Plane crash in China

[drumbrake]

BBC News: China passenger plane crashes in north-east
Map of China

A passenger plane with 96 people on board has crashed in the north-eastern Chinese province of Heilongjiang, state media has reported.

[Dreadnought]

This would be Henan Airlines (formerly Kunpeng Airlines) flight ZH8388/VD8387 operating from Harbin to Yichun.

91 souls said to be onboard this all-economy config Embraer ERJ-190AR.

[Freetrader]

Yikes. They overshot the runway, I understand. After getting a horrible reputation during the '80s and '90s, China's airlines actually have a pretty good safety record lately. I will be interested to see whether the accident is investigated impartially in an FAA-like fashion; if so, it will reinforce the view that China's airlines are headed in the right direction. There has been a lot of talk about China's problems with air traffic control, but this doesn't seem to be because of that, at least, not obviously.

[Dreadnought]

BBC News - Chinese pilots lied about flying records

[Freetrader]

BBC News - Chinese pilots lied about flying records

Crap. Why am I not surprised? So many of these idiots falsified their CVs that apparently they can't fire them or the whole air transport system would shut down! I like how they are simply going to give the falsifiers 'additional traning'. That's comforting.

[Dreadnought]

That was somewhat predictable. What I find shocking is that the companies that hired these pilots failed to check them out and instead took their word.

I should add though, that Indian and Indonesian aviation is no better - quite possibly even worse.

[PDLM]

It's not specific to China, although the problem may be more widespread there. See this, for example: Cockpit con was easy, says pilot | The Sun |News

[MovingIn07]

To be fair, in any other industry there is a mix of "formally trained" individuals and "self-trained" individuals and those who "learn on the job". Provided they have the skills, nobody cares how they obtained them. I don't mind provided China focuses on whether or not they actually have the SKILLS - if a few short-cuts were taken to getting the skills then that's unfortunate but not necessarily fatal. The guy in PDLM's post had an excellent safety record and probably was at least as good a pilot as one with the right pieces of paper. Whose to say that's not true for some in China? The difficulty is in telling the difference; and I for one do not believe that the pieces of paper are always the best way of doing that either!

[Freetrader]

To be fair, in any other industry there is a mix of "formally trained" individuals and "self-trained" individuals and those who "learn on the job". Provided they have the skills, nobody cares how they obtained them. I don't mind provided China focuses on whether or not they actually have the SKILLS - if a few short-cuts were taken to getting the skills then that's unfortunate but not necessarily fatal. The guy in PDLM's post had an excellent safety record and probably was at least as good a pilot as one with the right pieces of paper. Whose to say that's not true for some in China? The difficulty is in telling the difference; and I for one do not believe that the pieces of paper are always the best way of doing that either!

I thought you were a lawyer? The reason they have standards in professions is to ensure the greatest likelihood of a good outcome in a tough situation. Any idiot can fly and land a plane on a good day. The qualifications are to ensure that the pilot can handle an unsual situation.

[Mat]

Any idiot can fly and land a plane on a good day. .

I certainly can't :-)