PW305

Eric,
As the person that updates and maintains both ARG/US and Wyvern accounts at my company I have to disagree.

Were there any training, management or operational problems at Global Exec Aviation where a captain with 35 hours in the LR60 was sent out and reacted poorly to a tire failure approaching V1? Sadly, the captain and 3 others were killed. Global Exec immediately became 'unrated' by ARG/US but was GOLD rated 6 months later and I believe is GOLD+ now.

Do you think there is anything wrong with that?

minitour

Is that the one that caused that whole tire pressure checking thing?

-mini

PW305

Yes, that was the accident. Now bombardier has built wireless-transmitting valve stems for the tires and a wand that the pilot can 'wave' by the stem during preflight and check the pressures, while still complying with 135 regs by not checking pressures with a standard gauge. I'm sure it's cheap too!

minitour

Unbelievable.

-mini

EricMercury

Again PW305, yes, there's something wrong with "that." People keep thinking ARG/US -Wyvern and the like certify individual pilots. They don't. They certify a company's "operations". One pilot's action in itself doesn't make an entire operation lose their certification. It very well might trigger an operational audit that may uncover systemic deficiencies that could certainly lead to pulling a certification! But you can't keep trying to attach single failures as a complete failure of a rating system.

#1 Was she properly rated and qualified to fly that trip as per standards set forth by the FAA? Yes.

#2 Did she hit the brakes when she should have hit the throttles? Yes.

#3 Was she trained to take that action? No.

#4 Did she have the experience to be PIC of that flight? See#1

The world of political correctness, which often puts inexperience and perhaps bad judgement ahead of common sense should be the subject tag line.

But common sense no longer reigns in our society. For you, an air carrier, or yes, even a rating company, to say an individual pilot can't be upgraded or assigned a trip based on something as trivial as good judgment and experience, will just get you thrown out of business in 2 blinks of an eye today!

PW305

I get what you're saying Eric... but individual pilots don't assign crews to trips, tier 1 management personnel do.

I think we can agree we'd both be richer if we started one of these safety rating systems.

not trying to drag this out, moving on...

EricMercury

Agreed PW305. But it is my opinion that no matter what you call it, or how you grade it, Political Correctness attorneys will shut it down. All things being equal, there is no way in the United States today that you can call anybody other than a white male "unqualified" to take a trip based on their experience. In the eyes of a court, we are all "equal" and experience and judgment don't have a thing to do with anything.

I guess we just keep giving each other that secret knowing wink when we pass each other in the hallway coming and going from Ops.