Always Check NOTAMs -- Even When Running Drugs

Pilots and regular readers know that a NOTAM (NOtice To Air[wo]Men) is a little bulletin describing a change to facilities, airspace or procedures that isn't published on the current charts and publications. They look boring. They can be tedious and repetitive to read. Most of them won't pertain to your operation. If you fly out of some little flat bit of the wilderness airport there's probably a NOTAM about the airport lighting being unserviceable from shortly after the snow melts until whenever it is that gophers go back into hibernation.

You can look them up here for Canada if you know your airport identifier. They look like this.

CYHZ
110478 CYHZ CHURCH LAKE(WATER)
CHL3 AMEND PUB: OPR TEL TO READ 902-644-3604

110792 CYHZ AMHERST(HELI)
CCB3 AMEND PUB: NEW WIND FARM 15 TURBINES 0.7 NM RADIUS 455002N 641504W (APRX 1.8 NM NNW AD) 454 FT AGL 483 FT MSL. LGTD NOT PAINTED

110796 CYHZ STANLEY
CCW4 AMEND PUB: NEW TOWER 445602N 635751W (APRX 10 NM SSW AD) 299 FT AGL 988 MSL. NOT LGTD AND NOT PAINTED

110817 CYHZ NEW GLASGOW(ABERDEEN HOSP)(HELI)
OBST LGT U/S 12 TOWERS AT WINDFARM WITHIN 2.7 NM RADIUS 453359N 625746W (APRX 13 NM WNW AD) 377 FT AGL 1460 MSL
1111301630 TIL 1202291600

110844 CYHZ TRENTON
CYTN RNAV(GNSS) RWY 07, RNAV(GNSS) RWY 25 AND NDB RWY 25 APCH: RESTRICTED OPS SPEC 099 OR 410 REQUIRED AD VISUAL SFC NOT ASSESSED CREWS MUST BE FAMILIAR WITH AD ENVIRONMENT
1112151230 TIL APRX 1203161800

110845 CYHZ DEBERT
CCQ3 RNAV(GNSS) RWY 09 AND RNAV(GNSS) RWY 27 APCH ARE RESTRICTED. OPS SPEC 099 OR 410 REQUIRED. AD VISUAL SFC NOT ASSESSED. CREWS MUST BE FAMILIAR WITH AD ENVIRONMENT
1112151230 TIL APRX 1203161800

That's less than half of the Halifax NOTAMs this afternoon. If you're really operating out of Halifax you need to read them all, plus all the ones for the place you are going, and the ones covering airspace you'll be passing through, and possible diversion airports. The float plane guys don't care about the GNSS approaches. The airlines don't care about the windfarms. No one on wheels cares about the change in the operator's telephone number for the Church Lake waterdrome, but they are filed by the order they were filed in, and no one has realized the safety benefit of somehow filtering or classifying them.

They're a fairly often neglected aspect of flight planning. If you're flying between familiar aerodromes on a regular basis, there's a strong temptation to skip them. The flight briefers don't give them unless you ask. (And I still haven't forgiven the briefer I asked for NOTAMs for a flight from Meadow Lake to Buffalo Narrows, who neglected to tell me that the airspace I was chartered to fly through was in use by the Canadian military and their international guests for fighter jet exercises. It's the only time I've called and asked to speak to the supervisor of someone paid to provide me with flight services.) I have fielded a phone call from an airborne coworker who sighted vehicles working in the vicinity of his destination runway, "Avi, could you please check and see if there's a NOTAM ..." (There was).

So I can see how if you were conducting an operation that wasn't actually legal in the first place, transporting certain agricultural products, for example, that you just might not bother to check them. But these folks would have had a better day had they done so. A US reader will probably clarify the difference, but the Americans do have what I'm going to term a special relative of the NOTAM called the TFR (Temporary Flight Restriction) which highlights what in Canada would be NOTAMs restricting airspace to certain operations. They probably did this because people were missing NOTAMs and ending up on the windshield of Air Force One, but what it probably does is make the problem worse, with people clicking on the fun little map that tells you where they don't want you flying today (hey, is President Obama in Seattle today?) and then figuring that covers the important stuff and not going through to the boring list of nav aid outages.

A First Time for Everything

Next morning the weather looks passable on my iPod Touch, but there is such a paucity of reporting stations, or civilization of any description, around the north shore of Lake Superior that we can't be certain. And I know the GFA is based on the same kind of interpolation I have to do. I know what the weather was like half an hour ago at three five mile circles scattered around the north of the lake, so from that I try to interpolate the suitability for flight between them. While the PIC is in the shower, I pick up the phone and call an expert for a briefing. He starts describing the moisture content, stability and direction of travel of air masses, then interrupts himself. "Did you say Brampton?"

"Yes. I'm in Brampton now; it's clear skies."

"Someone just yelled a NOTAM for Brampton across the room, 'All runways closed."

He isn't able to elucidate the reason for a sudden airport closure, or suggest when they may reopen. In my experience, airports have closed for resurfacing, drag racing, severe weather, special security events, or major accidents. I'm guessing the last, and we decide to drive out to the airport anyway, hoping that everyone is okay and the wreckage is cleared before we want to depart.

