What I thought of the accident? I thought it was sad. The pilots clearly were under a lot of pressure from "the boss" (who is an A-hole btw). I think passengers think that they are invincible and that the pilot can get them wherever they need to go safely no matter what the conditions are. What they don't realize is that we are not all Hunter Villarreal and there are circumstances where we should make a no-go decision, even if it means missing a really expensive dinner.
The accident chain started from the very beginning when the passengers decided to stand around talking in a parking lot instead of sitting around talking on an airplane. Had they taken off earlier they might have missed the bad weather. The pressure from "the boss" made them continue the approach even after they had heard multiple aircraft go missed. I didn't get from the article whether or not the pilots actually did see the runway when they initially continued past minimums but they were very clearly not centered and had to make an unsafe bank to make it there.
I think the pilots should have told their pretentious, snotty passengers too bad they weren't gonna make their dinner. They didn't get to go anyway because they crashed. Their alternate had great weather and they probably could have driven to Aspen in a decent amount of time (just under an hour and a half according to google maps).
If I genuinely believed that a disaster was possible because a passenger was pressuring me to do a flight I was uncomfortable with, I would probably tell them so. You are the professional and in the end you have the last say. My job won't ever be worth my life. It might cause issues for the company but if you decide to go and end up crashing, you're gonna cause problems for the company anyway, might as well be alive to watch, right?
1. How do I relate to this?
ReplyDelete2. It is not that clear of a go-no-go decision. Its always easy to sit here and say you would not go. But in reality most of us would. Its their lack of decision to go missed or possibly divert that got them into the ground. Their runway was not 100 percent verified.