777 Captain Dies in Flight Today.

God be with his family and may he rest in peace. I certainly hope that the flight crew, the FO in particular get some serious counselling after this ordeal.

The ironic part of this is that this guy would NOT have been allowed to fly about a year ago. The mandatory retirement age was set at 60 years of age.

Lobbying from older pilots who lost thier pensions in the post 9-11 bankrupcies led to a change in the federal rule, extending a pilots working years to 65. This captain was 61.

Again, my thoughts are with his family and certainly with the crew that was present during his death. I can hear the lobbying to change the retirement age already beginning.

Captain "Pol"

"Lord guard and guide the men who fly
Through the great spaces of the sky;
Be with them traversing the air
In darkening storms or sunshine fair.

Thou who dost keep with tender might
The balanced birds in all thier flight,
Thou of the tempered winds be near,
That, having thee, they know no fear.

Aloft in solitudes of space,
Uphold then with thy saving grace.
Thro' the lonely ways beneath the sky. Amen"

Crazy, just googled, and it is ALL OVER the news... at least it was a safe landing.

Arkador said:

Crazy, just googled, and it is ALL OVER the news... at least it was a safe landing.

Click to expand...

Going across the pond there are a few relief pilots. The crossing exceeds our max. flight time allowed per day.

Wow. Sorry to hear about the bad news. I'm glad there was a safe landing at least. Gotta be safe up there Rob.

Pol do you still have nerves when about to fly or has it become so every day it's like driving a car.

TxBrew said:

Pol do you still have nerves when about to fly or has it become so every day it's like driving a car.

Click to expand...

Umm, I feel safer in an aircraft in most cases. I mean when you are departing a snowy runway with near zero visibility in Nova Scotia in January, your senses are peaked and there is some level of adrenaline until you get out of about 10,000 feet.

I have spent about 7-8,000 hours flying, 5-7,000 of that in turbine aircraft, so I feel quite at home. I dont know how much time I have spent driving, but I think much less, and there are fewer things to run into at 40,000 feet

eschatz said:

Wow. Sorry to hear about the bad news. I'm glad there was a safe landing at least. Gotta be safe up there Rob.

Click to expand...

You know, I have a reputation for being pretty much by the book... when I was an FO, there was nothing I hated more than flying with 10 different captains who had 10 differentexpectations.

That being said, I also try to eat well, our occupation is not very healthy... I hope to live far past 61.

So what do you honestly think about a mandatory retirement age? I don't know the industry, but I'd think that maybe at 60 years of age, they might consider more frequent physicals, etc... But I would feel comfortable having a healty 60+ year old pilot behind the controls any day.

Also, I would hope that even on a shorter flight that at least one other guy in the plane was capable of landing it should the pilot kick the bucket.

McKBrew said:

So what do you honestly think about a mandatory retirement age? I don't know the industry, but I'd think that maybe at 60 years of age, they might consider more frequent physicals, etc... But I would feel comfortable having a healty 60+ year old pilot behind the controls any day.

Also, I would hope that even on a shorter flight that at least one other guy in the plane was capable of landing it should the pilot kick the bucket.

Click to expand...

You know, I dont know what I think about the retirement age. Obviously having and earlier retirement age would cause more of a demand for pilots, thus creating jobs and security. I dont PLAN to work past 55 anyway, but if I get to that age and need more retirement money, I will want 65 to be the rule, you know? We all want our cake.

I am young enough to get ONE physical per year for my 1st class medical, when I am 40 I think it is, that goes to twice per year and I think at 45 I get an EKG with each physical.

I have seen some VERY overweight pilots, and they still get thier medical signed off. I mean some of these dudes would have a heart attack push mowing thier yard. So, I am not sure that the medical requirements are that stringent even at that age.

This all being said, FOs fly half of the legs we fly anyway, they are perfectly capable of flying and landing an a/c in all sorts of weather. Thier judgement and decision making may not be as mature as a more experienced captain, but they are safe and capable.

This is an incredibly sad story. I just read the AP story and thought of the one thing that most bothers me about air travel.

The flight attendants went about their business, which they should have done. But they also asked for a doctor on board and found one. He disappeared into the cockpit, but passengers were told nothing.

Now, if I'm on that plane, I'm freaking out. Shouldn't the crew tell the passengers something, maybe along the lines of 'the pilot has fallen ill but there is another pilot on board to make sure things are safe. No need to panic?'

I know I'd feel a lot better.