As we pull into the parking lot we can see police cars and police officers on the airfield. This is weird, but hey, they are allowed to be there, and the NOTAM says the runways are closed, not the apron. My new guess is that there is some kind of drug bust going on. I live in a country where one is not obliged to cower in terror at the mere presence of law enforcement officials, so while the other pilot makes a few last minute decisions about what to take and what to lock in the trunk, I walk through the unlocked front gate from the car parking lot and into the aircraft parking area.

I'm immediately approached by a young man in a reflective vest. "Where are you going?" he asks.

"Thunder Bay," I reply.

I love to watch the moment of adjustment a person goes through when you give a valid answer to a question, but it is not the same order of magnitude as they were expecting. He asks if I am renting a flying school plane and I tell him, no, a private aircraft, and give the call sign.

Then it's his turn to watch someone react to the unexpected, "Make sure you do a very thorough preflight." He doesn't know if our little one-fifty was one of the victims, but there was extensive vandalism on the field last night, and a number of aircraft were damaged. As I walk further I can see a flying school light twin with all the windows bashed in and a fire extinguisher lying beside it on the apron. Detritus such as engine plugs, aircraft covers and seat cushions are strewn on the grass. A Katana has been pushed up against a hangar. There are footprints on the horizontal stabilizer of an older Skyhawk. The perpetrators have also left broken beer bottles and what looks like a corsage. Evidence suggests that some high school students have chosen to celebrate their putative entry into adulthood by getting drunk and committing a federal crime against thousands of dollars worth of other people's property.

The airplane tied tail-to-tail with ours has been hit, but ours looks good. It's tied down, the doors are still locked, and the only exterior damage is what looks like a long-ago mend to a rear window, probably broken by an unsecured object in turbulence. Not the first one I've seen like that. There are tiedown rings inside and I secure all our cargo as I calculated it should go, with the light objects like our jackets and the engine cover at the back and the snacks and water on top right behind the seats.

I've never seen this kind of vandalism at an airfield before. I call back flight services to update them on the situation. The briefer says he's never seen it before either. I ask if they have an UNTIL time on that NOTAM. It's midnight zulu, which is eight pm here, but "midnight zulu" is a default kind of time, not something with a real reason behind it. The weather forecast suggests we can get at least to Thunder Bay today, so only this NOTAM is stopping us. After a bit of waiting around I decide I don't like this NOTAM.

A police officer in blue latex gloves is dusting the rear window of the airplane behind us for fingerprints. I ask whether it is the police or airport management who has imposed or has power to change the NOTAM. Reflective-vest guy is there, and says that it's his responsibility, and that he will change it right now. He picks up his phone and does so. In the time it takes me to call Flight Services to file our flight plan, they have received and propagated the cancelling NOTAM. Excellent. This, right here, is an example of why pilots are so infuriated by incompetent security. Aviation has a lot of rules, a lot of procedures, a lot of things forbidden from time to time. But they are for a reason and in the vast majority of cases when you have a reason that is more reasonable than their reason, you find the right person, you explain your reason, and you go do what you have to do. You may have to prove it is safe, and it may cost money, but it's easier than getting thirty millilitres of shampoo through security in a 110 mL bottle.

We fuel, taxi out and she starts the take-off roll. My flight instructor instinct kicks in and I advise, "Rotate normally and wait. The airplane will take off slowly." I know she's been bombing around solo in this airplane, but we're now close to max weight, and it's worth being tagged as a back seat driver not to be in the plane during a departure stall. She follows my advice, and the airplane rolls along the runway on its rear wheels for a bit before it lifts off and slowly climbs. If a pilot isn't used to this behaviour in a loaded airplane, she may pull back harder on the control column, trying to get it to fly. It may become airborne in ground effect and then stall, crashing back down on the runway.

I have the local airspace on the VTA and displayed on a handheld GPS receiver so I navigate while she flies. We call Toronto Terminal for flight following and they laugh right on the radio as they radar identify us "grounding fifty knots." A voice in the background of the transmission says "... only has four hours of fuel." I have a picture of a crowd of people gathered around a radar scope laughing at our slow-moving blip. Freaking headwinds.

We gain a little speed as we level out at 4500' so we're mostly keeping ahead of traffic on the highway. Mostly. Metropolitan Toronto thins out behind us and Wiarton, where Canada's most famous groundhog lives, slowly comes up ahead. We pass it and continue up the peninsula and then across the water to Manitoulin Island. It's a short over-water stretch, but the briefer said that many pilots choose to go the long way around to avoid it. We're not even out of gliding distance of land, and the beach that we would end up on in the case of engine failure looks more hospitable to me than something we might find between North Bay and Sudbury. But everyone has different risk tolerances.

Manitoulin Island is pretty, with lots of little inlets. I wonder if someday there will be a bridge, making this shortcut available to car drivers, too. Our first stop will be Gore Bay. It's easy to find, and we land and taxi in, parking next to the fuel pumps. There is a white building on uphill next to the apron and I walk up there in search of a phone and washroom. They have both, and sell us the fuel we need.

