I don’t quite get the point that 4 of the 5 fatal accidents since 2004 were at the regionals. First they seem to pick that time frame to exclude the AA A300 in NY and second it could be pointed out that it’s amazing that no one was killed in the non-fatal accidents by the majors. In each case it seems they were on the cusp of the accidents being much worse. CO in Denver? AA in Jamaica? SWA in Chicago? (a child in the car was killed) FedEx in Tallahassee?

If they blame a crash at the Regionals because of flight time of the crew why don’t they mention it when it happens at the Majors? It’s as if they are trying to find something unique to the Regional crews/operations so they can seperate themselves from the accidents there and inflate their own worth.

My point that I’m poorly explaining is their argument isn’t universal. We’ve had 3 accidents at the major airlines since the fatal Q400 crash in Buffalo yet the attention seems to still be on blaming accidents on the experience level of that crew. If experience was a controlling factor then why did FedEx crash a MD-11 in Japan? AA crash a B737 in Jamaica? CO crash a B737 in Denver? Yet the goal seems to be to hang the Regional pilots out as inexperienced, accident prone amateurs.

I guess they can drop the “allegedly” now that he pleads guilty.

What kind of punishment can he expect in the UK for this?

I’m not familiar with FAA regulations, but according to ICAO Doc 4444 the crew shall make position reports when passing compulsory reporting points, when requested by the appropriate ATS unit or at specified time intervals (every hour or less). Flights may be exempted from these requirements by ATS.

I’m guessing they didn’t use Automatic Dependent Surveillance (ADS) in this case?

There aren’t any compulsory reporting points in the lower 48 states that I’ve ever seen. Maybe a few in the Rocky Mountains. The compulsory reporting points are found where there isn’t any radar coverage but we’re pretty well covered for enroute traffic.

No reason for the cabin crew to go into the cockpit unless one of the pilots was coming out.

I take the same round trip flight each week as a passenger and it would take quite a bit more time past the scheduled arrival time to get my attention. There’s enough variation in the flight time due to weather and traffic in any given month that delaying the decent by 20-30 minutes doesn’t surprise me. This crew was out of communications for 77 minutes which doesn’t mean the flight was 77 minutes longer than scheduled. It would get my attention if I saw our destination city below us while we were at cruise but it sounds like that also got the attention of someone in the back which led to the cabin crew calling the pilots repeatedly.

From an early report I read it said this A320 had an older model of CVR that only recorded 30 or so minutes before it started recording over the audio loop. Between the time the crew turned the aircraft around and parked at the gate more than the alloted CVR tape had been used so the audio from the time in cruise had been erased.

Wonder if some how the aural warning system was killed in the process. If it wasn’t working, or working right, the crew might not have realized the A/P was offline.

They aren’t removeable. They basically are push to reset buttons that can be manually pulled to deactivate a system if needed for maintenance reasons. It isn’t a good idea to pull a CB in flight as you’d be hard pressed to know for 100% what systems will be deactivated. For that reason pulling CB’s only done on the ground when such actions have little consequence should something unexpected happen.

CB’s for the most part are visible by the crew as it’s one of the first placed you look should a system go off line. If system C stops working and you notice the CB for that system has tripped then you know an electrical spike of some kind took it off line. In some instances it might be prudent to reset the CB to see if the system goes offline again in case it was an electrical anomoly the first time.

No rudder deflection either. Did they try correct for it?

It seems they landed crabbed into the wind so no rudder would be needed.

Does anyone know what the roll limits are for an A310 in landing. Too far and you’ll strike an engine. I’ve heard the B747 has a limitation which explains the number of dramatic pictures of them landing in a crab in strong winds.

What’s the demonstrated crosswind component for an A310? Just curious.