To back up stvltvs, the OP did more or less just use the one-liner as a zinger. "Protects but doesn't bind X, binds but doesn't protect Y" is the caricature, really. I'm sure you can find more floating examples on HN of it because it is a very lazy, midwit flex that signals the in-group the person spends too much time on the internet.
As someone with elderly parents, the Googles and the Microsofts of the world really don't seem to give a shit about the elderly anymore, if they ever did. Random UI updates and workflow changes with no announcements, thinking they're "intuitive."
One of these days the product managers who push these things thinking "oh, it's easy, you just . . ." are either going to be explaining it to confused Mom or Dad, or they're going to be elderly and irritated themselves. Until then I hope they stub their toe or step on random Legos regularly.
I'm not even elderly but I would really like an e-mail client with a stable UI. I used to like Apple Mail but it's been a buggy mess since Catalina. It doesn't even sort or search mail reliably any more. It's basically a trope at this point but a robot-rewrite-in-Rust seems inevitable at this point.
A while ago I helped an elderly relative migrate off off a copy of Eudora that they'd been using for many years. (To Thunderbird.)
Originally it was about difficulty migrating to a new laptop with a different version of Windows, but I was quite firm about it because when I realized it wasn't able to do secure connections for some reason, so the instant they took their laptop to public Wi-Fi...
P.S.: Migrating decades of local messages was a huge problem. It's been so long that many import/export tools are defunct. I was even loading up extremely old versions of Thunderbird to see if I could import to that and then upgrade.
However the GitHub edition (not Sourceforge) of Eudora2Unix [0] saved me and deserves a shout-out here.
It took some tweaks and a harness to repeatedly try the conversion, since I wanted something I could literally drop into the Thunderbird profile folder. The final result wasn't perfect, (some file attachment issues linger) but it's way better than having it all at risk of Eudora.exe just refusing to launch one day.
The problem occurred way behind that, when they refused to take a botched approach around. Everything else was just them doubling down on a bad decision over and over.
Did fly jets, although not transport-class ones. Just to hammer home that everything here is correct, and the common thread through all aircraft types is disciplined execution.
You fly an approach on airspeed and/or angle of attack, and on glideslope. Period. You're either there or you're correcting to get there, and you're correcting at a point that you don't need huge oh-my-God corrections in close. If you can't do that, sucks to be you, take your waveoff like a real man or woman, and next time suck less.
Do companies punish pilots for go arounds for costing them fuel and delays? If not outright punished, does it cost them in potential promotion/raises? Do they look into a go around enough to determine cause or are all go arounds assumed pilot error by the company?
No, a go around is not a pilot error and it's not punished.
It's almost the opposite. There is automatic monitoring for stable approach criteria (simplified: you must be at speed X with flaps selected etc by altitude Y). So this example would cause an automatic report from the aircraft to the airline, because they were too fast (not within stable approach criteria) and still continued the approach instead of going around.
However even in those cases it's not meant for punishment but for safety improvement. In most professional operations these reports are made anonymous, and only for example someone from a union committee gets to know who the crew were and could have a talk with them if necessary.
> No, a go around is not a pilot error and it's not punished.
But the cause of a need to go around can be pilot error. There could be non-pilot error needs for a go around like when there is a runway incursion so the pilot is waved off. If a pilot makes a bad approach, would that not be pilot error? Not being a pilot, I'm not sure of the procedure. I'm assuming a 767 uses autopilot for the majority of the flight. I just have no insight on whether the pilot or the autopilot is responsible for the approach.
The industry does not treat a go around like an error. You'll only ever get questions when you don't go around while procedures clearly require it, like what seems to have happened in this case.
On autopilot use: The pilot is always responsible for the approach. You can definitely have an unstable approach on autopilot if you configure it wrong or ask it to do things that can't be done within the stable approach criteria. A common example is trying to slow down and descend at the same time, most jets can't really do that.
But "responsible" does not necessarily mean to blame in aviation. The industry as a whole follows the Just Culture principles (see: https://www.caa.co.uk/general-aviation/general-aviation-at-t... ) The purpose of a report is to learn from it and improve safety, not to blame the crew.