I'm writing this blog entry tired, and while that's not dangerous like flying tired, it's in danger of being boring, so I'll leave off here and continue the story after we depart, with full tanks and empty bladders.

Local News

Welcome to a Cockpit Conversation recurring feature: "Aviatrix mocks your town by reading your local newspaper." Today we look at the Regina Leader- Post. I'm not actually in Regina, but, as two readers promptly figured out when I asked, in Estevan, Saskatchewan. This is the complimentary newspaper at the hotel.

Front page news here relates the intriguing tale that "Members of several religions took part [...] to celebrate Good Friday and Easter in Regina." Shouldn't that be "to celebrate Passover, Easter, Songkran, the Feast of Ridvan and the coming of spring?" I suspect that the 'multiple religions' involved in this ceremony were all flavours of the same one. The directory of religious services inside the paper supports that theory: there are forty churches listed under fifteen categories, but every one is Christian. But just when I think I have this community pegged, I see the leftover space on the same page is filled by an open-minded article on Buddhism. Perhaps the multifaith celebrations of other spring festivals were held on other days. The other front page story involves one politician giving another the finger.

Inside the paper we focus mainly on arrests, sentencing, and manhunts. One man who received the minimum sentence for possession of child pornography says he downloaded it because he was curious about whether it really existed. Police are looking for someone who cut across a field in the middle of the night, leaving tire ruts, and for a guy with lots of tattoos who has violated his parole curfew. I wonder if the latter has a tractor. A police spokesman said, regarding other incidents, "There's lots of collisions ... and the people who die, we don't really know what's in their heads." The paper also notes that, "Police say Thursday night and Friday morning were extremely busy, with domestic disputes, fights, and alcohol-fulled incidents." There's a photo of a man in a baseball cap riding his bicycle by sitting backwards on the handlebars and pedalling. He says he was hit by a vehicle once and rides this way to keep an eye on oncoming traffic. I suspect his cycling is alcohol- fuelled, and that if he has a domestic partner, they have had disputes about the wisdom of riding this way.

Last week's paper had a surprising number of reports of unidentified dead bodies. I think all the people that get lost or murdered over the winter here turn up in the same week of spring.

The most interesting news is a wire story on a Canadian named Julia Gaffield who found the Haïtian declaration of independence. No it wasn't lost in the earthquake. It seems that when they originally declared it, they printed up a whole bunch of copies and handed them all out, forgetting to keep one in a safe place. Eventually, as with most ephemera, everyone who had had one had moved or spring cleaned enough times that no one was known to have one anymore. They knew what it says, as they had lots of handwritten copies, just not the original item. Julia found it in the British Library because someone had sent a copy to someone important enough to have had his correspondence archived. Nice timing, and I hope it inspires Haïti during its rebuilding.

There's sports (ice skating, curling, bowling, running, baseball. lacrosse, and hockey, of course), movies (3D everything), homes ($250-600k), and classifieds. The announcements sections has four birthdays, a birth, a graduation, an anniversary and a congratulations to the girl who scored the most points in the playoffs, helping her team win the SFMHL hockey championships.

My favourite part was this cartoon, mostly because I looked at the picture, thought "okay, airliner" and then looked for the joke in the caption, before realizing that the picture is the joke, and the name of the airliner just echoes it.

Oh and the AME at the FBO calls to confirm receipt of the airplane and the work order, and to ask if I happened to notice if the NDB antenna was standing when I arrived. Apparently it blew down. So I guess it was windy enough to be worth tying down the plane.

Also, not local, but way too bizarre not to post, is this story of two eagles crashing into a snowbank while engaged in an aerial mating dance. The male was killed and the female may have a head injury and permanent ligament damage. These birds need to practise safer sex.

Fake Pilot Licence

A Swedish pilot flew airliners for thirteen years even though the only pilot certification was no longer valid and for smaller airplanes. It wouldn't have been too hard to forged advanced qualifications on my old licence. I have to produce my licence and medical at every flight test and written test, but they are mostly just looking for the name and address.

Most employers just see a copy of the licence, because they either ask for faxed documents before an interview, or want photocopies for their files after hiring.

Mine is real.

Underwear Bomber

My only response to this is that, given a choice, I would prefer to pass though airport security completely naked than have to be separated from all my stealable and smashable personal electronics every time I board someone else's airplane.

Digging Out

It's almost a shame to check out of our luxurious rooms, but the snow has truly stopped and the ceiling is sufficient for us to make our escape. The airport shuttle is out of order so we call a cab to get to the airport.

We somewhat regretfully call the after hours number for our hangar contact. It's 8:30 on Sunday morning the day after Hallowe'en and it's a safe bet he wasn't planning on coming in quite this early. He answers though, and says he'll be there in half an hour. He is, and maybe a little bit early. We load our gear, preflight, and confirm that the hangar bill is taken care of. We're ready to go.

