Another Boeing 737 Max-8 crash

I heard the the FO was doing IOE, not sure if it’s true, or not....

 

English pwease.

FO...First Officer
IOE...???

 

FO - CoPilot
IOE - Initial Operating Experience ....or similar. Flying paying customers. Ie. new to the airline.

 

IOE is after simulator training, you are technically qualified to fly. However they put you with a check pilot for a week or so, until you get into the swing of things.

I'm taking a wild ass guess here, but smaller airlines are having a hard time filling the pilot roster. Qualifications are dropping across the board. Unfortunately you're going to see more of this shit, there just aren't enough qualified people to go around.

Of course this is pure speculation I have no idea what the crew's qualifications or experience are.

Keep in mind, there is a difference between safe and legal. Russian roulette is technically legal....

 

Has there been a lot of downward pressure on pilot salaries over the last 10-20 years? I would imagine that there are enough qualified pilots out there, but not at the current pay rate. Or am I way off base here?

 

I met a Delta 737 pilot the other day while watching a news story about that crash. I don't know if it's true but he said they had a 18 knot tailwind and the max for that plane was like 10-12. Any idea if any of that is true?

 

Boeing reportedly knew of the software error on the 737 Max for a year before telling airlines and regulators

https://www.businessinsider.com/boeing-knew-737-max-software-error-year-before-telling-faa-2019-5

Sent from my smatrfone

 

No idea what the winds or runway conditions were. But 10 knots of tailwind is a limitation on most jets.

Where this can bite you is you do your descent planning 100 miles or more out. You get the reported winds, etc. Let's say it's a 5 or 6 knot tailwind. Then you are on final and they state the winds, now it's a bigger tailwind. You're supposed to abandon the approach and pick a more appropriate runway. Sometimes Air Traffic Control doesn't want to go through the hassle of turning the airport around until someone refuses to land.

Or, maybe the winds picked up from 5-6 knots to 10-12 knots and the tower never stated the change (The weather reports are usually only updated once an hour). Whenever there is an incident like this, they hit a button and it generates a weather report for that very moment. Surprise, surprise, you had a big tailwind.

If they did have a tailwind, and it was a wet runway, given the length it should have been no problem, even though it was technically illegal. But this is a situation where you screw up something (bounced landing) and run off, and boom, you are fried because you landed with a tailwind.

This is all just for discussions sake, I haven't read any more about this particular incident and the details in the first articles were pretty thin. So I don't know what the real facts are....

 

If true, that's very disconcerting. Reminds me of the scene in Fight Club when Ed Norton's character is explaining to the old lady on the plane about how and when his company will issue a safety recall.

 

From what I've read and heard from pilots, the shortage is because they're getting a ton of retirements and not enough people are willing to spend $50-100,000 and have years of making very little money to get there. They have finally been increasing the pay for pilots starting out. The guy I talked to from Delta said he made $18k his first year in the 90's, now you can make 50+. Still too low in my opinion for how important of a job it is.

 

I'm giggling to see Mongo talking about Mongo in the 3rd person.

 

The thing that has kept me from the airlines is the quality of life, not really the pay. I know a lot of pilots who fly for the majors. I can only think of ONE who is still married to his first wife.

 

They predicted pilot shortages in the early to mid 90's when I was considering flying for a career. I guess that prediction is playing out now. They (magazine publications & flight school advertisements at that time) always said by the early to mid 2000's.

Don't some of the "senior" captains fly on a few times a month and make a solid income? I'm curious. The airlines also have the mandatory retirement age of 60? Is that still in effect?

 

A friend of mine in the UK was a pilot for BA, he made a pretty good wedge.

 

65 now.

Post 9/11 and an industry wide gutting of contracts, the quality of life is shit. The pay has come back because of the need to attract pilots. If history is any indication though the cycle will complete and in 10-15 years there will be a pilot surplus and downward pressure on compensation.

Sitting in traffic on the Van Wyck between LGA/JFK now. #shithole

 

At least it isn't Newark.

 

Not funny, I have to cover Newark as well. Shockingly, the majority of our sick calls seem to stem from EWR..

 

I was there a few weeks ago and someone called Newark "the armpit of US air travel".

Shockingly accurate

 

How can that be? I’m an experienced truck driver and finished 2017 at $83K. We have many doing over $100K. Pilot income seems absurd, for the amount of training and risk.

 

The guy in the right seat can make as little as a 3rd of what the guy in the left seat makes iirc. Young guys on regionals don't make crap and often live in crash pads wherever they're based out of. A crash pad can be as crappy as a 2br apartment with 4 sets of bunk beds in it.