Excerpts From Pilots' Recording [before crash]- Just Damn!

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[Capt. Canuck]

Excerpts from conversations between Pinnacle Airlines Capt. Jesse Rhodes and First Officer Peter Cesarz just before they died in the crash of a Bombardier regional jet on Oct. 14, 2004. Investigators say the crash occurred after the pilots took the plane to 41,000 feet, an altitude where engine problems can develop.

9:48:44 p.m.

Cesarz: "Man we can do it. Forty-one it."

9:48:46

Rhodes: "(Unintelligible) baby."

9:48:57

Cesarz: "Hundred and eighty knots, still cruising at Mach point six four."

9:51:51

Cesarz: "There's four-one-oh, my man."

9:51:53

Cesarz: "Made it, man."

9:54:19

Rhodes: "Yeah, that's funny, we got up here, it won't stay up here."

9:54:22

Cesarz: "Dude, it's (expletive) losing it." (Sound of laughing)

10:14:36

Cesarz: "We're not gonna make it, man, we're not gonna make it."

10:14:38

Rhodes: "Is there a road? Tell her we're not gonna make this runway."

10:14:46

Rhodes: "Let's keep the gear up. (Expletive) I don't want to go into houses here."

10:14:51

Cesarz: (Expletive) "road right there."

10:14:52

Rhodes: "Where?"

10:14:52

Cesarz: "Turn, turn..."

10:14:53

Rhodes: "Turn where?"

10:14:53

Cesarz: "Turn to your left, turn to your left."

10:14:56

Rhodes: Either: "I see it" or "I can't."

10:14:58

Warning signal in cockpit: "Too low, terrain, terrain."

10:14:59

Rhodes: "Can't make it."

10:15:03

Rhodes: "Aw (expletive). We're gonna hit houses, dude."

Source: National Transportation Safety Board

[Ol' Dan Tucker]

Read for comprehension.

Let's examine what you wrote and what it means:

I bet if you were assigned to a work project where you were locked into a small room with little to do except talk to your lone coworker locked in with you for hours on end, and tape-recorded constantly, you might deliver something less than Ciceran oratory at some point too.

Who locked them into the small room against their will? Who forced them to do the job? Are they working under these conditions against their will, or did they knowingly accept these conditions as a part of the job? Are their conversations being secretly recorded or are they aware that everything they say will be recorded for posterity?

Now that the insults are out of the way, my point was that even people who are highly trained professionals can joke around on the job without compromising their work. If a surgeon puts on some rock music or tells a nurse a joke, and his patient later dies because the life support machine fails, is the surgeon an "idiot" or unprofessional?

People like you always resort to insults, so it doesn't surprise me to read them here.

Non-sequitor. I said nothing about jokes, nor did I insult them. I only pointed out that no one forced them to be sitting in the cockpit, just like no one forces you to be there.

If they didn't like the conditions, they could've walked away from the job and there would've been a hundred more in line to replace them. If you really are a pilot, you'd know this to be the case.

[Sundog]

Have a look at this.

[Zacs Mom]

You'll get no argument from me about the accuracy (or inaccuracies) of reporters! My personal experience with them has been that they make most of it up as they go along ~ with that acknowledgment stated and meant I back off any claims that these men acted irresponsibly based upon the inform available to me at this time.

Fair enough?

[Turbopilot]

The only thing the NTSB website shows is here. It contains only the briefest description of the crash, as preliminary reports commonly do. If you have a link to more information or a complete report, please post it.

And I'm not sure why you think the question would be rude, I don't have an ATP. I'd like to, one day (maybe get the ATP-AMEL simultaneously with a type rating in something cool like a DC-3) but as I don't really want to be a professional pilot it's not a priority. I'm not sure how that relates to my reading of the current publicly available information, however. Again, if you have information not posted here, I'd like to see it.

[Rokke]

Here is a link to the NTSB report. If anything good can come from this it will be for pilots to read this report and understand how easy it is to put yourself into a square corner.

NTSB Report

[Turbopilot]

Fair enough?

Very fair. I've been told by another poster that there is information that has yet to be publicly posted (at least not posted here or in any other account of this crash I've read) that indicates that the pilots did make significant errors. If that's the case then they deserve blame for what they did. But based on the information in this thread, in links posted to this thread, and in other articles I've read thus far about the accident, there isn't anything indicating the pilots acted in an unsafe, illegal, or unintelligent manner. Thanks for contributing.

[Turbopilot]

I'll make one more run at this before I'll assume it's your intention to miss the point. They were actually locked in by the TSA when they instituted the secure cockpit rules. However, I recognize your point that no one forced them to be there, which is completely true and correct. You're also absolutely correct that at that level of aviation career there are literally tens if not hundreds of pilots vying for each job who would love to replace them.

None of that, however, has any bearing on the point I was trying to make, which was that making a joking comment in the work environment doesn't mean you're taking unsafe or illegal actions. They obviously thought it would be neat to take their aircraft to the highest altitude they had been trained was safe to fly at, because they normally didn't get the chance to do it. They were obviously excited about that chance. I still see no reason that being excited about that chance, and joking around about it, is a reason to insult the deceased.