Before we can get the airplane out of the hangar, we have to get the other airplanes out, but before we can do that, we have to clear the snow. He has a little Honda tractor, the same one we've been towing airplanes with, fitted with a plough blade. He starts by driving around in an oval pattern, with one straightaway across the ramp entrance of the hangar. We shovel the snow away from the ends and he orbits until there is enough of a clear space immediately in front of the hangar for him to push snow straight away from it. He tows a caravan out and then goes after ours. The beams supporting the roof of the hangar are lower to the sides of the hangar than the middle, and where our airplane is parked the beams are lower than the top of our vertical stabilizer. So how did the airplane get parked back there? Same way as we're going to get it out. The expert hooks up the tow bar, I stand on the rear airstairs and my coworker jumps up and hangs off the horizontal stabilizer. That tips the whole empennage down enough that it will pass under the beam as the tow tractor pulls it. That's not an uncommon procedure. Sometimes they have a concrete block already to hook up to the tail tiedown ring, for the same purpose.

With the airplane outside, we're ready to go. We apologize again for rousing the other pilot on a Sunday morning, and hope that some of the hangar fees we've been paying will find his way into his paycheque. He says he expects it will be reflected in a full employee beer fridge. Ah beer: the Canadian currency of debts that mere money cannot address.

I text the customers with a pessimistic arrival time. There's a low ahead to the south, so I am expecting a headwind or at best a crosswind, and I don't want to be late after they've been waiting for three days. The run-up is uneventful and this time not only is visibility good, but we have an absolutely hammering tailwind. Yeah, tailwind. The low isn't where I thought it was. We're above a very thin layer of cloud that we can see right through and we're going to be an hour ahead of schedule. The customers are going to think we forgot the time change last night.

The very thin layer of cloud thickens a lot, but we still want to be over it. Canadian VFR over the top rules require our destination to be pretty much clear for hours before and after our forecast arrival and there's no weather report or forecast for our destination, so to avoid scud running, we would be obligated to use the GFA, which definitely doesn't forecast such a thing in our area. The nearest station to our destination is currently 11,000 broken, which is just fine, but its TAF is calling for 2000' broken and a mile in snow. So we can't fly above a cloud layer on the basis of that forecast. We have a band of cloud here, ending just to the south, with the winds clearly showing that the low is to the north. So are we rebels to think we're better than the forecast and overfly the cloud layer despite the nasty forecast? Heck no. We'll use a trick the trans-Atlantic carriers do. The ol' file 'n' switch.

So as far as the VFR-over-the-top is concerned, we're going to Regina. We've got the fuel. Regina has a TAF and is wide open. And there is nothing illegal about being on our perfectly legal way to Regina and then landing somewhere else along the way instead. Airlines do the opposite. They can't carry enough fuel for the legal requirement to get all the way from North American points of origin to many European destinations. So they officially fly to London, and then when they have almost reached London, switch over to Berlin, because the excess fuel required to go from London to Berlin is less than from New York to Berlin. You're allowed to file to any airport you please, and you are never restricted from landing early or refiling to anywhere you can legally go.

The clouds below thin out just before top of descent and we descend through the scattered layer without even having to detour to the south as we expected. The airport is easy to find and the plug-ins at transient parking even work, once we reset the circuit breaker. We put on the wing covers, which are the wrong size, but were all along. I remember them from last year. You have to be creative. And you know, based on our flight planning, that we are.

There's a surprisingly lovely pilot lounge with new, matching furniture and a big flat screen TV. It's sort of confusing. Standard pilot lounge decor is the discards from someone else's remodelling.

Then the customers pick us up and take us to an even classier hotel. We thought we were lucky with our upgrade at the last place. Ha! This hotel room is big enough to get lost in. And it's brand new. Almost too bad we're going home as soon as our replacements arrive, probably tomorrow. I have to finish up my paperwork then repack everything so anything sharp or liquid is in my checked bag and anything valuable or fragile is in my carry-on.

A friend of mine just lost a digital camera to someone who had access to her checked luggage, and it's disturbing. Not just in the sense of "damn, I liked that camera and it was expensive" but also in the sense that if they can take something like that out of your suitcase and get it out of the secure area unobserved, what can they put in it?

Choose Your Own Misadventure

You are the commander of a Boeing 737 passing through 10,000' and setting up for a visual approach. You realize that you have misjudged the wind and your descent profile. You are likely to be too high and fast. You:
a) extend speed brakes
b) fly further out than usual before turning final
c) recheck your calulations
d) nose down and go faster, hoping it will work out

You are still high and fast. You call for flap 15 but the co-pilot does not respond to your request. You:
a) ask him why he did not do as you asked
b) yell at him
c) extend them yourself
d) continue the approach without flaps

You are on final approach and the flaps are set to five degrees extension. The manual calls for at least thirty degrees of flaps for landing, but the manual also calls for a much lower airspeed before extending that much flap. You:
a) try to extend the flaps anyway
b) leave them up and land anyway
c) conduct a missed approach

You believe the flaps are malfunctioning, as you have selected them down but the airplane is not slowing as it usually does. You:
a) continue the approach at high speed
b) check all your power settings and other parameters
c) conduct a missed approach, extend the flaps at altitude and have a crew member go aft to the passenger cabin to confirm the position visually

You encounter windshear on approach to a runway. You:
a) conduct a missed approach in accordance to your company procedures
b) land with minimal flaps at above normal speed
c) continue at whatever speed and configuration you can attain, just to get the airplane on the ground.

