How they do it in Mogadishu

It's kinda funny. Lots of people would think, cool, this guy did a real nice job flying that 360. And I won't deny it, he did a nice job! But, had he augured in, the same people would have thought "damn, that guy was reckless, what was he thinking?"

The old "How would this look in an NTSB report" thing comes up...
 
Having spent a few years of my life overseas in combat zones I don't have any problem with the pilots actions. I didn't take the time to relate the video date time group to the security situation but there is, as a few others have mentioned, a strong possibility that was the safest course of action for the crew. I can recall when I was in Baghdad in 2003 (?) a 737 being shot and hit despite following tactical arrival/departure procedures. I visited that location occasionally over the years and the plane remained there unrepaired.
 
Tantalum said:
I mean, that's fair. When I have friends who are traveling domestically or internationally ask me "what's a safe airline to fly on" the answer is easy.. any US carrier or European carrier is safe.. "should we take Delta or Lufthansa" <- whatever has better flights / pricing / whatever

But.. to get philosophical for a minute.. not everyone's skill-set / talent / proficiency is the same.. standardization works to level set that as well as it can, but it's no guarantee.. as a thought exercise if we assume "skill" is a standard distribution curve then the tighter you make the rules and standards the more of the population you capture and the less likely the less skilled are to have accidents. Maybe the "below 1K do X" rule works as well as it does because in captures a big portion of that skill set distribution.. but that doesn't mean that people never fumble a procedural go around and bend metal, nor does it automatically mean that someone who can safely do it at 100' is stupid or will crash. You could make the rule "below 50' do X" and maybe 90% of pilots would end up dead but I'm sure there are people who could do it safely as well

If I did that maneuver ten times I'd likely break something on one of the attempts.. but maybe this guy can do it 1,000 times (and maybe not)

To me it's sort of like saying we should only allow people to ski down GREEN (easy) trails skiing, because it's the "safest" - there are those who can ski blues and blacks all day without issue. Standardizing all skiers to a green doesn't mean the guy who goes down a blue or black is stupid

PS - do we know this was at 100'? Given a fuselage length of 130-150 feet (-100 vs -200) looking at the outside video I'm guessing he was not quite as low as 100'
PPS - I don't trust most people to have any kind of logic or skills, and education today is basically all wrote memorization because there are very few actually intelligent people out there, so I have ZERO issues with our standardization.. but I do believe it caters to a (very) low skill level.. to basically guarantee that even a complete idiot won't end up dead
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure there was an automated call-out of "100" in the video when they were on short final. I don't remember if the call-out happened again during the 360-turn.
 
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