"America's Most Dangerous Jobs"

[happylanding]

I'm with you 100% on the dangers of dealing with an unpredictable public...  like you said, structural firefighters, EMS and police all face some pretty crazy situations these days.  One of my sisters had wild stories from being an ER nurse -- especially with people who were high.  One guy kept screaming about the "black helicopters" in the room that were "shooting at them".  He was wildly out of control and was furious at her that she wasn't ducking under the tables to avoid the "gunfire".  WOW.
Makes our jobs even sweeter, eh??                

Oh Soccermom, does your sister work in the ER of a psychopath clinic? Wow, it's pretty strange the world! 

[TheSoccerMom]

HA HA, NO, that was just your regular old Emergency Room!     

Though, she sure has the background for dealing with some off-the-wall people -- i.e., just from being in our family!!!    Hee hee!!   

[fireflyr]

And the people in the picture are who

[Mike]

And the people in the picture are who

I'd like to second that.

I've read the diver story a few times now (was it in this thread?). Sounds like we lost a good man, god rest his soul.

I am just a little confused on how this all is supposed to fit in here . . . 

[Mike]

aha! I see....

sorry, must have spaced out there a little

[Baradium]

Crop dusters and the 135 guys up here probobly help a lot with the pilot stuff... I don't know of many commercial operator fatal crashes this year, but I know of 2 part 135 crashes in the last two months if I count this one below.  Only reason I even know about this one is I happened upon it while looking up info on the Continental incident last week.  This 207 is registered to a leasing company, it's an assumption on my part that it's a 135 bird, but that's most likely...  there aren't as many pilots as there are in some other professions, so every crash adds to it.   There were also additional crashes in the last 10 days (currently on the prelim site) that would go into the statistics as they involve corporate or other professional flying pilots.


IDENTIFICATION
  Regis#: 9941M        Make/Model: C207      Description: 207 (Turbo)Skywagon 207, (Turbo)Stationa
  Date: 01/09/2007     Time: 1934

  Event Type: Accident   Highest Injury: Fatal     Mid Air: N    Missing: N
  Damage: Substantial

LOCATION
  City: KENAI   State: AK   Country: US

DESCRIPTION
  ACFT CRASHED AFTER REPORTING ENGINE PROBLEMS, WAS SUBJECT OF A SEARCH AND
  RESCUE, WRECKAGE LOCATED IN COOK INLET CHANNEL, PIC NOT LOCATED AND
  PRESUMMED FATAL, KENAI, AK

[Gulfstream Driver]

What Continental incident?

[TheSoccerMom]

Believe the captain died inflight, and the first officer landed after a divert.  Don't know the details....

[Mike]

do you know if they diverted?

I wonder what they do in a situation like that...
continue the flight? land somewhere close and have the passengers wonder what happened? . . .

I bet there is no emergency checklist for "Captain kicks the bucket in flight"

What would be the squawk code on this? (since there are 2 pilots it can't be 7700, can it?)

[TheSoccerMom]

Well, Google says they left Houston for Puerto Vallarta, on Continental #1838, a B-757.  The Captain fell ill after a while and the copilot asked the airline what to do;  they said to divert to McAllen, Texas, to meet a waiting ambulance.  The medical guy said the pilot was on the floor when they boarded the plane;  the crew and some of the passengers ("a couple of doctors and nurses") had done CPR and tried to revive him, but he died.  A different crew got on and the flight went on to Mexico.

The autopsy was still to be done, so the definitive cause of death wasn't stated, though they mentioned a heart attack.

Pretty sad for everyone!  It said he had been with them for 20 years. 

R.I.P.

[Baradium]

Well, Google says they left Houston for Puerto Vallarta, on Continental #1838, a B-757.  The Captain fell ill after a while and the copilot asked the airline what to do;  they said to divert to McAllen, Texas, to meet a waiting ambulance.  The medical guy said the pilot was on the floor when they boarded the plane;  the crew and some of the passengers ("a couple of doctors and nurses") had done CPR and tried to revive him, but he died.  A different crew got on and the flight went on to Mexico.

The autopsy was still to be done, so the definitive cause of death wasn't stated, though they mentioned a heart attack.

Pretty sad for everyone!  It said he had been with them for 20 years. 

R.I.P.

Apparently the F/O was actually a company check airman.  There are a number of commercial airports in Mexico that require crews to be "checked out" and "current" to operate into them due to different aspects (terrain, weird approaches etc).  Some airlines apparently have crews that essentially only do those runs to make it easier, others have check airmen operating as f/os on all those runs, and others deal with keeping people checked out.   I don't know whether Continental uses a check airman as the f/o on every flight, or if it just happened to be time for the captain to have another review.

[Mike]

Do you think he was stressed about his checkride and had a heart attack?

[Baradium]

Do you think he was stressed about his checkride and had a heart attack?

Wasn't the impression I got, but I guess that could be a possibility.   However, I don't think these checkout flights are supposed to be all that stressful... basically the check airman acts like a "guide" for whatever is weird for the flight.

[Mike]

If he's been flying for 20 years in the airlines I am pretty sure a checkride wasn't gonna phase him much anyways.
I know all our FAA inspectors and they know what I know after 8 years of working with them. Not a whole bunch of
surprises going on there.

What I think is shocking is the fact that airline pilots have to get checked every 6 months and nobody found anything. It's not the first time I heard a story similar to this one...

I guess when it's your time . . . . 

[Baradium]

If he's been flying for 20 years in the airlines I am pretty sure a checkride wasn't gonna phase him much anyways.
I know all our FAA inspectors and they know what I know after 8 years of working with them. Not a whole bunch of
surprises going on there.

What I think is shocking is the fact that airline pilots have to get checked every 6 months and nobody found anything. It's not the first time I heard a story similar to this one...

I guess when it's your time . . . . 

Some would say what better way than to be doing what you love...

When I came up here a bit less than a year ago to interview with the Air Guard, there was an article in the base newspaper at Eielson AFB about an Air Force pilot who helped the pilot on a 737 on a domestic flight when his f/o had a siezure (sounded like they did the movie style "does anyone here know how to fly an airplane?" over the intercom!).    In the article he sounded about as excited as a fresh private pilot would be to do something like that...

It doesn't happen too often, but considering the number of flights, it does happen.  There are just some medical conditions that aren't diagnosable.