You are at the position on the approach where your company manual calls for you to be stabilized. You are so high and so fast that the airplane automated systems think you are crashing. You:
a) attempt to land
b) conduct a missed approach

You are almost a hundred feet above the runway threshhold, well above landing speed and not in landing configuration. The copilot is telling you to conduct a missed approach, and does not confirm landing checks complete. You:
a) attempt to land
b) conduct a missed approach

You touch down over a third of the way down the runway, at well over maximum tire speed. The airplane bounces twice, pulling almost three Gs, and the nose gear collapses while the copilot yells at you to go around. One of the engines comes off its pylon. You:
a) kill 22 people and injure almost everyone else.

Sadly, there is only one choice in the end, and that is the adventure a real life commander chose.

Indonesian pilot Marwoto Komar has been sentenced to two years in jail after being found guilty of criminal negligence for attempting to land a Boeing 737 in the wrong configurations and at almost twice the normal speed. The jet overran the end of the runway into a rice field. Twenty-two people were killed and fifty were seriously injured in the crash and ensuing fire. The Daily Telegraph story here includes a dramatic photo of the post crash fire.

According to the investigation report, the aircraft was already fast through 10,000' on the approach, as they exceeded the crew accepted a straight in visual approach to Yogyakarta but continued on the ILS approach without informing ATC. As long as someone is looking out the window, there's not a lot of difference between a well-flown long straight in visual and an ILS approach, but unfortunately this was neither. The aircraft arrived overhead the initial approach fix high and fast. Not just a little bit high, but at 3927' instead of 2500'. It wouldn't be the first time a crew had cut a few corners and come in too high, but the captain, who was the pilot flying, elected to rectify the situation by lowering the nose into a steep descent. There's an expression in aviation: you can go down or slow down. They had been trying to do both for the whole descent, at one point reaching 293 knots below 10,000', knowing they had a tailwind.

The captain called for more flaps, but the first officer did not extend them because the airspeed was 33 knots over flap extension speed. The captain continued to ask for flap fifteen right through the approach, but the FO never extended them nor gave a reason why he was not doing so. The ground proximity warning system reacted to the configuration, speed and rate of descent by issuing alerts and warnings, which the crew ignored, fifteen times.

They arrived over the beginning of the runway still 89 feet in the air and travelling at 232 kts with flap 5 (as opposed to the manufacturer's recommended 134 kts with flap 40). The aircraft touched down 860 m from the threshhold (more than a third of the way along the runway), bounced twice, then landed again still well over the recommended tire speed. The nosewheel tire burst, sending up sparks as what was left of the gear scraped along the runway. Both thrust reversers were deployed, and presumably the brakes were applied, but with too much speed and too little runway remaining, the overrun was inevitable.

It does not appear that there were any mitigating issues such as approaching weather, critical fuel, or pre-existing emergency.

There are so many issues here. I'll touch responsibility, training, co-pilot assertiveness and the role of the criminal justice sytem in air safety.

The captain never took responsibility for the crash. "Lack of remorse" was even cited as a factor in his sentencing. Compare to Captains Sullenberger and Haynes who saved lives landing airplanes crippled by circumstances beyond their control, but later agonized over what they could have done better. It's almost bizarre how Komar blamed everyone and everything but himself. He attended the trial in uniform, and fully expected to return to work.

He claimed windshear at touchdown. It's a known problem in the area and something a captain with over 13,000 hours of experience should be able to recognize, but there were no other reports of windshear in the area, no indication that it might be present from the detailed winds aloft, and a professional approach marred by windshear is inconsistent with the speed profile recorded throughout the descent.

He claimed that the flaps were faulty and did not extend when selected, but investigation found "no evidence of any defect or malfunction with the aircraft or its systems that could have contributed to the accident." The chief crash investigator, Mardjono Siswosuwarno, said the aircraft's wing flaps failed to extend for landing and that might have been caused by the high speed, but that's not something the captain can blame on the flaps.

The captain also levelled blame at the co-pilot, for not lowering the flaps, and at the poor emergency services. Admittedly the copilot did not clearly refuse the flap extension command by stating "Unable, we're thirty knots high" or whatever his SOP callout was, and the emergency services at the field were poor and contributed to the death toll, but none of that excuses the captain's actions.

The PIC said that he was unaware of the actual airspeed and expected that the copilot would inform him of any speed concerns, but that doesn't align with the comments he made during the descent, or the knowledge that someone with 3700 hours on the airplane would have to possess. The copilot called for a go around before and after touchdown, and the captain did not respond. It has been suggested, (but the captain has denied) that a company incentive to save fuel led to the decision to continue the unstable approach.

Poor training probably contributes to the decisions the crew made. For example, training records showed that the pilots had attended an "introductory" GPWS course with no evidence of related sim training. Non-pilot staff seem to be lacking some basic training in public relations, seeing as they got took their pictures taken, smiling, with the burned out wreckage. But how much training does it take to choose a missed approach at some point in that accident sequence? The copilot doesn't seem to have had sim training in the actions he needed to take in order to take control of the airplane from a captain who has not stabilized the approach. He did try. He said, he had shouted at the captain to go around because "that was the proper procedure ... to ask people to go around with yelling".