AFAIK all Part 121 Passenger operations in the US (and most worldwide) have a no-fault go-around policy. Most have eliminated even the minimal requirement to denote a log entry as to the reason lest that make pilots reluctant to do the right thing. Some airlines even have monitoring programs and will penalize pilots for not going around when they should even if they save the landing. They don't want a bad habit to develop (normalization of deviance) because some day the holes in the swiss cheese will line up and the pilot won't be able to save the landing - and by then it will be too late.
Part 121 Cargo and Part 135 Charter are ... another story. Quality of training and procedures vary a lot. Some are run about as well as the Part 121 Passenger operations. At others a go-around is a career-limiting move.
I do not know how 21Air operated - leave that to the NTSB to discover - but it would not surprise me whatsoever if Amazon leans heavily on their contracted ACMIs and yanks contracts for delays. A go-around means an extra 15 minutes (give or take) and Amazon cuts their logistics schedules razor thin so they don't have to pay for extra labor. A 15-20 minute delay in unloading the airplane can mean the sorting center staff and delivery trucks sit idle (though it wouldn't surprise me if they just stiff the delivery contractors for the wasted time).
This isn't necessarily done with ill intent - the middle managers at Amazon are just chasing their numbers and an operator that prioritizes safety will inevitably have worse on-time performance. As is often the case these days outsourcing / contracting can end up being a race to the bottom even if no one intends it that way. FedEx Ground is all contractors who bid on routes. If you ever wonder why the driver throws your package or leaves it in your driveway: they had to be the lowest bidder to get the contract and that means X deliveries per hour or they lose money. It just so happens that with air cargo operations this kind of pressure can easily lead to an accident.
This should not be the case for any modern airline; too many accidents were caused by exactly this problem in the past.
However, I don't doubt shady operations might be doing this(more so if they aren't carrying passengers). They won't be around for long if they are caught doing this kind of nonsense and it causes an incident (or accident in this case).
Today there may be some rules (more than X go arounds because of weather, you have to divert, etc).
If there is a company willing to bend rules to increase profits, I'd bet it'd be Amazon's retail side. Not via explicit punishment, because that'd be too easy to catch, but bonuses for timely arrivals, fuel efficiency, and so on.
Well they tend to optimize heavily by discouraging things like bathroom breaks, and I’ve seen evidence of this thinking in how they treat their drivers. I’m not sure why this would be extraordinary? On its face those incentives don’t sound bad except that they will incentivize unsafe behavior in edge cases like this.
I think it matters a lot because Amazon doesn’t have their own airline. They contract out their aviation to multiple companies.
The incentive is to pick the lowest bid and that could be a company whose culture creates indirect pressure on pilots to be on time. All it takes is a dispatcher in a small company that is constantly irritated when things are late. Knowing that the other people are going to be angry with you for being late can make you hesitant to go around, causing exactly this type of accident.
Is this what happened? Probably not. Pilots get tunnel vision for any number of reasons.
Isn't there a call out usually where the plane says "minimums" and the pilot flying has to verbally confirm that they are committed? You'd think for this flight, that would have been the final time to realize they need to go around? Or is that strictly just a visibility call-out?
No you must pass the stabilized gate well before minimums; legal requirement is usually 1000ft above the airport for IMC (instrument conditions), 500ft for visual conditions. AFAIK airlines can set higher minimums and may set other configuration gates (eg 1500ft gear must be out, flaps in landing configuration).
To be stabilized you must be lined up laterally (eg localizer captured) and on glide slope (vertically aligned). Airspeed must be Vref +/-10, final landing configuration (flaps, gear, etc), sink rate correct (<1000fpm), power set (not idle), and all checklists complete.
Typically the pilot monitoring should make a callout for this (eg "Approach") and the pilot flying responds ("stabilized" or "unstable, going around").
The "minimums" callout is to verify that you can see the runway sufficiently to land. The exact requirements vary - a Category I ILS you can go down to 200ft without seeing the runway. A Category IIIb ILS is 50ft. Technically Category IIIc allows 0 so has no decision height and requires no "minimums" callout but I don't know of anyone crazy enough to allow this - you wouldn't be able to taxi off the runway with zero visibility.
The stabilized approach gate is a performance & configuration check. Is the aircraft configured for landing and on the correct performance profile with the expected automatic guidance?
Minimums callout (DA/MDA) is a visibility check. Can we see the runway to whatever degree our approach requires?
btw: If you are curious the various ILS categories impose performance and redundancy requirements on both aircraft and the airport ground equipment. Things like backup transmitters, self-monitoring to catch drift, battery backups, etc.
