You can see the FO’s right arm bracing against the window frame. Must be the Captains landing.

Companies have argued that they offer low pay because they are only a stepping stone for pilots in their careers until them move on to larger carriers. Actually one of the Colgan managers stated that this was the case at their company during the initial hearings. Pilots time and time again have accepted these payrates because they hope that this stage of their career is temporary and they’ll move to a larger carrier soon. Unfortunately by pilots accepting these low paying jobs only justifies the company paying so little. Plus, with the economy and industry being in such bad condition over the last 10 years many pilots have found themselves in these jobs for a lot longer than they originally planned. Actually the pay at the legacy carriers have taken such a beating in that same time frame that the pay doesn’t get much better after moving up. Most majors start their pilots at $30,000. Pathetic.

Wow, I just taxied out behind one of their 737’s 3 days ago. I knew they were going away but I didn’t realize that it was only a few days later. Now I really wish I had gotten a picture. Darn!

A satellite image of the airport if you look at it I think will reveal how easy it might be to do this if the pilots were distracted or not paying attention or maybe in poor visibility. From what I remember from the one occasion I visted, there are multiple straight strips of tarmac aligned east-west

Even in an emergency the taxiway is prime to make a bad situation a lot worse. First, the pavement isn’t built to withstand landing aircraft and could fail under such an impact blowing tires, etc. Second, there is no guarantee that a taxiway is clear of aircraft or vehicles. In fact at such a busy airport there’s a very high probability that such a taxiway would be occupied.

The emergency onboard has been referred to as a medical emergency so nothing critical to the aircraft. Landing 100′ closer to the terminal wouldn’t expedite medical attention for the passenger anymore than landing on the runway. Actually it could delay it if they hit something as a result of the landing.

El Al have done so for many years, for obvious reasons.

Are they incognito or are they posted guards?

Dean, just curious where the furloughs have been felt on the other side of the pond. In the US about half of the majors have some pilots furlough, anywhere from a few hundred to a thousand+. The regionals are in the same boat with half having already furloughed anywhere from 100-400 pilots at each company. We’ve seen a 20% reduction in pilots at our company with our furlough happening in the 4th quarter of ’08.

The kicker here, in addition to the economy, is the change of the manditory retirement age from 60-65 back in ’07. As a result there won’t be any manditory pilot retirements for 5 years. The earliest anyone has guessed we might see a some positive movement in recalls/hiring is late next year, most likely 2011. By then the senior pilots will be a year away from the manditory retirement kicking in again so my guess is hiring is going to go from a 3 year standstill to perhaps the biggest hiring booms ever. Feast or Famine.

I don’t recall my comment “professionalism” as pointing at anyone in particular. It was more a scattershot, designed to catch whoever felt the most guilty.

Really?

Warning someone of a known fault/problem doesn’t eliminate the fault/problem nor does it wash your hands of any responsibility. I’m sure he was trained on the holster but again no training or warning can’t guarantee 100% success if the gear is faulty.

One word. Professionalism.

In a thread about a specific pilot, in response to a specific quote regarding that same specific pilot your ignorant comment was a generalization and about no one specific? Right. :rolleyes:

I’m still not convinced. Authorised users would have been trained, and warned of the potential for this to happen.

Warning someone of a known fault/problem doesn’t eliminate the fault/problem nor does it wash your hands of any responsibility. I’m sure he was trained on the holster but again no training or warning can’t guarantee 100% success if the gear is faulty.