And that's tough. You need training, confidence and a company culture that will support taking an airplane away from a captain. This co-pilot stuck up for the captain after the crash. I don't believe that he literally blacked out from the g-forces. I think he needs a story to tell himself to explain why he did not take control and perform the missed approach. It reminds me of Michael Origel, the co-pilot of American Airlines flight 1420 that overran the runway in Little Rock Arkansas during a landing in a thunderstorm. Origel insists that he called for a go around, despite the fact that experts can find no trace of it on the CVR. I believe him. The voice in his head screaming that this was not right was so loud that he can't believe the captain and the recording microphone didn't pick it up. Has there ever been an accident in which a copilot's loud demands that a captain go-around were cited as a cause or contributing factor? Ever hear of a copilot fired for asking a captain to go around? I can name names, hell I have a pocket in my formal coat containing funeral programmes that name names of people who might be alive today had they demanded a go around.

But considering all the things that people did or didn't do, should or shouldn't have known to do, was a criminal act committed? They broke company policy in the lack of a stabilized approach, but I don't know that they broke air regulations. Could the possibility of the CVR being introduced as testimony in court cause pilots not to admit errors in flight?

It is very uncommon for a pilot to be charged with a crime in connection with a crash. It's a somewhat disturbing precedent when you're a pilot. We're usually assumed to be doing what we believe is best for the flight, in defense our own necks, and air law gives us a lot of latitude to do things that would otherwise be against the rules to defend our safety. Any misjudgements we make already force us to face possible injury or death and then we have to defend them to our own conscience, our boss, and the aviation regulatory authority. Do we need to add the civil justice system?

The decisions the captain made during this flight seem reckless. I think his conviction is closer to the correct outcome than having the manufacturer sued for the flaps failing to deploy at excessibe speeds, but I'm not convinced that the justice system should have a role here.

It Started With Telemarketers

Canada recently instituted a nationwide do-not-call list for telemarketers. Apparently the US Congress recommended such a thing fifteen years ago, but the final decision was to have individual telemarketers maintain their own do-not-call lists. That is fairly stupid, because there are so many companies that you'd never get on all the lists before one company folded and reemerged as another, quite possibly using its old do-not-call list as its new list of hot prospects.

Canada's new do-not-call list is equally stupid. There's a website you can go to in order to register your number(s) as do-not-call and any Canadian telemarketing company or foreign company making calls on behalf of a Canadian corporation is supposed to check their list against the registered do not call numbers and not call them. They can be fined $1500 for calling me anyway, so it sounds like something with teeth, but it disregards the fact the telemarketing is a scummy industry, and it's implemented in a stupid way.

Instead of being required to submit their call lists to be checked and pruned against a master list, the companies are required to buy the master list. That's right, telemarketing companies can buy a list of every Canadian who has asked not to be called by telemarketers. And the way the system works, the larger the company, the more they have to pay for the list. So of course what has happened is that little tiny companies open for the sole purpose of buying the list for cheap, and then selling it offshore where they can call me with impunity.

I got a call today, one of those machines calling. It told me that a friend had entered my name at the Bay or Zellers and that I had won a trip to Costa Rica. Now the Bay and Zellers are Canadian companies, and my friends are smart enough not to enter me in dubious contests, so I knew this was not above board. I pressed 1 to talk to a customer service representative. He had an impenetrable accent, so I couldn't understand his name, nor the name of the company calling when I asked for it. I think he may have made it deliberately unintelligible because when I asked him to spell it, he said for more information he would have to transfer me. Transferring is good, because the higher up the chain of command you get, the more of a nuisance you are able to be. In order to transfer me he wanted to know my name. I told him I wasn't giving him my name because he called me and therefore the onus was on him. He said he had to have my name to transfer me, so I told him sarcastically it was Jane Smith. He either didn't or chose not to recognize that as a default generic name and accepted it, but then wanted to know if I had more than $5000 in credit card debt. I told him I didn't give out that kind of information, just to transfer me please. He tried a few more times to get me to tell him. I told him the answer was Mu. He insisted on a yes or a no, and when I made it clear I wasn't giving it out, he hung up on me.

Scumbucket telemarketing company. This sort of thing is bad for my blood pressure or something, I'm sure. The *69 call told me that the call was from 616-980-2643 which is in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Their service provider is named Lucre but the company name is ex-directory. Michigan has do-not-call laws protecting Michigan consumers, but what can I do about it? Global telecommunications is such that every single country in the world would have to be signatory to a global death-to-telemarketers pact before do-not-call registries are of any use whatsoever. I can't screen my calls by number, because I get calls from all over and who knows when some pilot friend is calling from a hotel or an FBO in Grand Rapids telling me they are coming north and can I meet for lunch? And screening by always letting the machine pick up also causes you to miss important calls from people who want to talk to you now or not at all. I could solve this with technology, but it's not just about telemarketing.

