This author is an idiot...

flyingcheesehead said:
<pointing finger> Jeez, wouldja look at what this guy wrote?!?

Why Pilots Love to Vilify Other Pilots

What an idiot!

(Caution for the humor-impaired: Yes, I'm being facetious and ironic.)
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Good article...and true. Despite some holier-than-thou attitudes, the reality is we're all human, which means we can all become complacent if we aren't careful.
 
Been saying similar for a long time. Yes you(and me) too can run out of gas or fly into weather everyone else knows is super bad. Valhalla must need the best pilots we have(mead deliveries I suppose.) Chain theory is a part of the ridiculous excuse making pilots go through so they aren't afraid to fly.
 
There are certain "stupid pilot tricks" I will simply never perform.

I would never fly drunk nor without a preflight, for example.

But the list of dumb things I've done over my career would be a long one - and those are just the ones I was aware of.

And another long list would be those accidents I've reviewed and thought, "There, but for the grace of ______ * go I!"

And any time I start to think my skills and experience will save me, I just recall the names Crossfield, Imeson and Fossett**. All likely better pilots than yours truly, who managed to make at least one fatal error.

I'm not a religious person, but these words come to mind:

"Judge not, lest ye be judged."



*insert your deity of choice here.

** I could not remember Fossett's name, so I Googled "decathalon crash site world". Top hit.
 
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Sorry, some things I just can't get past. Yes, making a mistake in flight, while things are fluid and happening all around you is merely human. Taking off from the wrong runway fits into another category entirely in which the pilots failed to do due diligence.
 
steingar said:
Sorry, some things I just can't get past. Yes, making a mistake in flight, while things are fluid and happening all around you is merely human. Taking off from the wrong runway fits into another category entirely in which the pilots failed to do due diligence.
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In the case in question, they LANDED on the wrong runway (ie wrong airport). Something happened during the approach whether it was fatigue or some other illusion that caused them to misidentifying the runway.
 
steingar said:
Sorry, some things I just can't get past. Yes, making a mistake in flight, while things are fluid and happening all around you is merely human. Taking off from the wrong runway fits into another category entirely in which the pilots failed to do due diligence.
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Have you ever made a mistake where you failed to do due diligence?
 
I've read a lot of famous military pilot bios. A common thread in almost all of them is that at some point in their careers they intentionally did something stupid and had an accident as a result.

Chuck Yeager hits a farmers tree in flight school and gets suspended. Douglas Bader performs illegal low level acro and crashes. Bob Hoover hits wires with a P-51 at an air show. My favorite, Gene Cernan took a NASA H-13 helicopter out one day and was showing off for boaters on a river. He ended up impacting the water and sinking to the bottom of the river still strapped in the cockpit. A few months later he'd be the last man to walk on the moon. All great pilots who were bold and lived to be old. All would probably admit that they made some stupid decisions while flying.

I think an aircraft (Dreamlifter/C-17) mistakingly landing on the wrong runway and no injuries or damage involved is quite minor in the grand scheme of things. I'm not saying a form of punishment is not in order but gross negligence is out if the question. People aren't computers.
 
I have voiced before, that the only people I know that never make mistakes aren't doing anything. Experience cannot not really be taught, it must be, well, experienced, hence the name. Although most of my experience has come from what I have done, a lot has also come from the mistakes I have made. As has been stated on POA the only thing better than learning from our mistakes it to learn from the mistakes of others. This is why I think most of us try to get to the root cause of others mistakes so that we might learn something from them. If discussing the wrong airport landing makes me think about identifying my intended landing spot one more time then it was worth it.

At the heart of the article is a tendency I see in people of all walks of life to pull the stupid or idiot comments quickly out of their holster. I do it with other drivers all the time.

I also see it a lot here on POA and that pains me. We are all in a select group of people and are part of a relatively small population of pilots. While this thread has been civil, I see many that turn into slug-fests.

Save your anger for the neighborhood that is trying to close your airport after building right next to it. Save it for that politician that is vilifying GA in general.

Watch out and protect each other when ever you can. Our numbers are dwindling.

