"Bucky" wrote in message
oups.com...
I'm not blaming the pilots. I just want to find out if flying a plane
at its maxmimum operating altitude is standard practice, or if it's
considered dangerous.

It's not considered dangerous.

For example, the top speed of a car could be 120 mph, but it would be
dangerous to drive it at that speed because a sudden movement in the
steering wheel could cause the car to flip over.

A sudden movement in the steering wheel could cause the car to flip over at
60 mph, depending on the nature of the movement (which would be true at 120
mph as well). Likewise, an airplane can be crashed from practically any
altitude or airspeed.

Even with your reference, it's not clear what is meant by "maximum
altitude", but assuming that marketing document is referring to the
certified ceiling of the aircraft (as described on the type certificate),
the aircraft should be expected to fly safely all the way up to, and
including, that altitude. This would include expecting the engine design to
tolerate operation at that altitude, without stoppage.

I can see no justification for expecting the pilots to limit themselves to a
lower altitude. The CVR may indicate a less-than-professional approach to
their flying (one normally selects a cruise altitude for reasons other than
entertainment, for example ), but there's no indication that they did
anything wrong operationally.

Of course the article says nothing about whether they stopped at 41,000'.
It sure sounds as though they got to FL410, and then just cruised at that
altitude. But if they had tried to climb higher, that might have presented
a problem. Until there's evidence they did so, however, the "head of the
Air Travelers Association" has no basis for his comments. All
experimentation had presumably been done previously, during the
certification of the airplane. All the pilots were doing is operating the
airplane within the limits determined during certification.

It will be interesting to see what the ultimate determination of the engine
failures is. It could be one of at least three causes, including:

* Pilots exceeded certified ceiling (ie they didn't stop climbing at
41,000')

* Poor maintenance resulted in engines that no longer performed to
certified standards

* Erroneous or (even worse) fraudulent data used during certification
resulting in an aircraft that had never actually been tested at the designed
and certified ceiling of 41,000'

It may turn out to be something else entirely.

Perhaps when the final NTSB report is released, information along those
lines will be provided. Until then, I think it's premature for anyone to be
criticizing any party, the pilots or otherwise, for any liability in the
accident. It could even turn out that, in the end, it was all just an
accident.

Pete