While I was still fuming about this, a story came on the radio about a chemical plant in Canada that had been sold to someone in Edmonton who just walked away from the responsibility of the plant when the economy took a nosedive. No payroll no forwarding address no nothing. Because I live in a modern, responsible country, the government stepped in with an emergency order asking the workers to stay at work and make sure that the plant didn't just explode, or pump hazardous chemicals into the environment or become the incubation ground for a new Batman villain, or whatever happens to untended chemical plants. I'm not sure anyone knows. The government then tried to track down the owner of the company and apparently the trail ends in Slovenia.

That's the way the world is these days. I'm horrified to think of what is happening in countries with lesser ability to step in and deal with this kind of situation. A Canadian company could just walk away from responsibility in Zaïre and who is going to be able to do anything or even know? Someone knows, and with today's global communication I'm sure I could find dozens of such cases documented by concerned individuals, but how is anyone to distinguish real should-be-crimes from made-up stuff posted on the loony websites of whacko sky-is-falling nutjobs? And even if the whole world knows, who can prosecute or hold to account a numbered Uzbekistani company with investors listing addresses in Slovenia, Paraguay and Delaware? For countries that have environmental regulations, it would be possible to require, as part of the initial environmental permitting process for new facilities, the posting of a bond sufficient to safely close down production and clean up the area in the event of abandonment or catastrophe, but that would be a large amount, and the savvy investor would just build the facility in a jurisdiction with a more short-sighted desperation for jobs.

Anything that happens in the world affects the whole world these days. The working conditions and pay at your job may be cantilevered by unions and government regulations, but ultimately in the global economy it is dependent on what the most desperate person will accept. And that person can be anywhere in the world. We can't just fix our own countries. We have to fix the whole world to get this to work. How do you fix the whole world? Historically, the spread of law has followed conquering armies. I don't think conquering the world for freedom from telemarketers is the way to go here. More optimistically, manufacturing and environmental standards also spread by economic pressure. The kids who grew up in the Cold War had it good. They knew they'd be wiped out by the Bomb. Me, I can't figure out which worldwide disaster to be concerned about.

The telemarketing part had a happy ending. I called the Bay's customer service and they efficiently transferred me to a customer service rep who knew about the usurpation of the company's name and assured me that their loss prevention department was working with the relevant authorities to stop the telemarketers, who apparently were also fraudsters. I assume they are going to nuke them from orbit, so if you live in Grand Rapids, you should probably go out of town for the weekend. And if you comment on this blog entry, do take into account that the official Posterperson for Readers of Aviatrix's Blog is employed in the telemarketing business, so any comments demonizing all telemarketers will not be taken well.

In the Interest of Security

My friend was flying from Canada to visit a friend in the US for a couple of days and wanted to bring a gift of local wines (don't laugh, Canada does too produce wine) for his host. As wine is now a terrorist threat, he couldn't carry it on the airplane, but as he was only going for a couple of days he only had one small bag, so he checked the whole thing. The bag also contained a palmtop computer with a folding bluetooth keyboard. In hindsight he knows he should have taken the computer out and put it in his shirt pocket, but he didn't.

So the bag goes through security, onto the airplane and back off again. The wine arrives unbroken. But his computer has been turned on and left on. The computer is of course also a wireless communications device. So in the interest of 'security' the TSA has activated a transmitter and left a heat generating device in a container with flammable material. I'm thinking the clothing, when I say flammable: Canadian wines aren't like Scandinavian liquors. Now, the chance of a small computer either interfering with airline navigation or starting a fire in a suitcase is very small, but this was in no way a positive move for anyone's security. They had looked at his e-mail and his media files. Checking, no doubt, to see if any of it read "Dear Osama bin Laden, here are the naked photographs of my eight year old daughter which you requested. Do you have any more of those music downloads to share with me?"

It was a positive move for someone in security, though. That is for the person who got an almost new wireless bluetooth keyboard for nothing. The keyboard was missing from the suitcase. I guess the bag checker thought it was pretty cool. So even if the battery hadn't been run down from running in the suitcase during the flight, he still wouldn't have been able to use his computer.

The most grievous thing about this kind of treatment is that you can't even write them a letter to complain. Well you can, but you might as well word it as "Dear TSA, Please make as much trouble for me as possible at all security checkpoints. Here is my name and address."

The NEXUS Step

NEXUS sent me e-mail saying I've been approved for the program and have to schedule an appointment at the airport to be interviewed, fingerprinted and photographed, and have my retinas photographed, too. They have a very simple online booking interface, showing the availability and allowing me to schedule, move and cancel appointments.

Nothing is available this month.
Nothing is available next month.
There are availabilities the following month, but I'm scheduled to be away working for the whole month,
Nothing is available the month after that.
Nothing is available for the two following months.

I kind of suspect that they have only opened the booking system for appointments in the next three months. I could wait and see if more opportunities opened up, but the e-mail states that I must book within 30 days.

I'll looked at some other centres and saw much better availability, so I'll wait until I know my work assignments and try to arrange an appointment there and then. I'm still kind of freaked about subjecting myself to US registration, though. I picture my fingerprints being in the same big database with all the convicted criminals, getting checked against the fingerprints on murder weapons. Also I hate getting my eyes examined at the optometrist, so the retinal photograph is going to be freaky.

