Tag: pilots

Just Another Reason I Hate Flying – Drunk Pilots

Drunk Pilots

Shocking new bodycam video photo shows a Southwest pilot being pulled off a flight by police moments before it was due to take off over fears he was blind drunk.  

David Allsop, 52, was arrested for a DUI in January at Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport in Georgia, with footage of the incident emerging Thursday. 

Allsop was due to captain Flight 3772 to Chicago, but was apprehended in his cockpit after TSA officers notified police that they suspected he was drunk.

It is unclear what raised their suspicions. 

But one officer filmed confronting Allsop on a jet bridge said he reeked of booze, which Allsop tried to blame on a Rogues nicotine pouch. 

Allsop was conducting pre-check flights, with passengers already on board, when police came on board, escorted him off the plane and asked him about his alleged recent alcohol consumption.

The pilot confirmed he drank ‘a few beers’ the night before, ‘like 10 hours ago at least’. 

Pressed by a suspicious cop to define ‘a few beers,’ Allsop replied that he’d drunk ‘like, three’ Miller Light’ with his first officer.

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Terrifying Flight: 200 Passengers Without Pilot For 10 Minutes After Co-Pilot Faints – Air Travel Anyone?

A plane carrying almost 200 passengers did not not have a pilot for over 10 minutes in what was a frightening scene after the first officer lost consciousness in the cockpit while the captain was off using the bathroom, a new investigation found. 

The chaos took place after a Lufthansa plane, Airbus A321, was en route from Frankfurt, Germany, to Seville, Spain, in February 2024, according to a report from Spanish aviation investigators that was revealed this week. 

The report revealed that the captain said he left his first officer alone with close to 30 minutes of flight time remaining so he could use the bathroom lavatory, noting that his second-in-command “appeared to be able and alert” at the time.

However, when he returned just eight minutes later, the pilot claimed that he could not access the flight deck despite entering the security code five times to gain access to the door. 

When an intercom call to the flight deck went unanswered, the panicked pilot plugged in an emergency code.

Shortly after, the co-pilot woke up from unconsciousness.

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Lady Drivers – Female pilot hits runway with wing of passenger plane. She ‘had no clue’ it happened…

Those zany female pilots are at it again—only this time, they’re clipping wings and careening down the runway. The latest DEI disaster in the skies is just another example of what happens when identity politics trumps qualifications. But before we nosedive into this latest catastrophe, let’s rewind to a recent “girl power” moment that ended in flames.

You probably remember the Endeavor Air runway fiasco—not just a near-miss, but a full-on crash landing. The plane, proudly manned by an all-female crew, touched down upside down and skidded down the tarmac in a fiery spectacle. Passengers were no doubt reliving their worst nightmares as the aircraft scraped across the ground, proving once again that diversity hires don’t make for safe landings.

The airline industry has been hit hard by the left’s dangerous and deadly DEI movement. The once “friendly skies” are now a crapshoot of confusion, chaos, and calamity. And speaking of DEI disasters, we recently covered a story about an FAA supervisor who actually fed test answers to a group of unqualified minority applicants taking an air traffic control exam.

Safety last.

Revolver:

DEI is slowly but surely destroying this country. It’s gotten so bad—so deeply entrenched in every system—that President Trump has made eradicating it a cornerstone of his administration. And not a moment too soon.

Just look at this latest bombshell, courtesy of a Daily Mail exclusive. They got their hands on a voicemail from a DEI activist and FAA supervisor who, according to their report, handed out critical answers to an air traffic control exam—to a select group of minority candidates.

No wonder the once “friendly skies” have turned so deadly…

Unlimited L’s:

DEI activist allegedly caught sharing air traffic controller exam answers with minority candidates in leaked audio obtained by the Daily Mail

Shelton Snow, a prominent figure in the National Black Coalition of Federal Aviation Employees (NBCFAE), was caught in a shocking audio clip promising advance access to test answers

‘There are some valuable pieces of information that I have taken a screenshot of and I am going to send that to you via email,’ says Snow

‘I am about 99.99 percent sure that it is exactly how you need to answer each question.’

The inside information was offered in 2014 to African Americans, females, and other minority candidates, while Whites were excluded to “minimize competition.”

It remains unknown how many candidates benefited from Snow’s offer to secure coveted air traffic controller jobs

Snow stated, “We can give you advance access to test answers,” as reported by DailyMail

But one former NBCFAE member, Matthew Douglas, told DailyMail: ‘I know several people who cheated and I know several people who are controlling planes as we speak.’

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Heart Failure Went up 973% In Navy Pilots. Gee, I Wonder Why

A United States Navy medic who blew the whistle on an explosive report showing a massive increase in heart issues among military pilots has been blocked by the Department of Defense (DOD) from accessing his work computer. Navy Medical Service Corps Lt. Ted Macie shared shocking information about the surge in heart failure among military personnel. Macie claimed that members of the U.S. military have experienced massive increases in heart-related issues, presenting Defense Department data showing the following.

  • 937% increase in heart failure

·        152% increase in cardiomyopathy

·        69% increase in ischemic heart disease

·        36% increase in hypertensive disease

·        63% increase in other forms of heart disease

According to information published by the U.S. Army, 97% of active-duty U.S. troops are fully vaccinated, 90% of Army National Guard members are fully vaccinated, and 91% of U.S. Army Reserve members are fully vaccinated.