I figured the flight officer could handle the plane. One of the news stories I read was a bit sensationalist and made it seem that if the back-up crew hadn't been on board, they would have been hosed. While I didn't think this was the case, I can imagine that some people are flipping out thinking the worst.

Pol... Man you guys have it good. What are your duty time limits? Same as Part 135? Used to be in the "industry" working for Flight Options as a dispatcher in our large cabin department. We never had "backup" pilots on board from Atlantic crossings. Then again, 121 is a totally different beast than 135 or 91, but you guys should still "legally" be able to do a crossing with just one set of pilots. Kudos to your airline for bringing backups. That does make it much safer in the long run, as we have just witnessed today.

First off, the media sucks at reporting. They are more concerned about being FIRST, than they are about being accurate.

First Officers are trained and tested EXACTLY the same as captains. The only thing that a captain is judged differently on is JUDGEMENT and LEADERSHIP and taking COMMAND. If the captain dies, the FO is fine to fly the plane.

About duty times... well, here is the "shady" part.

We can work a 16 hour duty day per the FAA

We can fly fly as many hours as necessary to complete our day EXCEPT that we cannot be SCHEDULED to fly more than 8 hours between rest periods. A normal rest period being 9 hours in length.

This means that if I am scheduled for 8 hours of flying and we hare holding to get into Ohare, Denver etc... and our flight time increases to 12 hours or more... it is LEGAL. Because you see, we were SCHEDULED for 8 hours, what we actually FLY is of no matter.

ALSO, 9 hours of rest is from the time I set the brakes on the plane in the evening until I show up in the morning... meaning. The 40 minutes it takes to get TO my hotel room and the 30 minutes it takes to get BACK to the airport, is included. SO now you are down to 7:50 for "rest". Add in a shower and breakfast and you are looking at 7:00 "rest".

There are pleny of rules in place, but they HEAVILY favor the industry and not so much the pilots. Who else is required to suck up a 16 hour day at work? And the 8 hours of "scheduled" flying is a joke... on your worst and most tiring days you will exceed this due to weather and traffic delays... and it doenst matter because your "schedule" was for 8 hours of flying... it matter little that you are pushing say 12 or 13... as long as you are in your 16 hour duty limit.

My longest day was 17:30 on duty and 12:30 of actual flying... I was able to EXCEED the 16 hour limit on duty because I left Ohare with 2 extra minutes to finish the flight as scheduled within the 16 hour duty period... problem was once we got re-routed for weather and exceeded the flight lengh by 90 minutes.

The Pol said:

First off, the media sucks at reporting. They are more concerned about being FIRST, than they are about being accurate.

Click to expand...

Hey now, no blanket statements, please.

If I were on board I would be more worried about losing an engine than losing the captain. I'm sure the FO would have no trouble flying the plane, the hairiest part would be landing because you would normally have to go through the landing checklist while dealing with traffic and ATC while making your descent, but in an emergency I'm sure they would get everybody else out of the way so he could just land the plane which he is well qualified to do.

"Excuse me... is there a PILOT on board?? If you are a PILOT please page a flight attendant"

If there are no other pilots on board, there is the option of bringing up a flight attendant to assist.

There are certain controls that you cannot reach from one seat or the other, so assistance is nice. They would read checklists to you and flip switches when you tell them to.

In that case though, wouldn't an autoland be a valid alternative? Or would they rather use a FA?

The Pol said:

If there are no other pilots on board, there is the option of bringing up a flight attendant to assist.

Click to expand...

For some reason this keeps making me think of the famous scene from Airplane. Must... re-inflate...

18 posts until an Airplane! reference.

EvilTOJ said:

18 posts until an Airplane! reference.

Click to expand...

I kept wanting to but didn't think it was appropriate until now!

"Excuse me sir, there's been a little problem in the cockpit . . ."

"The cockpit . . . what is it?"

"Its the little room in the front of the plane where the pilots sit, but that's not important now."

nealf said:

In that case though, wouldn't an autoland be a valid alternative? Or would they rather use a FA?

Click to expand...

You can use autoland... but the FO lands the plane 50% of the time anyway, FOs are no different than Captains in that respect... regardless of what the media claims. Remember when that Colgan flight crashed in Buffalo? Remeber the media spent WEEKS talking about how it was icing... and I said they were full of crap? Because the media is full of crap... they dont report on aviation with any degree of accuracy, which leads me to beleive that most of what they report is wholly false.

By the way, auto land will still require the use of controls that are not within reach of both seats, these planes are only certified for TWO pilots for a reason... you need to run checklists and have someone else there to assist you, even if you have to tell them exactly what to do while you are doing something else.