More Wingman Debriefing: Reader Opines on Comair Accident

Regarding "Wingman: Available Technologies Might Have Saved Comair 5191,"

Reader Capt. C. Bouridis writes:

"I am a professional pilot with more than 30 years of commercial aviation experience.

Regarding this [Comair 5191] tragic accident, the only thing I would like to state, or better, stress is that the airline is responsible in creating safe and sound standard operational procedures, or in other words SOP.

However, it is the operator as well; legal responsibility to give the proper training and indoctrination to its crews, and to establish a continuous recurrent and training program to ensure that the pilots' skills are up to the required standards, and a quality control system to ensure the whole training program is working and it is efficient and safe.

One of the most basic standard operating procedures is to indoctrinate pilots before initiating the take-off roll to check if the runway is the correct one.

You may ask, but how?

It is simple, all runways have correct and proper identification, and prior to entering the runway pilots MUST read the panels, to make sure they are about to enter the right runway.

After having the aircraft aligned, they should check the compass, RMIs [radio magnetic indicators], and even select the localizer to check if they are on centerline and correct runway (this procedure is mandatory for low visibility operations), and last but not least, read on the floor of the runway the painted numbers and designation.

Therefore, as you can see no special equipment is required, just standard operational procedures, and constant recurrent training."

If you have comments on Wingman or anything you see in Flt Tech Online, you may send an email to editor@flttechonline.com.

09-27-2006.

Click here to become a registered Flt Tech Online subscriber and receive headlines delivered to your e-mail each week

Click here to go back to the headlines