[Rokke]

"And I'm not sure why you think the question would be rude, I don't have an ATP."

It could be taken as rude if you thought I was questioning your credibility. Based on your first posts to this thread I thought you had some practical knowledge of commercial flying. But then it became clear (to me) that you didn't. You've confirmed you don't have an ATP. Frankly, I'm glad to hear that because if you did I would be very surprised at your defense of these pilots. What they did on this flight was a series of intentional violations of basic airmanship and flight regulations. There is no excuse, ever, for doing that. That doesn't make this any less a tragedy. But it helps explain why it happened.

[listenhillary]

Why nothing on tape for 20 minutes from when they figured out they had a problem?

[Babu]

Always SEARCH before you post.

Already posted Here

[ccmay]

"This was boredom and experimentation, these guys experimenting with things they had no business doing," Stempler said.

Rubbish, this man is a blowhard. If the airplane was certified by the FAA to fly at FL410 after the manufacturer's tests, and as far as I know it was, then there is no fault on the part of the pilots. The fault is with the maker and the FAA for certifying the aircraft to fly at an unsafe altitude.

Pilots have to learn the "envelope" of their aircraft's performance. This was a perfect opportunity to do so without jeopardizing passengers, and as best I can tell, they conformed to all FAR's.

If you had never driven a car faster than 50 mph, would you be a better driver than someone who had legally and safely driven 90 in Montana? Especially if an emergency came when you had to drive someplace fast?

Regional jets don't usually fly at FL410 but there are scenarios in which it could happen; e.g. looking for better conditions in an unexpected storm, or in a September 11 situation in which the pilots and passengers regain control of the aircraft from hijackers who were flying it into Coffin Corner.

I'd just as soon have pilots with the skills needed to control the plane at any altitude. Too bad for these guys that their plane seems not to be up to snuff for its maximum altitude rating.

-ccm

[listenhillary]

Different news source, different cockpit transcript.

Post away - you never know when news aricles are going to disappear.

[Dashing Dasher]

A few weeks ago - a friend of mine crashed during an emergency landing. I found out today he just lost both his legs and is still in a coma.

On Sunday a friend of mine got into a accelerated inverted flat spin that did a crossover. He punched out of the airplane at 300' and lived.

Flying is a brother/sisterhood. We take care of our own. We know that but for the grace of God....

This is one of my favorite quotes... It's on my profile page - and it's worth repeating often....

Whenever we talk about a pilot who has been killed in a flying accident, we should all keep one thing in mind. He called upon the sum of all his knowledge and made a judgment. He believed in it so strongly that he knowingly bet his life on it. That his judgment was faulty is a tragedy, not stupidity. Every instructor, supervisor, and contemporary who ever spoke to him had an opportunity to influence his judgment, so a little bit of all of us goes with every pilot we lose.
— author unknown

[Rokke]

That is a good post DD. It should also be noted that the captain of this aircraft left behind a pregnant wife and two children. That is perhaps one of the greatest tragedies of this whole event.

[anton]

No fault of the pilots? The aircraft slowed to 150knots at FL410. Does that sound ok to you in a 40000 pound aircraft?

[Michael Goldsberry]

I'm sorry about your friend. I hope he makes it through the coma.

[DUMBGRUNT]

Lawyer Sempler and his for profit Travelers Advantage googles up some points of intrest.

DontSpyOnUs :: Dave Stempler: Cendant Whore & Fake Consumer Advocate?

http://www.dontspyonus.com/stempler.html

Stempler's 'Air Travelers Association' website reads like an infomercial for Cendant's Travelers Advantage program.
Both Stempler's website and the site of Cendant Travelers Advantage are owned and managed by the Trilegiant Corporation, a Cendant subsidiary.

[Dashing Dasher]

Thank you.
My heart just breaks for him. He worked so hard to get his skill level up and ... well....

I'm headed out now to go to a FAA Safety Seminar about Aerobatics being taught by someone who I never heard of - and I'm the Aerobatics Social Chairperson for my timezone.

I'm going to make sure that the right message gets out and that people now about training and danger and parachutes and spins and ... ... maybe not the best day for me to deal with this...

Deep breath.... Gotta go.

Dasher

[Turbopilot]

It could be taken as rude if you thought I was questioning your credibility.

I'd like to think that my credibility would be based on my statements rather than my ratings. Frankly, while the original question wasn't rude, this post seemed to me to be vaguely derogatory. I'm not a doctor, either, but that doesn't mean I can't state that antibiotics won't help a cold and be correct about it.

I am currently reading through the link you posted (which I appreciate, though it took some prodding). However, there are hundreds of pages of information. While I'll get to them all eventually, perhaps you could specify which regs were violated and in which link in that document I could find the violation? I'm reading as fast as I can with my mouse in one hand and my 2005 FAR/AIM in the other; if you could specifically identify a violation, as opposed to casual cockpit language and perhaps poor phraseology, perhaps it'd help me and others to agree with you based on the facts.

[middie]

Aircraft service ceiling..knowing their aircraft's limitation and compressor values, the lift equations, etc...It sounds like a spin of some sort that they found unrecoverable......Can't tell from the tape.