Aviation Politics

More Bitching About Trying To Fly...


I know that I've mentioned many times before that I was once a bit of a half-assed airplane pilot.

In loosely describing myself as a pilot, I mean that I knew enough to manage to untie the airplane from the tarmac, start the engine, and flop around in the air for an hour or so burning a few gallons of 100 octane low lead gasoline.

Unfortunately, I never managed to actually GO ANYWHERE with my aviation efforts because of FAA intervention. My wife at the time was quite happy with the cost savings realized by my administrative grounding, but I was rather pissed off with the turn of events at the time.

I had the displeasure of learning that the Federal Aviation Administration--a 1950's creation of President Eisenhower--being a government entity, basically has nothing to do all day but waste money and issue mandates.

In my case, it was the "issuing of mandates" that ended my flying career.

You see, the FAA apparently hates the AMA (American Medical Association) and the FDA (the Food and Drug Administration), because if you so much as take an Aspirin or buy a tube of Preparation H and they hear about it, they will unilaterally ground your aching head and ass and on the ground you will sit for the rest of your life (unless you let Delta or United pilots do your flying for you.)

In my case, it was the anticoagulant drug Coumadine that was the source of my flying demise. That, and the crappy blood circulation problems that I've periodically experienced in my legs and abdomen.

So any way, last evening the Brazilians suffered a major airline crash at what is called Brazil's "busiest airport."

SAO PAULO, Brazil (CNN) -- A jetliner crashed and exploded into flames at Brazil's busiest airport on Tuesday night, killing at least 200 people, local rescue workers said.

As investigators prepared to open a probe into the cause of the crash of the TAM Airlines Airbus A320, questions were being raised about both the growth in Brazilian air traffic and Sao Paulo's Congonhas Airport.

The Sao Paulo fire department said at least 200 people, including some on the ground, were dead at the scene. The figure would make Tuesday's crash Brazil's deadliest air disaster.
Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva declared three days of national morning for the victims.

Witnesses said the plane skidded across a major road at rush hour. Reports that the plane struck a gas station could not be confirmed, but a massive fire broke out.

The crash happened in a driving rain, and the plane apparently struck a building bearing the airline's logo at the small domestic airport in the heart of the city. At least 50 rescue vehicles were at the scene, firefighters said. The fire continued to burn into the night.

I did a little checking and was astonished at what I found out in the process.

THESE CRAZY BRAZILIANS ARE ROUTINELY LANDING BIG AIRPLANES ON A RUNWAY THAT'S ONLY 6,362 FEET LONG!!!

For those of you that graduated from the University of Georgia, that's only a little over three football fields longer than a mile--or about 22 football fields worth of asphalt and concrete.

Most airfields serving commercial jetliners have runways that are at LEAST 10,000 feet long, and may have twelve or fourteen thousand feet of pavement, depending on the service requirements of their customers.

Further, the Sao Paulo Congonhas airport is 2,631 feet above sea level, another performance problem when it comes to pushing a metal wing through the altitude thinned air.

What amazes me is that Sao Paulo also has Gaurulhos International Airport sitting just a few miles to the northeast that has nearly double the runway--12,140 feet--and yet the other airport is the busiest.

Using Chicago as a reference, if it were me, and I were flying around in a shiny aluminum tube with wings in Brazil, I'd make a conscious choice to go into Sao Paulo's "O'Hare" rather than enjoying the convenience of their "Midway" airport if I was interested in landing in foul weather and managing to make it back home in one piece.

I guarantee you that there is some kind of government bullshit political situation behind allowing the airport with the smaller runway to handle most of commercial air traffic.

I'd be looking up the pants leg of the President and the Mayor and the so-called "aviation officials" because someone other than the pilot is responsible for setting this situation up in the first place.