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The Southwest Issue
As I have said many times here, the FAA is more a political organization than a safety organization. If you have any doubt about it when I say it, read what the inspectors who are employed by the FAA have to say about the FAA. The following link is to a press release issued by the president of the FAA Inspectors Union, Tom Brantley.
www.newsmgr.com/publish/article_985.shtml
Brantley points out how political the aircraft inspection issue with Southwest is. He says, "It is appalling that the FAA chose to impose this penalty only after several months of investigations by Congress and the threat of a pending hearing instead of immediately addressing the implications brought forward by inspectors over a year ago. The series of events not only highlights the dysfunctional relationship between FAA management and its workforce, but it also perpetuates the fact that the FAA is only willing to take action against the airlines when backed into a corner rather than taking inspectors at their word."
He continues with remarks that have to do with the FAA REMOVING and TRANSFERRING and an inspector assigned to Southwest who wanted Southwest to perform certain inspections on time, even if it meant taking planes out of service and causing flights to be canceled.
Instead of doing the inspections on time, Southwest complained to the FAA. The FAA removed the inspector instead of backing him up. The FAA inspector, apparently, then went into "whistleblower" mode.
Brantley writes, "It is unfortunate that the inspector assigned to Southwest Airlines had to resort to invoking whistleblower protections in order to have his claims validated. Even more unfortunate is that there are other inspectors out there who undergo the same types of retaliatory actions by the FAA and air carriers for simply doing their jobs."
After the removed inspector blew the whistle, Congress got involved. And here is where it gets really nasty. The FAA, under pressure from Congress, tries to shift the head to Southwest and fines them.
Southwest did nothing wrong. They got the FAA to agree with them to put off the inspections. It was all right to put them off. But Brantley finds it troubling that the FAA, in order to allow Southwest to put off the inspections, simply replaced the strict FAA inspector with an inspector who was more willing to play ball with Southwest.
Whether it was right or not to put off the inspections, Brantley says, "The relationship between the FAA and the industry has developed into troubling partnerships rather than the FAA maintaining a strong oversight role. Many of these partnerships have grown into more 'cozy' relationships that result in the FAA becoming the protector of the airline rather than the flying public, . . . ."
Though some, including people in Congress, have stated that Southwest endangered the public, that is not the case. Southwest asked Boeing. Boeing said that the inspections could be delayed with NO SAFETY PROBLEM.
The problem is not at Southwest. Southwest DID NOT FLY UNSAFE PLANES. The problem is the FAA. The FAA undermines its inspectors as Brandley says, ". . . thus weakening the authority of FAA safety inspectors to perform their job and reducing their role as critical safety enforcers. The bottom line is that the FAA appears to be more concerned with keeping airlines solvent rather than safe."
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The Lufthansa Issue
Several of you emailed me about the Lufthansa A320 that scraped a wingtip landing in a crosswind. Video of the landing is available and was circulated on the web, forcing Lufthansa to make a statement. What they came up with was absurd. They said the pilot was a hero. I have a different take on it.
I would say incompetent.
I went through the video very carefully, stopping it to study it at many points.
Frankly, the pilot doing the landing was not up to the challenge. When
doing a crosswind
landing, you have to compensate for the crosswind in one of two ways:
1. "crab": that means to aim the airplane to the right (with a crosswind from the right) as you approach the runway, or
2. "wing low": tilt the right wing down to keep the the plane on a path to the runway, in spite of the crosswind.
When the crosswind is extreme, you use both, and you remove most,
if not all, of the crab before touching down, and you continue using
"wing low".
This is technical, but here is how the pilot screwed up. When using
the "wing low" technique, just before touching the runway, you apply
left rudder
- while still holding the right wing down - to line the plane up with
the runway. When you apply the left rudder, you have to apply
additional pressure to keep
the right wing down. Why? Because using the rudder to swing the nose
left to align it with the runway will tend to make the right wing rise.
You have to keep
that from happening. This pilot let the right wing rise. Once it
started rising, he didn't catch it, and even let the nose swing more
left.
If you watch the video and stop it at several points just before and after the touchdown, you can see these things happening.
