More Inane Government Regulation

(More unintended consequences)

I missed this story last week, until I was reading what Captain Ed over at Captain’s Quarters wrote about his cousin being on a British Airways 747 flight that lost one of the four engines on takeoff from LAX and then actually continued on to London on three engines. Well, I’ve read it now and I have a few choice words to say about the subject.

WHAT THE HELL WERE THE BRITISH AIRWAYS AUTHORITIES AND THE PILOT THINKING?

“The fault occurred on take-off from Los Angeles but the pilot declined all opportunities to land in the US and instead continued on three engines for 5,000 miles to Britain.

The incident happened three days after a European regulation came into force requiring airlines to compensate passengers for long delays or cancellations. Under the new rules, if the pilot had returned to Los Angeles, BA would have been facing a compensation bill of more than £100,000.”

Do you follow me here? In order to save a few pennies over 191,000 US Dollars, the airline hauled 351 souls on an eleven hour, 5,000 mile trans-Atlantic trip with a crippled airplane. At a ticket price of $1000 per seat, the whole darned flight was only worth $351,000 and if that airliner had lost another engine in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and been forced to ditch, how much do you think the lawsuits would have cost them in the long run. A billion dollars, perhaps?

Forget the costs for a minute, let’s talk about deeper issues. As a pilot, I can assure you that the guys up front have enough to worry about every time they ride the three quarters of a million pounds of humans, fuel, and potential scrap metal that represents a fully loaded Boeing 747 off the end of 12,000 feet of concrete every few days.

My father, a US Army test pilot, described flying as “hours and hours of boredom, interrupted by moments of shear terror. Pilots spend almost half of their time training for emergencies and practicing emergency procedures. By the time something breaks in flight, if your response is not automatic and precise, you are usually dead or severely injured and the airplane is lost as a result.

Don’t let the “authorities” fool you, a multi-engine aircraft doesn’t have the extra engines just for backup—it needs every one of them to perform as expected. Some twin engine light planes out there built back in the 1950’s and 1960’s could barely maintain straight and level flight on one engine.

Another old pilots saying is that, “in a twin engine airplane, upon loosing an engine on takeoff, the operating engine will take you directly to the scene of the crash.” Get it?

Commercial airliners are another story, however. A twin engine Boeing 737, 757,767 or any of the twin engine Airbus A3XX’s must be able to attain pattern altitude and return to the runway on one engine, as long as the pilot performs the emergency procedures correctly. In the case of a 747, if it looses even two of four engines in flight it can still proceed safely to an alternate airfield in an emergency. BUT…

The idea of proceeding on a trans-Atlantic flight with 75% of the aircraft’s normal available power, past major airports in Atlanta, Denver, Dallas, Chicago, and New York with connecting International flights and maintenance facilities, IS DOWN RIGHT INSANE.

And why was the pilot pressured to override his better judgment? Because of the glorious, all-knowing, idiotic, socialist, European Union’s stupid passenger rules:

“Some airlines are trying to avoid paying compensation for delays involving technical failures of an aircraft. They are citing a clause in the regulation which excludes delays “caused by extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken”.

But the Air Transport Users Council, which advises passengers on how to obtain their rights, said airlines would still be liable in cases involving engine failure because the cause was likely to be poor maintenance (emphasis mine, VRRIII.) Simon Evans, its chief executive, admitted that the regulation could lead to airlines taking greater risks. “We recognize there is a possibility that an airline might take a decision to fly in order to avoid paying compensation.”

Captain Mervyn Granshaw, Balpa’s chairman, said: “The EU regulation is poorly drafted and increases the pressure on pilots to consider commercial issues when making judgments in marginal safety situations.””

So Mr. Simon Evans, chief “executive” of the "Air Transport User’s Council” says that the only reason that a Pratt & Whitney 4062 or a Rolls-Royce RB211-524 high bypass gas turbine engine, spinning for five hours at 20,000 RPM, 36,000 feet above the ground, would fail is because of poor maintenance?

I’m so sorry Mr. Evans, but I’m really tired of idiots like you, who basically know nothing except for how to make a living spending other people's hard earned money, expecting engineers like me to design complex machines that are affordable and absolutely foolproof. It just doesn’t work like that.

By the standards of the Egyptians, every single time a million pounds of sheet metal, steel forgings, and titanium castings takes off of this earth and fly’s through the air it would be considered the product of demons and witchcraft. Today’s aviation safety statistics are a miracle by the standards of airlines even thirty years ago.

Yes, the airlines should be penalized for scheduling too many flights at peak times. The number of arrivals and departures are based on ideal weather conditions at the major hubs and ideal equipment performance. Bad weather in Chicago or Atlanta causes delays and cancellations in Brunswick and Panama City.

I’m really tired of always being thirty minutes late because Delta can’t load an airplane full of self important morons with oversized carryon bags in less than a half-hour, but I’m eternally grateful for arriving safely, at my destination, in one piece a half day late because the pilot had the authority to not fly the airplane, even if it was something as stupid as a problem with a galley oven or a warning light on an auxiliary voltage regulator. I want ALL of the do-dads and thing-a-ma-jigs working the minute when we take off, and if something important like an engine decides to stop spinning or a wing falls off or the toilet seat fly’s out the bottom of the airplane you better by God put the airplane back on the ground as quickly as is possible.

You Got That?