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My comments are based on this account of the incident NTSB to Study What Led to Mo. Plane Crash

Here is an excerpt:

"... There were no passengers on the jet and no one on the ground was injured by the Oct. 14 crash in a residential neighborhood of Jefferson City, Mo.

According to FAA transcripts of air-to-ground conversations, an air traffic controller in Kansas City told the pilots it was rare to see the plane flying that high.

"Yeah, we're actually ... we don't have any passengers on board, so we decided to have a little fun and come up here," one of the pilots said. The transcripts don't identify whether Capt. Jesse Rhodes or First Officer Richard Peter Cesarz made the statement.

~snip~

David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association, said the issue may be reckless pilots rather than inadequate training or improper recovery procedures.

"This is more a story of pilots having time on their hands and playing with things in the cockpit that they shouldn't," he said.

Flying, he said, is as boring as truck driving most of the time.

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

That link was to a Yahoo article, not an actual NTSB report. In general, reporters know nothing more (and in many cases less) about aviation than the general public, and when writing about aviation they seem to want to prove it. They seem to believe that flying causes crashes the same way they believe that guns cause murders.

And I have no idea who David Stempler is, or what the Air Travelers Association is, but the name doesn't sound like a group with professional knowledge of aviation, regulation, air traffic control, crash investigation, or any other relevant specialty. It sounds like a "special interest group" along the lines of the Brady Campaign.

"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