Speculation.. when in doubt.. speculate!

So my trip westbound was changed a bit, to include me pulling a very long day on Tuesday, the maximum allowable for pilots. 15hrs on duty with nearly 10 of it flying. We left Sechelt and headed off to Masset on the Queen Charlottes, but instead of staying, we were off to Vancouver to do another pickup and then fly to Calgary and later continue on to Saskatoon before proceeding back to Calgary to end the night.

Where does my title of this blog come into effect? Right about the time we landed in Vancouver. We walked into the executive terminal and the TV was tuned to the AirFrance crash in Toronto. It was only a few minutes old by the time we had arrived so information was little other than an aircraft had run off the end of the runway in bad weather.

What do I see/hear on the TV? The media/supposed eye witnesses and so called experts giving all sorts of opinions on to the "what coulda" and "this mighta" happened scenarios. They were interviewing people that had little to know experience with anything related to this event for their expert opinions. Asking a hobby pilot about all sorts of technical and specific information related to the conditions and aircraft involved. This person proceeded to explain how lightning could damage the aircraft's ability to operate the brakes and a few other ridiculous scenarios. All in all it was a gongshow for the first couple of hours before ppl really knew what was going on. Especially when people said it was hit by lightning as it rolled down the runway and many other things.

I find this to be all too common of an event when you take an industry like aviation where so many people are involved and effected by the daily ongoings and then everyone assumes they are an expert or can make good judgement on something that they know absolutely nothing about. I imagine this is similar to some other industries as well, but it is very evident with aviation. I heard one report that was citing the experience of the pilots. They judged that based upon the 10,700hrs of experience one of the pilot's had and based upon the amount of maximum flying a pilot can accomplish in a year (1200hrs) that this individual had approximately 10 years of flying experience. WHAT!?! EXCUSE ME!?? This pilot was 49 years old I believe, or at least somewhere in his 40's. He did not start in aviation when he was in his late 30's! It takes a lifetime to build up flying hours in excess of 10,000hrs just based on the type of flying that one starts to do as their careers advance. Such as those Air France pilots who likely flew on average about 40hrs a month just due to the type of flying (long haul) they would be doing.

It just irks me. Hopefully as time goes on we'll find out the true cause of this accident. My opinion is pretty simple, the aircraft hydroplaned upon landing after recent torrential downpours. Is it safe to fly in those thunderstormy conditions? Yes and No. The type of thunderstorms that produce that type of weather are generally isolated in their intensity. So where it may be chaos at one end of town, it is far less significant at the other. At one end of town it isn't very safe to attempt a landing and at the other, perfectly normal. Looking at the camera shots of the recent weather around the time of the crash it is bad weather but the pilots have a lot better of an idea of what lays ahead of them. The onboard weather radar can quickly point out to a pilot all of the weather hot spots ahead of them. It is their final decision if it is safe to continue during inclimate weather like thunderstorms. We do it all the time in my company. We approach in the vicinity of thunderstorms all the time, it's that time of the year to see them in Alberta and the Prairies especially. We use the information from reports of planes ahead of us, forecasts for the areas and our own weather radar on the aircraft to plot out the best approach or if it is not good enough then we will either hold for the weather to get better, or proceed to a more suitable airport.

Like I said, it's not just aviation, but it's such an easy one to make all these speculations on because everyone's been on a plane or seen a plane or known of a plane to do this and that and... well.. you get the picture.

But in the end, of course leave it to the media to blow everything out of proportion. I eagerly anticipate the findings of this incident and am glad to hear nobody was killed or seriously injured.