Yeah but that's what I mean, like having to acknowledge minimums and saying "yes let's do it" is like the last like external trigger that they should have listened to and decided to go around.
Yes that's true. They knew before but at 1500 they should have gone around. At "minimums" callout they should have gone around. When they floated so far down the runway they should have gone around.
Instead they waited until they were about to go off the end with idle engines to try it - the one time it was too late to go around.
The fact they were even in that situation is only worth philosophizing about to a point. Because they were only in that situation due to what appears to be a series of totally unacceptable decisions that got them there. Based on everything that's come out, I'm comfortable saying as a former military aviator that in my opinion, this crash happened due to a complete failure of airmanship on the part of both crew members.
- a) Flying an unacceptably sloppy approach that put them on short final going that fast, high, and overpowered. Professionalism is being on airspeed and/or angle of attack and on glidepath . . . no excuses.
- b) Responding to a) by trying to force the jet onto the runway, when any aircrew member with half a brain should understand how badly you're going to float in ground effect when you're that fast and that overpowered. And what that's going to in turn do to your spoilers and thrust reversers that depend on weight-on-wheels before activating. Professionalism is recognizing a botched approach, swallowing your ego, and taking it the hell around.
- c) The pilot not flying sitting there like a coward and not taking the controls from the pilot flying. If someone hits a go-around criterion and isn't going around, YOU TAKE THE CONTROLS AND EXECUTE ONE. Professionalism is proper crew coordination and proper assertiveness in the cockpit.
This whole thing seems to just boil down to a complete failure of airmanship and a complete failure of professionalism all around. If I'd done that or allowed my pilot to do that, I'd expect to have had my wings pulled. If the investigation reveals more, I'll change my mind. But it ain't looking good.
Advice I've seen many experienced captains give when you're FO and captain is fixated on landing: declare going around to tower. It avoids a fight over controls or the captain trying to override you; in that moment they're unlikely to jump on the radio and say "no we aren't".
CH Robinson, though, just lost a lawsuit at the Supreme Court with similar premises. They are a freight forwarder and third-party logistics outfit that contracts large amounts of capacity with subcontractors (airlines, trucking companies, shipping lines, etc.) and sells a complete package to their clients.
One of CHR's service providers was conducting hiring shenanigans and not fully, legally screening their drivers. One of the service provider's drivers hit another vehicle and crippled that vehicle's driver, who sued. CHR argued all liability should fall on the trucking company who hired the driver. The Supreme Court said no, CHR could be held liable for negligence in vetting their service provider as well, because it was ultimately CHR's load being carried.
I'm not a lawyer, but under that legal precedent, it seems Amazon might not be off the hook for damages in this case, given it was their subcontractor who was carrying Amazon cargo in a jet with "Prime Air" on the side.
You're being downvoted because actual qualified aviators are telling you how egregious of a mistake this looks to be, and you're quibbling with them without any professional credibility on the subject.
In any aviation incident, it’s generally a good idea to wait for the full NTSB report before drawing any firm conclusions.
That said, it is exceedingly difficult to find any explanation for what happened in this case that doesn’t boil down to incompetence or gross negligence.
There were so many opportunities to avoid this accident. The crew seemingly more or less single-handedly punched a hole straight through the entire Swiss cheese model. It’s so bad it’s hard to imagine they weren’t drunk at the controls.
This is honestly one of the few cases where it looks so blatantly and obviously negligent that I'm comfortable commenting ahead of the investigation results.
Even in a case where someone has drilled themselves into a mountainside, there's value in trying to see things like "were they distracted? Was there mechanical failure? Did they have a freak medical emergency and get incapacitated? Did unexpected weather crop up?" And in other cases, it's a "but for the grace of God go I" moment where you understand how they could have made the wrong decision in good faith. Even years out of the cockpit, I'm willing to give most aviators the benefit of the doubt, because God knows I screwed up enough in my day.
But the only thing I can think of that compares to this level of negligence was the F/A-18 pilot 20 or so years ago who lost his wings after booming his non-towered hometown airport at over 500 knots and below 500 feet with absolutely zero pre-authorization or waiver from the FAA for that kind of thing.
So do you or do you not believe the First Amendment protects speech on this website? Or does it only protect quill pens and moveable type printing presses?
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