And that's all I have to say about that!!!!
 
Nice article. I've never landed on the wrong runway but I've close a couple times. It can happen. To this day I always back up visual approaches with the FMS.
 
Captain said:
Nice article. I've never landed on the wrong runway but I've close a couple times. It can happen. To this day I always back up visual approaches with the FMS.
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If anyone thinks that stuff like landing on the wrong runway can never happen to them, they should look up the final report on the Delta guys that landed on the taxiway at ATL. Yes, they screwed up, but it was a perfect storm of events that led up to the incident and could have happened to just about anybody. It is not always as cut and dry as it might seem when you first here about something on the news.
 
If one looks at the approach chart for their destination, this airport was on the approach and I believe had the same or near the same runway alignment. I could see how one could descend below clouds, see the runway, take the visual and be in big trouble, especially if tired or as was said, just complacent.
I don't recall ever going into the wrong airport, but almost did a couple times. Instrument cross check is what helped many times. Just VFR, I wouldn't have had that.
I've never made a perfect flight. There was always something I could have done better, or something I missed that wasn't critical.
We seem to do pretty well for carbon based life forms descended from apes (g).

Best,

Dave
 
Dave Siciliano said:
If one looks at the approach chart for their destination, this airport was on the approach and I believe had the same or near the same runway alignment. I could see how one could descend below clouds, see the runway, take the visual and be in big trouble, especially if tired or as was said, just complacent.
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Some airports are like that. I can't remember what website it was, but somewhere there is a web page with a list of wrong airport landings around the world over the last several decades. One that jumped out at me was Lake Charles, LA with at least 3 121 wrong airport landings in the last 15 years.
 
Not the wrong airport, but I did go home from work once or twice after having recently moved to find I was in front of my OLD house or well on the way to it. Sometimes, we're just on cruise control and it can happen (g)

Best,

Dave
 
Dave Siciliano said:
Not the wrong airport, but I did go home from work once or twice after having recently moved to find I was in front of my OLD house or well on the way to it. Sometimes, we're just on cruise control and it can happen (g)
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Yeah, there's something wrong with my car. It keeps taking me to the airport when I should be doing other things! :D

I don't think I'm gonna get that problem looked into any time soon... :goofy:
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Yeah, there's something wrong with my car. It keeps taking me to the airport when I should be doing other things! :D

I don't think I'm gonna get that problem looked into any time soon... :goofy:
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Yea, you really have the bug. Sure handled the King Air well. Hope you get to work flying into your future.

Best,

Dave
 
Dave Siciliano said:
Yea, you really have the bug. Sure handled the King Air well. Hope you get to work flying into your future.
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She's a really nice bird, Dave... I've never had a single flight that got me questioning career plans before! Thank you very much for the opportunity. :)
 
Fearless Tower said:
In the case in question, they LANDED on the wrong runway (ie wrong airport). Something happened during the approach whether it was fatigue or some other illusion that caused them to misidentifying the runway.
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I was thinking of another incident where the pilots selected the wrong runway on takeoff and killed everyone. I think anyone can make a mistake in navigation, though with today's instrumentation is takes more effort than in yesteryear.
 
Dave Siciliano said:
Not the wrong airport, but I did go home from work once or twice after having recently moved to find I was in front of my OLD house or well on the way to it. Sometimes, we're just on cruise control and it can happen (g)

Best,

Dave
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That's a pretty good example.
 
I think this happens with any relatively dangerous endeavour. It's one way we can justify doing it ourselves. "I'll never do what that idiot did."

In motorcycling, for example, if you wear a helmet, don't drink and ride, and don't ride at night your odds of dying go way down.

As a noob in aviation, I'm not seeing ways to eliminate whole categories of risk. I do plan for 1 hour reserve fuel day or night. Running out of gas seems to be a particularly embarassing and preventable way to do yourself in. Flying into IMC, as a VFR pilot, seems mostly preventable but I see how flying into lower and lower ceilings could happen. Hopefully reading about the mistakes of others will save me from making them myself. Hopefully!

It's always tough to look and the mirror and say, "I've met the idiot and the idiot is me!"
 
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