In August 2012 United
Express Flight 4049 landed at the wrong airport. It was supposed to land in Clarksburg, WV but
instead landed at an airport almost 10 miles away. Is this a human factor, an issue with
equipment or just plain irresponsibility?
Making a mistake like this can cause a catastrophic event
that could take hundreds of lives.
Runways could be shorter or not made to withstand loads that some
airplanes require. This is the safety
aspect of the issue but mistakes like this could also cause serious financial
liability for the company and the crew involved.
I believe that there is not an identifiable reason for these
landings at the wrong airport. I believe
that it is a result of many latent failures starting at the top with
management. The only way to correct these occurrences in
my opinion is to review the entire operation and identify issues within.
I definitely agree that the pilots in these events be
suspended until a full investigation is done! I think this is necessary because
it could very well be just laziness or irresponsibility that caused the
problem. Everything must be ruled out before they are allowed to go back to
work.
As a management major I feel that everyone deserves a fair
chance to prove themselves and management has a lot to do with these mistakes
that are being made whether they want to believe that or not.
Management certainly does have its fair share of blame in this. Its their job to make sure the pilots are up to the standards that the FAA and the company set, and to recognize when a pilot is not up to these standards. That being said, the pilot is ultimately flying the aircraft, so even the best management techniques can't fix a pilot's potential bad habits. Considering most flights have a pilot and co-pilot, one of them should spot the error. When both don't, it may show a lack of CRM, either in training or because of the individual.
ReplyDeleteBeyond the ethics of suspending the pilots, if the public found out that an airline was letting pilots involved in something like this continue to work they would likely boycott the airline or at least receive really bad press for it.
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