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Things Airline Pilots Won’t Tell You

A collection of stories written by pilots
I’m an airline pilot flying domestically under the banner of a major airline.  Most people are unaware of how much of their flying is done by a “regional” airline.  Regional airlines today fly a huge percentage of the actual seat miles flown for their Major airline partner (Delta, United, US Air, etc.).  However we are paid a fraction of what the major airline pilots are paid, and even these major airline pilots are paid significantly less than their counterparts several years ago.
Many regional airline first officers make the same as your friendly pizza delivery driver.  (It is typical for most of them to make no more than 16K/year the first year.)Here are a few things we won’t tell you:-Don’t drink the coffee.  The potable water the aircraft is serviced with is absolutely disgusting.  Chemicals are inserted into the water tanks to prevent bad things from growing, but the bad taste of the coffee isn’t the coffee–its the chemicals…

-We don’t know where we are most of the time…  (kidding for the most part)  In all actuality there are much more sophisticated avionics units on most small general aviation aircraft.  Those units display many aspects of geographic awareness where most of ours simply display the route that we programmed in the flight management computer before departure.  We can tell you how far away we are from the next navigation facility and where we are in general terms, but aside from that and what we can see out the window, we typically only have a general idea of where we are when at cruise altitude.  Of course we all carry maps, but not too many of us will open the map and follow our progress on a 3 hour flight.  (That all changes as we begin descending toward the airport.  Situational Awareness is extremely important then.)

-We forget about the fasten seatbelt sign all the time.  When you look up at the sign (and disregard it typically) and it has been illuminated for the last 45 minutes in smooth air, we simply forgot.  Lots of guys will leave it on all the time.  However, sometimes we do have reports of choppy air ahead and will leave it on until we either experience it or take a wild guess that the air ahead will be smooth.

Some of us carry guns.  This is certainly public knowledge, but Federal Flight Deck Officers can carry a firearm in the cockpit.  Lots of protocol exists to ensure that the training, concealment, and utilization is standardized.

They never announce, “That was close !!” As in, a near mid-air encounter with other air traffic.Only from personal experience and asking the pilot as I disembarked from the aircraft, can I relate this story.Landing at Newark airport in 1986, I was sitting in a window seat about mid section, left side of the plane. I was looking out of the window for a good view of NYC. After seeing that, I was watching the area around the airport as we came in to land. We were about 300′ altitude, or less, and all of a sudden I was stunned to see another plane taking off. It was very close as it took off, nearly underneath our plane as it was climbing out. I don’t know how close we were, just that I could see the passengers in the windows of the other plane close enough to see if they were male or female. My view only lasted about 5 seconds, but I thought they were my last! When I got to the front of the plane and the pilot was standing there I said, “That was close…?” He said, “No, not really.” Very calmly.

I wonder how often that happens, and I bet they NEVER tell the passengers that piece of news!

Most pilots won’t tell you that “air traffic control delays” aren’t really ATC’s “fault”; these delays would be better termed “overscheduling delays”.The vast majority of what the airlines and system term “ATC delays” are actually from a pretty simple supply-and-demand situation.  There’s too many airplanes (demand) trying to land in a limited number of arrival slots (supply) at a given airport over a given time period.Airports have what are known as “arrival rates”.  A standard, one-runway airport with well-designed taxiways (including “high speed” taxiways) can safely handle, in good weather, around 60 operations an hour- one per minute.

This can be 60 landings in an hour, or 60 takeoffs in an hour, or 30 of each, or whatever combination you want to come up with, but that’s about the limit.

(This is a bit of an oversimplification with really good design, you can usually depart faster than arrive, but bear with me for now.)

So say you’ve got this airport, and say it’s got more than enough gates for all the airlines and planes that want to use it.  The only limiting factor is that 60/hour number, right?

Yeah- until crappy weather shows up.  Now they can only land 30 planes per hour.

Unfortunately, the ATC system- run by the FAA- does not regulate how many flights can be scheduled into an airport.  (That’s what deregulation gave us.)  So the airlines that operate in there all schedule as many as they think they can get passengers for.

So during this hour, the airlines have scheduled 60 arrivals, but only 30 planes can land because it’s a cloudy, rainy day.

What happens to the other 30 flights?  They get delayed.

And who delays them?  ATC.

And what do the airlines call these delays?  “Supply and demand delays”?  “Weather delays?”  Nope.

“ATC delays.”

But the reality is that they’re overscheduling delays.  If the airlines and/or the airports would limit the number of flights to the BAD weather limits, the number of delays in the system would be massively shrunk.

That the Airbus A320 is known to have routine cockpit power outtages.  And that this plane that you are on right now, which is among the most popular in the world, might not be fixed!

Such as United Flight 731 which “had no way to communicate with air traffic controllers or detect other planes around them in the New York City area’s crowded airspace.” [1]That “France-based Airbus told NTSB investigators in 2008 that 49 electrical failures similar to the Newark emergency happened on its planes in the U.S. and abroad before that episode. Nearly half involved the loss of at least five of six cockpit displays.” [1]And…that a mere 46 hours and $6,000 is the only thing holding back every single plane in the air from this crucial upgrade due to “economics”

The Airbus A320 family includes the A318, A319, A320 and A321 models — passenger jets with 100 to 220 seats.

And you wonder why I take trains and boats????

Note: these came from other people and I don’t guarantee 100% accuracy