"Claws Clipped!" - budget airlines

[Delta2 23]

Tiger Airways has been grounded.

There have been so many comments on the news articles in favour of this news. "Heads should roll at Tiger.", "Excellent news, I hate Tiger."

"Claws Clipped" is my personal favourite

Do people here fly with budget airlines? What do you think of them?
I don't find them too bad actually, service is bad but they get you where you want to go.

 

[Delta2 23]

A TIGER Airways plane flew too low into Melbourne Airport after it used a navigational database containing the wrong descent altitude, an investigation has found.

The June 7 flight was the first of two incidents where Tiger pilots flew below the lowest safe altitude into Melbourne airports last month, contributing to the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) grounding the airline.

A preliminary investigation by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) indicates the error was due to an incorrect lowest descent altitude in the commercial navigational database.

The ATSB's report, released today, said the flight crew did not initially notice that the altitude displayed in front of them was 500 feet below what they'd been cleared to fly.

Air traffic control had cleared the Airbus A320 to approach runway 27 at Melbourne Airport at 2500 feet.

"The investigation established that the navigational database that was current for the flight included a lowest descent altitude for the Melbourne ARBEY ONE ALPHA runway 27 arrival of 2000 feet,'' the report said.

After referring to the relevant instrument navigation charts, the pilots had entered data into the flight management guidance and envelope system (FMGS) and then checked the planned approach against paper charts.

"The flight crew did not notice that the documented arrival procedure had a lowest descent altitude of 2500 feet, while the data from the FMGS's navigational database that was displayed on the MCDU (multifunction control and display unit) had a lowest descent altitude of 2000 feet.''

The pilot set the altitude on the flight control unit to 2000 feet.

It was as the plane was descending from 2500 to 2000 feet that one of the pilots queried the altitude on the unit and checked it against that in the MCDU.

As the plane was approaching 2000 feet, air traffic control told the flight crew they should be at 2500 feet.

The plane climbed to that level and landed safely.

Good enough excuse for them?

Hmmm.

 

[saddina]

I fly southwest. Which is pretty darn budget and well... kinda ghetto all at once (think greyhound bus in the sky, now add 3 completely freaked out people, 1 mential case and 2 people arguing they're not too fat to fly). For me it's free amusement, but i've had alot of psych classes so the freakshow is entertaining.

 

[classicsredone]

Quote:
Southwest is interesting, all right. The flight attendants like to be in-flight comedians, and the seats are an inch or two narrower than regular plane seats. (Can't even fit our car seat that is flight approved.)

 

[saddina]

And uhhh, this guy. Who attempted to break into the cockpit mid flight, bad choice really. This was the year before 9-11.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Burton

 

[Delta2 23]

You hear about people trying to break into cockpits mid-flight even after 911.

Even worse choice

 

[saddina]

Quote:
no the guy who did this pre 9-11 was killed be his fellow passengers, they beat him to death as he kept resisting (the autopsy found drugs in his system).

 

[Delta2 23]

Quote:
no the guy who did this pre 9-11 was killed be his fellow passengers, they beat him to death as he kept resisting (the autopsy found drugs in his system).

Just goes to show, people are not themselves when they've been taking drugs

I reckon trying anything on a plane would be pretty risky. Unless it's trying to open a cabin door midflight: nobody would be able to do that.

 

[Whitehouse Quail]

I like Spirit, which is also ghetto as can be.

Oh well. I'm not in it for the heated seats and complimentary champagne, that's for sure!