American Airlines Mishaps Spark Scrutiny

The Federal Aviation Administration is increasing oversight of American Airlines after three mishaps during landings last month.

Jetliners' wingtips touched the ground during two landings, one in Charlotte, N.C., on Dec. 13, the other in Austin, Texas, on Dec. 24. And in Jamaica, a plane on Dec. 22.

FAA officials said in a statement Friday they will conduct a review of the mishaps to see if there might be a larger issue.

The statement says that if needed, the FAA will work with American on corrective action.

A spokesman for American, a unit of Fort Worth, Texas-based AMR Corp., told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Friday that the company is cooperating with the FAA and conducting its own investigation.

[edgy44]

My money is betting on crew mismanagement. Probably two hi-timers with poor approach skills. When I used to teach/evalute instruments, I found older ATP types tend to use the autopilot way too much. They seem overly concerned about the passengers comfort. If I get a guy who tries to fly the approach with the autopilot, I pull the circuit breaker so she/he stops doing that. Flying skills have nothing to do with automation. I suspect American trains their pilots to ride behind the autopilot, and not in front of it. Boeing makes flying so easy that a monkey can do it, but that monkey will kill everybody when the autopilot is broke, or operating outside its limits.

[us_1776]

That's the problem. They expect you to land no matter what. I would rather go around and do a proper landing. Very rarely is anybody expected in heart surgery in 15 minutes. There's nothing wrong with a missed approach. You've got a thousand variables you're managing but the last thing you want to do is to have a bad landing.

[alphaa10000]

us_1776 said, That's the problem. They expect you to land no matter what..."
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Do you believe AA pilots were under any extraordinary pressure? That is, pressure other airlines and their pilots did not also experience?

If a wingtip contact with the runway signifies what it seems, the aircraft is seriously misaligned on approach. Of course, we presume the pilot enjoyed instrument correction for flight attitude, which makes the wingtip problem all the more puzzling.

And if all this were somehow a failure of the system, we might reason other airlines should have had similar events-- not two AA airliners, months apart.

As Edgy44 points out, even if the system imposes disincentives for missed approach, the pilot is supposed to be professional enough to circle and land with safety-- which should be his first and only concern.

[edgy44]

There's a penalty if you have to go missed-approach, so pilots try to recover a bad landing rather than push the throttles forward and go around. The landing at Little Rock in a thunderstorm a few years ago, is all I needed to know about American Airlines. They killed people on that landing, and said: "...we are cooperating with the FAA." I bet they did. I think you'll find the Jamaica American pilots were incompetant just like the Little Rock American pilots. The FAA needs to pull the licenses of every ATP that can't do a missed-approach properly.