Commercial Airline Pilots, African Style
This was a letter from a pilot in answer to the question of why European airports ban flights from certain African airlines
One African airline I know of has the procedure that every landing must be a smooth one. That sounds okay to most people, but hopefully not to the pilots among us. They mandated that landing smoothly was more important than landing in the touchdown zone. They didn’t go around, they would simply touch down in the middle of the runway and slam on the brakes, close their eyes and pray that they didn’t go off the end of the runway. But the passengers never knew any of this, just feeling a smooth touchdown, so that was the most important factor for them.
The same airline would work out the maximum load they were able to safely lift in terms of passengers and freight, complete the load sheet and other paperwork to fit with this maximum, then do the real calculations in-flight, commonly landing more than five metric tonnes over the maximum landing weight.
The same airline made their pilots work 10 days on, one day off. They were not allowed to call in sick and any breach of this would necessitate armed men being sent to the pilots place of accommodation to physically force them onto the aircraft. I believe I know of two First Officers who got away with it — one because he had been arrested for murder, the other because he had been kidnapped. So I guess they weren’t totally unreasonable.
The SOP at my airline is to descend at 700 feet per minute for a three-degree approach and flare at about 20 feet. The SOP for this airline was to descend at 1500 feet per minute — thrust is idle so it saved them fuel — and flare at about 100 feet, floating down the runway to land dangerously, but smoothly, far far down the runway. Maintenance procedures were ignored and reports doctored. Licenses and check rides were given and passed based on bribes.
Eek.
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J K Brown:
Yeah, getting many of the pilots flying airlines in the Southwest Pacific to get and read the route weather was a chore. Mostly they opened the cockpit window and looked outside. Typhoons, hurricanes, well there is the calm before the storm.
June 28, 2017, 10:50 pmbillposer:
Isn't it worrisome that an airline even has its own procedures? Good procedure is determined by the type of aircraft, the laws of physics, and air traffic control. Leaving aside matters subject to ATC, the procedures appropriate to the aircraft should be followed, not those invented by corporate management.
August 9, 2017, 12:56 pm