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Commercial Aviation/Airplane Question

Re: Commercial Aviation/Airplane Question

bigblue_dl said:
This has seemed, to me, to be the way this has been going for a little while now. The scary thing now is, where are all of those passengers? Were they executed? And, what the **** are the crazies going to do with this plane? I guarantee it is nothing good, and hopefully someone shoots it down before it gets crashed into a population center.
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I've been following along with a thread on an aviation message board (300+ page thread)...US investigators are "confident" MAS370 at the bottom of the Indian Ocean...

Mookie...they're multi-taskers. :D
 
Re: Commercial Aviation/Airplane Question

So how often do airlines check their pilots to see if they're showing signs of going a little schizo?
 
Re: Commercial Aviation/Airplane Question

DaveStPaul said:
So how often do airlines check their pilots to see if they're showing signs of going a little schizo?
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I don’t default to a people acting badly, “conspiracy theory” view of the world and only adopt it as likely after excluding other explanations for want of evidence and finding actual evidence of “bad” persons. Also, sourcing a tabloid is something I don’t normally do, but it’s Sunday and I’m too lazy to dig deeper than the top of the Google hits.

From the British DailyMail, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, the pilot and aircraft captain on the flight engaged in some form of political activism in support “of the country's opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim - jailed for homosexuality just hours before the jet disappeared.” As well, Shah’s “wife and three children moved out of the family home the day before the plane went missing.”

The scenario details of the fictional decapitation of the US’s national authority via 747 in Tom Clancy’s now 2 decade old “Debt of Honor” seem a probable parallel to this incident as well as those on 9/11.
 
Re: Commercial Aviation/Airplane Question

MinnesotaNorthStar said:
I'm not sure about Malaysia, but the FAA does at least yearly if you have been diagnosed with some sort of mental disorder in the past....
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But not if you haven't been previously diagnosed? That seems like a gap. Just because someone hasn't been diagnosed with a mental disorder, doesn't mean that life events or other situations can't trigger something. But then, there isn't much you can do about that. People are flawed, and we'll never change that.
 
Re: Commercial Aviation/Airplane Question

This would seem to be a dry run for something big later on... I sure hope our *intelligence* network has thought of this.

Also if the one pilot was behind this, how did he take care of the co-pilot? Any noise would have alerted the other crew members that something was wrong. A syringe with poison or a silencer on a firearm would be the only way to knock off the co-pilot....which seems unlikely. Any thoughts?
 
Re: Commercial Aviation/Airplane Question

ColSkate65 said:
This would seem to be a dry run for something big later on... I sure hope our *intelligence* network has thought of this.

Also if the one pilot was behind this, how did he take care of the co-pilot? Any noise would have alerted the other crew members that something was wrong. A syringe with poison or a silencer on a firearm would be the only way to knock off the co-pilot....which seems unlikely. Any thoughts?
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He could have drugged the other pilot. Slipped something in a cup of coffee right after takeoff, or maybe right before takeoff. But there would be no way to be sure that the co-pilot was going to have a cup of coffee, unless that was the reason for doing it on a redeye.
 
Re: Commercial Aviation/Airplane Question

Yeah, when they started discussing the pilots, one of my first thoughts was that they need not have acted together. Behind that reinforced/locked door (is that even required on flights outside FAA/JAA jurisdiction?) there could have been a fight or a drugging. Hell, maybe even an outright murder by weapon, given that security in Malaysia is outside the oversight of the US and Europe. What is the aviation authority in charge in SE Asia?
 
Re: Commercial Aviation/Airplane Question

FadeToBlack&Gold said:
Yeah, when they started discussing the pilots, one of my first thoughts was that they need not have acted together. Behind that reinforced/locked door (is that even required on flights outside FAA/JAA jurisdiction?) there could have been a fight or a drugging. Hell, maybe even an outright murder by weapon, given that security in Malaysia is outside the oversight of the US and Europe. What is the aviation authority in charge in SE Asia?
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Each country has their own aviation authority, including Europe and North America. In Malaysia, it is the Department of Civil Aviation.
 
Re: Commercial Aviation/Airplane Question

MinnesotaNorthStar said:
Each country has their own aviation authority, including Europe and North America. In Malaysia, it is the Department of Civil Aviation.
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But don't they (each country's aviation security authority) have to meet certain standards to be able to have flights that service the EU and the US, for example? I'm not sure if Kuala Lumpur even has flights to the EU and the US, though. I'd imagine a country like Australia would have similar requirements.
 
Re: Commercial Aviation/Airplane Question

bigblue_dl said:
But don't they (each country's aviation security authority) have to meet certain standards to be able to have flights that service the EU and the US, for example? I'm not sure if Kuala Lumpur even has flights to the EU and the US, though. I'd imagine a country like Australia would have similar requirements.
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On the security end, I'm not sure. I'm guessing it's part of each country's standards in order to operate in that country.
 
Re: Commercial Aviation/Airplane Question

How much experience are we talking for someone to pilot an international 777 flight? I'd imagine that those aren't the guys that just got out of flight school.... Would someone coming in with a military flying background even be a candidate for something like that?
 
Re: Commercial Aviation/Airplane Question

RaceBoarder said:
How much experience are we talking for someone to pilot an international 777 flight? I'd imagine that those aren't the guys that just got out of flight school.... Would someone coming in with a military flying background even be a candidate for something like that?
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Had a friend in high school who went through BGSU's aviation program. After graduation, he spent almost 6 years flying for ExpressJet (back when they were part of Continental), and just recently got promoted and type certified for the 737 and A320, so he could join parent company United as a first officer. There was a time when I was also looking to becoming a commercial pilot. I recall that the reality is like any other industry - a hierarchy that takes a lot of years to gain senior status (though rightfully so, in the case of flying). Like my friend, the first several years are spent enduring a lot of sh*t hours for a regional airline, for comparatively low pay. So, unless you truly love flying, it's probably not for you.

So no, you aren't going to pilot a 777 a few years after earning your CPL, not even out of the military. Type certification would be required, and that takes a lot of experience in narrowbodies, before they'll let you train in widebody simulators (at least, that is my impression - MNS?).
 
Re: Commercial Aviation/Airplane Question

It's all based on how long you've been with the company. To use an example with United, a friend of mine started as an FO in the 737, a few years ago he was promoted to the FO on the 75/76 to do the long international flights. Currently, he is training to be a captain on the 737. He's been with United/Continental for 8 years total and is my age (32). And he's been extremely fortunate (knows the right people...).
 
Re: Commercial Aviation/Airplane Question

MinnesotaNorthStar said:
It's all based on how long you've been with the company. To use an example with United, a friend of mine started as an FO in the 737, a few years ago he was promoted to the FO on the 75/76 to do the long international flights. Currently, he is training to be a captain on the 737. He's been with United/Continental for 8 years total and is my age (32). And he's been extremely fortunate (knows the right people...).
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So like any other major company...play politics? ;) :)
 
Re: Commercial Aviation/Airplane Question

That's kinda what I figured... Just trying to figure out what the buyout cost must have been for the bad guys to get control over a pilot of that level... Obviously it is a plausible scenario... Just something that I'm trying to grasp...
 
Re: Commercial Aviation/Airplane Question

To disable all the equipment they did would most likely take two people. But to answer the question, it would be real easy to put the other guy out of action without weapons or drugs. And no I'm not telling you why that is.
 
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