US Post Office

I have to mail a package before my flight back to Canada today, but because of time zones I can't get the destination address until 9 a.m. So I'm in the post office, which opened at eight-thirty. I've already bought the postage, but the postmaster tells me that I can't just drop it in a mailbox because it weighs more than a weasel, and new regulations require anything weighing more than a weasel to be submitted to the mails at an actual post office. (He didn't use the word "weasel" but rather some reference to ounces, but I don't know ounces, except in the context that puts them in the same phylum as weasels, and "weasel" is a funnier word.)

My plan is to stand in line, letting people go ahead of me until I have completed the telephone call that gave me the correct mailing address, then just hand over the parcel and run back to the hotel so I'm not late for my flight. It's a good plan, but an unnecessary one, because this post office defies the stereotype about post office lines. There is never more than one other customer here.

I use my waiting time to examine the post office decor. Like Canadian post offices they have community notices, like a copy of the police blotter. (The post office wasn't in Grass Valley. I linked to that one because the blogger's commentary always makes me laugh). Of course the post office has rules. No parking for more than 18 hours at a stretch. No carriage of firearms. Photographs may be taken in in public areas, except where prohibited by official signs, security force personnel or other authorized persons, or a federal court order. Fascinating: that's official sanction of security personnel concocting arbitrary photography restrictions. Gambling at the post office is forbidden, with one curious exception: sale of state lottery tickets at vending facilities operated by licenced blind persons. I wonder if that's a licence to sell lottery tickets or a licence certifying that you are actually blind. Probably the former, but the wording makes it sound like the latter.

There's also a detailed list of the rewards available for information leading to the arrest of the perpetrators of illegal mail-related activities. You can collect up to $100,000 for helping to solve a murder or bombing; $50,000 if the crime is assault, meter tampering, robbery or child pornography; and $10,000 if it's burglary or money laundering.

And I can pick up a form to fill out to buy a postal money order, to send money to another country. The fascinating thing is that there was one version of the form, a bilingual Spanish/English form, and the primary language is Spanish. The prompts telling you which information to put in each blank are printed first large and in Spanish, and then the English is given, small and in parentheses, underneath. Clearly the vast majority of American residents who send money to other countries without using bank wire transfers are from Latin America, but I didn't expect it to be so blatantly acknowledged on the form.

A couple of people come in to get free mailing boxes (cool!) and all-you-can-fit fixed price mailing boxes (really cool!) I asked about the latter, and yes, it doesn't matter how much you put in them. The postmaster said some people use them for mailing pennies. I guess uranium would be out, for other reasons, but you could mail lead weights and barbells around the country for a low fixed price. Awesome.

The postmaster is very cheerful and patient with everyone who comes in, and recommends ways people can save money on their postal needs. As each person gives him a parcel, he asks them if it contains any liquids, explosives or dangerous items. Everyone says no.

At 09:01 I completed my telephone call, got the address and handed over the parcel, pre-emptively stating that the parcel did not contain any liquids, explosives or harmful materials. I made my flight, and I understand that the parcel arrived safely.

Northern Gossip

In December 2003, the operations manager of a northern air charter company went to Trinidad & Tobago for a week on business. I'm not sure how a Caribbean island relates to the business of schlepping pop and chips around northern Alberta, but I can't blame the guy for taking advantage of whatever connection he found. Unfortunately, that's not all he took advantage of, and the waitress whose breast he grabbed and squeezed reported his actions to police. I suppose Trinidad and Tobago is a little more civilized than the oilfields. I've never been to that country, but the culture isn't going to be the same as in Canada.

He was arrested, spent a five days in a miserable Trinidadian prison and then returned to Canada. The Court of Appeal of Alberta has just approved a Trinidad and Tobago request to extradite him for trial. I suspect his behaviour at home isn't that different from abroad, and that there are a number of Fort McMurray waitresses high fiving one another on hearing that news.

Send Airplanes Not Money

I promise this isn't going to turn into a "things I saw on the Internet today" blog, it's just that I log, on check my mail, and keep receiving things I want to comment on. First a cool one, from Dee Barizo at ProTraveller.

You may have seen some of the overly dramatic named Top Ten Most Dangerous Aircraft Landings in the World before, but I'm posting it because it's a good compilation and actually identifies and describes the airports involved, rather than leaving you wondering where it is, and if it's photoshopped, like some do. I have one of these airports in my logbook, and suspect that among my readers we can probably bag a few more.

The second item is a rant. What an incredibly stupid thing for a forty-nine year old longtime employee to do. Tampering with the mails is such a HUGE crime. Why would anyone risk never having a security clearance again for banknotes and gift cards?

I've been responsible for Canada Post mailbags. Oddly, I don't remember having any formal training on the subject, but this is the Royal Mail. You just know. You don't open it. You don't add your own letters to it, (even though you have letters to mail, and you are cursed to live in a community that doesn't even have a mailbox). Even if the mail includes packages that don't fit in the bag, but are clearly addressed to people you know on sight, you don't give them to them. You take all the mail to the post office. It's part of what holds the diverse and frozen ends of our country together: the mail is supposed to get where you send it. For the price of a stamp.

The crime of stealing birthday money from grandkids is pathetic rather than heinous. What I'm ranting about it that someone would think it was worth it. What were they thinking? Doofus.