TAKING A TRIP?....might want to rethink how REALLY safe the sky is...

homeagain wrote: NO, i DO NOT FEEL BETTER....the Boeing fiasco was a long overdue correction...WHO was responsible for that factor? (I am not a guru on this...so u tell me, and OH, the ALASKA AIRLINES door that blew off....what entity was negligent on that incident..... THE SKIES R OVERLY CONGESTED THESE DAYS and not having COMPLETE AND COMPREHENSIVE SAFETY CHECK BEFORE THE CRAFT IS RELEASED TO THE BUYER/ AIR CARRIER IS UNTHINKABLE..

"near misses" r not accurately reported (u know this, I am sure)....my take on flying these days is this......u r in a tin tubular can at 30,000 ft (or what ever is assigned to your pilot) WITH A BUNCH OF DISGRUNTLED,SOMETIMES DRUNK OR DRUGGED PEOPLE AND THE CRAMPED SPACE THE AIRLINES HAS ASSIGNED U, (SO THAT THEY CAN CRAM MORE HUMANS INTO THE CRAFT)IS NOT ADEQUATE TO ENDURE A 3 OR 4 HOUR FLIGHT.....PEOPLE THEN GET BITCHY AND THE TRIP GOES OF THE RAILS.....no thanks, I will forgo the friggin mess and drive or stay home.

a trip on a train sounds like a good idea,but I have never heard feedback on that...anyone have experience of train trips?

One, oversight of aircraft manufacturing, has not a thing to do with the other, airworthiness of the plane prior to a flight in day to day operation of flights.

The FAA is responsible for promulgating rules and ensuring that the manufacturers and airlines are adhering to those rules by auditing the paperwork. The FAA doesn't inspect a plane prior leaving the factory to ensure that the paperwork matches the actual work performed, they only examine the paperwork. That's the same for the maintenance done on the airframe once it leaves the factory.

The FAA makes sure their rules are followed via audits, they don't actually inspect the plane. They have employees which spot test the security sweeps of the aircraft to make sure that the security checks done by the employees of the airline would find any contraband left on the plane by one passenger to be used by a subsequent passenger, but they don't have an employee of the FAA doing a security sweep after every flight of every plane in every fleet.

There is nothing a single employee of the FAA does on a daily basis which ensures that the plane you just put grandma on, or the one you are about to board, is safe to fly. They can't do that, they can't possibly employ enough people to watch what every mechanic does on every shift to every airplane in every fleet. I work for a small carrier . . . 150 airplanes flying 500-600 flights per day, with maybe 20 locations that do maintenance on one or more of the planes on a daily basis and another 150 or so that might change a tire, top off the oil for an engine during the day, or check the hydraulic fluid levels between flights on an as needed basis when the plane that comes through there 3 or 4 times a week happens to be on the ground.

Safety is the job, and the responsibility, of the airlines and their employees. They are the ones that are responsible for the airworthiness of that aircraft. The FAA doesn't keep you safe, the employees and contractors of the airline keep you safe. The FAA creates rules that are designed to ensure the airworthiness of the airplane and audits the work the airline employees, or their designated business partners, are doing to make sure that the rules are being followed. Releasing probationary PASS employees won't impact whether or not any given plane, on any given day, is safe to fly from Denver to LA, or Las Vegas, or Orlando.

The FAA doesn't even do the check rides for pilots to ensure their competency before issuing them a pilot's license, they only audit the paperwork submitted for that pilot regarding hours of training, hours of flight, physical fitness exams, etc., the actual check ride performance is graded by another pilot for the airline that hired the pilot in question. They are the ones who decide whether or not that pilot is competent to operate the aircraft for that airline.

Moral of the story . . . if you are of the belief that the federal government and its agencies are what is keeping you safe, you don't understand a thing about the federal government and how its agencies operate. Bureaucrats in a bureaucracy can't keep you safe from anything, they can only come in after the damage is done and punish those responsible for failing to do what was required for your safety. Class dismissed . . .

Great take. I used to face multiple Federal audits every year in my workplace, OSHA and FDA mainly. And you are correct. They didn't actually understand our processes so they really just made sure the paperwork was done correctly.

One FDA inspector loved visiting us. We put him in a closed room with months of records and procedures to review. We let him smoke there. So he spent the whole week smoking and glancing through the binders. At the end of the week, he would return our nicotine stained documents with a couple demerits for low hanging fruit just to prove he had been there. And we passed.
He was really bummed after we went smoke free. Then he only took two days to audit us.

Exactly . . . that FDA employee didn't bring a test kit on premises and do the tests required to ensure the safety of your operation, they evaluated your paperwork to determine whether or not you had performed the tests they required and the results of those tests. OSHA? They come in and look to see that everyone is wearing their PPE and that the guards required are on the machines. Mind you, they don't test that the guards are active and shut the machine off if opened, they just looked at whether the guard is there or not, right? That was pretty much the case when any shop I ever worked in was inspected by OSHA. As long as the guard was attached to the machine, it passed. If a guard was missing or damaged, it was written up, but as long as the guard was on the machine it would still pass.