Pilot Suicides

On Mar 7, 3:09 pm, "Crash Lander" wrote:
"Robert M. Gary" wrote in glegroups.com...

On Mar 7, 2:46 pm, "Deadstick" wrote:
Should all FBOs be required to hire people to work the desk 24x7? I
know some FBOs that assign card lock cards with a security code to
pilots. The computer doesn't know if a student pilot has someone
standing next to him.

-Robert

True, but a student pilot should not have those security codes.

Why not? I've been assigning the codes to my students as soon as they
are soloed.

-Robert

On 3/7/2007 5:46:27 PM, "Deadstick" wrote:

FBO owners should be held more directly responsible for who they rent
aircraft to. I think we will find that the aircraft dispatch
procedures were NOT adequate. Proper dispatch procedures might have
prevented this particular tragedy.

How can you possibly conclude that? Did you actually witness the transaction?

You have no idea how the deranged father handled this situation. I could
conjure up a couple of scenarios where it appeared I was alone to rent the
aircraft, but then quickly pass a smaller child past a busy FBO counter to a
waiting aircraft.

--
Peter

FBO owners should be held more directly responsible for who they rent
aircraft to.

Be careful what you ask for. The consequence of this is FBOs (like at
Westchester) that won't rent to you if it's cloudy.

Jose
--
Humans are pack animals. Above all things, they have a deep need to
follow something, be it a leader, a creed, or a mob. Whosoever fully
understands this holds the world in his hands.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Deadstick schrieb:

FBO owners should be held more directly responsible for who they rent
aircraft to.

Yeah! Sue them *******s!

"Deadstick" wrote in
ps.com:

FBO owners should be held more directly responsible for who they rent
aircraft to. I think we will find that the aircraft dispatch
procedures were NOT adequate. Proper dispatch procedures might have
prevented this particular tragedy.

Unfortunately, the insurance company will end up paying for the FBOs
negligence and nobody will have learned anything.


Bulls%^&*.

Are you Corey Lidle's wife?

How, exactly, does an FBO rental counter person determine in the 6 seconds it
takes to get the keys for the plane that the rental student is about to use
it to commit suicide?

Do you think he went into the FBO and announced it?

Perhaps we should sue McDonalds because if they would have given him hotter
coffee he would have killed himself using the coffee instead of the plane.


What a world.

On Mar 7, 6:39 pm, Judah wrote:

Bulls%^&*.

Are you Corey Lidle's wife?

How, exactly, does an FBO rental counter person determine in the 6 seconds it
takes to get the keys for the plane that the rental student is about to use
it to commit suicide?

Do you think he went into the FBO and announced it?

Perhaps we should sue McDonalds because if they would have given him hotter
coffee he would have killed himself using the coffee instead of the plane.

What a world.

I once witnessed an FBO owner hand over the keys to an airplane to a
pilot who she had never met, had never flown with and had not received
any type of checkout from the FBO's CFI. The only thing he did was
flash his ATP certificate at this FBO owner and she handed him keys.
There was no attempt to verify that he was actually a pilot let alone
verify that he was proficient at flying the aircraft he was allowed to
use.

I've seen many cases where renters and/or CFIs crashed aircraft
because they were flying under conditions or circumstances that they
should NOT have been flying in. Some FBOs allow people who are un-
qualified to hand out keys or they use systems to control key access
that don't allow for any pre-screening.

I'm not saying the FBO should take 100% responsibility for the pilot's
actions, but there ARE occasions when a prudent FBO could stop an
accident before it happens by not dispatching the aircraft.

"Deadstick" wrote in
oups.com:

I once witnessed an FBO owner hand over the keys to an airplane to a
pilot who she had never met, had never flown with and had not received
any type of checkout from the FBO's CFI. The only thing he did was
flash his ATP certificate at this FBO owner and she handed him keys.
There was no attempt to verify that he was actually a pilot let alone
verify that he was proficient at flying the aircraft he was allowed to
use.

