. Since then, he flew 630 hours on that type A 320.

So this figure has nothing to do with the total amount of hours he flew during his "career", nothing was said about that, nothing about other types either.

How will you get any experience on a type of airplane if not by actually flying it? Everybody will start with ZERO hours. Don't they?

Press conference, allmost all of it in German language

BTW: I do not have any sympathy with that copilot, but we have to have that staight.

[Tchocky]

it saddens me though that it is prepared to compromise its proud record for expediency.

You're going to have to explain that one. Where has this happened? Where has this been shown to happen?

This guy should never ever have been allowed alone in the cockpit of an airbus.

Everyone's a bloody expert all of a sudden.

Yes, in fairness to Lufthansa, he hid from them some of his problems, but they were certainly aware there were issues regarding him given his time out from training. Balloons should have gone up then.

He passed all required checks and exams. Obviously they were happy to have him in the cockpit.

Originally Posted by Tchocky

Everyone's a bloody expert all of a sudden.

[GoldenRivet]

Originally Posted by Von Tonner

The pecking order in many commercial airlines is cadet, 2nd officer, 1st officer, copilot, captain and lastly senior captain. Is this roughly correct?

I hope to provide a thorough answer to your question, as seniority and job titles like you mentioned above seem to confuse some folks:

I have been out of the business for a few years but it depends on the equipment. Most aircraft have had a "flight engineer" designed out of the cockpit.

When i was hired by the airline i flew for, on day one of class, seniority was established before anything else was done.

They had a list of the new employees, all of us sitting there, the instructor had a clip board with our names and birth dates and ages. The oldest pilot in the group was awarded the highest seniority, the youngest pilot was awarded the lowest seniority, all were incorporated into the master seniority list accordingly as new hire First Officers.

Immediately after establishing seniority he wrote on the dry erase board something like:

Base.......... equipment.........#needed
DFW....... Embraer 145.......... 5
LAX........ Embraer 145.......... 3
ORD........ CRJ..................... 2
LAX........ SAAB 340............. 4
DFW....... SAAB 340............. 2
SJU........ ATR72.................. 2

he called us by name in the order of our new found seniority and we picked which of the assignments we wanted. each time one was selected the number needed was modified counting down to zero, after that we were sent to indoctrination for several days before ultimately being split up into classes specific to our aircraft type.

when you are hired, you are a first officer, as seniority builds you can bid a captain seat and be awarded a spot as a captain as spots become available. Ideally this is 3-4 years and things are moving. when i was in the business it was about a decade to upgrade from FO to captain

the term "Senior Captain" or "Senior first officer" simply means they are high on the master seniority list. its not a whole new category all its own. I have not heard of Cadets and 2nd Officers etc funny though i do enjoy flight simulator X and there are a number of programs out there that allow you to manage your own company etc... they do use the terms cadet, second officer, etc though these are not real positions generally at least in the US

in the business, seniority is everything, it determines who gets what schedule, who gets approved for paid vacation days, who gets vacation on what month, who gets to promote to captain, who gets what base... everything

Originally Posted by Von Tonner

Secondly, I think I recall reading on one aviation site that the max a pilot can rack up in a year on flying time is approx 1,000 hours given the restrictions of time off needed between flights. And I am assuming that time spent in a simulator does not count.

Am I on the money?

There have been a number of rule changes over the past few years. At last i checked, 1,000 flying hours a year was the maximum. time in the sim doesnt count. You are restricted from flying for compensation without written authorization outside of your flying duties because hours flown for compensation (say, instructing on weekends) counts toward your 1000/yr - recreational flying, like hopping in the cub and going with a friend to a fly-in does not count toward your 1000/yr

this works out for guys who schedule intelligently. If you bid some 80-90 hour schedules each month and pick up overtime frequently... you could be at like 995 hours by say December 2nd... the airline now has a legal and contractual obligation to remove you from duty until January 1st to prevent a violation from occurring.

If you had a schedule of flying throughout December and you were removed for a legality, most airlines contracts require them to pay you for the flying you would have done had the legality not occurred.

its a sneaky way of getting 29 days paid vacation in December - and if you are really clever and bid a January schedule that has a "transition" of the first 4-5 days in January scheduled as "Off Days" well... now you not only have the last 29 days of 2014 off... you have the first 5 days of 2015 off too for a huge chunk of 34 days off.

its a lot of work to manipulate the system like that and many airlines will have an alert that pops up when a pilot gets close to like 800 hours... the schedulers have the pilot flagged in their system and can deny the pilot's request for overtime and place the open/available trips into a que to be assigned to a pilot sitting on reserve.

When i was sitting number one on the seniority list for my equipment in Dallas - my strategy was to routinely bid the same schedule as an instructor captain. The contract stipulated that if an instructor captain held a regular schedule with an FO for the month (thats me) and a new hire first officer had to take my place to train with the training captain... if the company had no assignments immediately available to reassign me to they were required to send me home with pay for the duration of time that i was "displaced" from my schedule. if there were a high a number of FOs fresh out of training that needed time on the line with a training captain... there might be 40 straight days off duty with pay.

[mapuc]

Having seen a lots of Air crash investigation episode-doesn't make me an expert-I can only read and hear what the real expert say, after they have investigated this crash.

I have however notice an increase of "rumours" about this young co-pilot.

I have also noticed some people suffering from paranoid(example from FB.
No Markus-the authorities will not tell us if he was a convert)

Just my saying and shouldn't we await the final report ?

Markus

Originally Posted by mapuc

Just my saying and shouldn't we await the final report ?

Markus

Can you please refrain from bringing sense and/or logic into this, yes?
Appreciated.

I've seen links to FB pages, full with the most silly conspiracy theories already, hinting that our highness, Angie, is 'behind it' and what not.

Best one can do is turn off TV, radio, internet and not read newspapers for ~4 weeks.
At that point reports will cease (the people demand new bread and games by then, a silly air crash isn't interesting enough anymore after such a period of time) and the next one hears is probably something true, backed up by evidence.

Personally, I am quite annoyed how big the topic has become.
Yes, it is tragic.
No, it is nothing 'special' (if you do some research...)
And the topics being started around this incident range from knee-jerk/illogical nonsense reactions to flat out paranoia.

I read "people had a weird feeling boarding planes after the incident"
Why? Is it so likely that this, or any crash at all, will happen again!?
There is literally no reason or connection as to why one should worry to fly in general. If if would have been a technical problem, yes, sure - cause that might happen again before its fixed.
But something like this?
Putting every flight crew under general suspicion is the worst thing to do, I think.

Last but not least,
I feel very sorry for the people who lost their loved ones, it is beyond imagination and trying to imagine a situation like this makes my stomach turn around. I really just hope they will recover from this

[Tchocky]

What he said.

[Rockstar]

People are going to have suspicions you cannot prevent that, it's a natural reaction when ones trust has been broken or violated. This crash was not caused by an act of god, failed part, weather or something else beyond the control of the flight crew. It was deliberate act carried out by a member of the crew. I think for those reasons this event will have an affect on the whole industry. Thankfully people will eventually move on from it and look once again at flying as one of the safest modes of transportation available.

The Lufthansa pilot that assured his passengers that he wants to go home to his family just as they all do is a great start. Those that believe people should just line up at the gate with smiles on their faces would make a great airline corporate executive more concerned about the bottomline.

[Dan D]

Aren*t those 150+ dead, victims of our terror paranoia policy which we have since 9/11? This would have not happened on an "old school" airplane where kids could visit the pilot*s cabin for show. Instead we have heavily fortified pilot cabin's where the chief pilot can't get back in -under some circumstances- when he goes for a pee. There is something wrong there.