Sure, it was a difficult landing, but any fully competent pilot could have handled it.
I lived in Germany for five years when I was in the Air Force, so
it was not a surprise that Lufthansa, instead of saying this guy is a
jerk, is trying to make
him into a hero. Don't buy it. Lufthansa is a great airline, but this
pilot needs a new job.
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Uncertainty Causes Anxiety - How Well Do We Handle It?
There are situations we cannot survive. But if the chance of not surviving is one in five-million (as flying is) then that is a remarkably (relatively) safe situation. The problem is, without an ability to regulate emotions, nothing is good enough except absolute safety (no chance of not surviving). There is a further problem: absolute safety does not exist; it is an illusion. This means, unless you have a way to regulate emotions, you either must have an illusion of absolute safety or you risk staying frozen, unable to function.
The inability to take a flight is an example of being frozen, unable to function; that is, one is unable to function as a passenger. In today's world, that means being unable to function as a traveler; most of the world cannot be reached by motor car - as if that were a safer alternative. It isn't. It is just that, when driving, it is easier to maintain the illusion of being absolutely safe.
Absolute safety is a popular consumer product. There are plenty of people around who are willing to sell you an illusion of absolute safety (or absolute good or absolute evil, for that matter). There are people who will tell you they know absolutely what they are doing, and you have nothing to worry about. Maybe that is true in some limited, unchallenging situations. But in general, there is no absolute safety.
To limit your world to what is absolutely safe means living in a very small world indeed. That's what agoraphobia is all about: trying to have no risk at all, by staying home, and perhaps even in one closed and locked room.
The illusion of absolute safety needs to be understood and confronted. Relative safety needs to be accepted as the basis for functioning, unless illusion is preferred to reality.
But how popular is reality versus illusion? The French writer Camus wrote "I want to know if people can live without illusion." Apparently Camus believed most - if not all - people require illusion. Apparently he wondered whether there can be enough courage to deal with life otherwise.
If Camus was right, and you prefer illusion, you may be with the majority. Yet, to the degree we utilize illusion as a way to fend off anxiety, we distort reality. The more illusion, the more distortion. The more distortion, the more our ability to direct our day-to-day living goes off track.
Fear of flying develops when illusions about absolute safety break down. Though the illusion of absolute safety once worked for you, when you see through that illusion, you may not know what to do - IF there isn't enough automatic ability to regulate emotions to deal with the reality that there no absolute safety exists.
Though it is still possible to function on the ground, perhaps aided by "security blankets" such as control, reassurance and availability of escape, those security blankets are taken away when flying.
The answer is to increase the ability to deal with the slight uncertainty that taking a flight involves, by establishing automatic control of the feelings, so that the feelings one gets when flying are normal - not exaggerated - feelings.
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You, Too, Can Fix The Flying Problem Now
Get started with the program that works. SOAR
was established in 1982 because no programs existed which could help
people with moderate to severe difficulties. Even today, no other
program offers help that is effective except for mild difficulties. No
matter how difficult flying is for you, we can help.
Full Length Course
We have the full length SOAR Video Course on 11 DVDs and we have the accelerated FastTrack course. The full length course provides the maximum help possible. More info.
FastTrack
FastTrack is for you if you have a flight coming up soon, even tomorrow! It includes three hours of the most important video clips from the full length course. More FastTrack info.
Get started now. The SOAR FastTrack program can be on your computer's screen in two minutes.
- Fast Track is inexpensive.
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We
are always here to help. As you go through the program, call or email whenever you
have a question or a concern.
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What To Do When The Airline Loses Your Bag
An article on that is at this link.
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Plowing The Runways
It's a lot bigger job than plowing your driveway, but airports are ready and able. Read more at
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Fear Of Boarding
Patrick makes a good point in his column this week at Salon.com. For a person who doesn't enjoy the competition of contact sports, fighting for a slot for your carry-on bag is an uncomfortable confrontation.
Patrick continues on green aviation at this link.
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Did You See The Videos On YouTube?
Check them out at http://youtube.com/user/CaptTomBunn and share them with your friends.
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