I've seen many cases where renters and/or CFIs crashed aircraft
because they were flying under conditions or circumstances that they
should NOT have been flying in. Some FBOs allow people who are un-
qualified to hand out keys or they use systems to control key access
that don't allow for any pre-screening.

I'm not saying the FBO should take 100% responsibility for the pilot's
actions, but there ARE occasions when a prudent FBO could stop an
accident before it happens by not dispatching the aircraft.

I only slightly disagree with the above statement. (Specifically, I don't
think it's appropriate for FBOs to make marginal decisions for students.)
But in this case it seems appropriate for the flight school to have
dispatched this plane to their student, and there could have been no way
for the counter person to determine that this pilot had any intention of
breaching the trust that he had built with the FBO in the past by leaving
without the instructor or using their plane as a weapon.

If the guy's been training there for 4 months, I don't think it's negligent
to give him keys to a plane...

I'm not saying the FBO should take 100% responsibility for the pilot's
actions, but there ARE occasions when a prudent FBO could stop an
accident before it happens by not dispatching the aircraft.

I am sorry about the loss of a perfectly good airplane, and about the
daughter who appears to have been a pawn in this sordid little tale.

However, NO ACCIDENT OCCURRED.

Further, the deceased would both be precisely as dead, and more collateral
damage would most likely have occurred, if other means had been employed.

Kindly take your fascist recommendations elsewhere--like Iran!!!!!

Peter

I am sorry about the loss of a perfectly good airplane, and about the
daughter who appears to have been a pawn in this sordid little tale.

However, NO ACCIDENT OCCURRED.

Further, the deceased would both be precisely as dead, and more collateral
damage would most likely have occurred, if other means had been employed.

Kindly take your fascist recommendations elsewhere--like Iran!!!!!

Peter

If you aren't being sarcastic I must say I'm not clear as to why you
view my comments as "fascist."

I have inside sources who have provided me information about this
accident. I am not at liberty to divulge the nature of those sources
so I will not claim to have all the facts. However, the information
provided to me indicates that the pilot did not have the proper
endorsements to be legal to fly solo. I believe it is the
responsibility of the FBO to verify that a student pilot has the
proper endorsements and meets certain other easily determined legal
requirements before dispatching an aircraft to a renter.

For the record I have worked at several FBOs, many of which have used
good procedures for making sure that aircraft are not dispatched to
anyone without making sure they meet certain legal requirements.
Those FBOs who were rigorous in their practice of good dispatch
procedures generally had few or no aircraft losses wheras those who
were lax in their dispatch procedures frequently experienced damaged
aircraft. I realize this is not statistically significant, but I do
not see how it could be argued that proper dispatch procedures won't
reduce the number of accidents and incidents.

Deadstick wrote:
FBO owners should be held more directly responsible for who they rent
aircraft to. I think we will find that the aircraft dispatch
procedures were NOT adequate. Proper dispatch procedures might have
prevented this particular tragedy.

Who would do this examination, and on what basis? Would you like a
psych evaluation every time you decided to rent an aircraft?

Unfortunately, the insurance company will end up paying for the FBOs
negligence and nobody will have learned anything.

I sympathize, but I have to wonder what there is to learn here.

The problem is that even if we made FBOs responsible for assessing the
renter's mental state, we still wouldn't know anything because the
people doing the assessing aren't qualified to make any such assessment.

I know most agree that we are our brother's (and sister's) keeper. And
in a perfect world, where understanding was easy to come by, I would
agree with you. But this is not a perfect world. Your idea of
institutionalizing this in to policy made by the courts is abhorrent to
most people.

Some accidents are simply impossible to prevent. You can't prevent a
person from leaping off of a tall bridge to their death. And likewise,
a pilot with suicidal tendencies can be very hard to identify. This is
the exception you're using to make policy. You need a real big spanking
with a clue bat.

Jake Brodsky